All professional cleaners clean. So why should it make any difference whether you hire residential cleaning services in Melbourne for a commercial cleaning job?
The answer is quite a lot. Domestic and commercial cleaning companies offer different types of cleaning – and being an expert in one doesn't necessarily mean you're an expert in the other.
That’s why, while it’s often cheaper to hire a residential cleaner than a commercial cleaner, more than likely you won’t save money in the long run. Here’s why:
- House cleaning and office cleaning in Melbourne CBD different things. A residential cleaner will focus on removing grime, dusting, vacuuming and scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen. Add on services might include window cleaning and laundry. On the other hand, a commercial cleaner has to disinfect washrooms and staff kitchens, ensure the reception is spotless for welcoming clients, clean and polish hard floors, deep-vacuum carpeted floors, wash stairs, dust workstations and computers, remove rubbish and even eliminate hazardous materials and waste. It’s heavy cleaning that requires a great deal of time and effort.
- A commercial cleaning service requires specific expertise. Commercial cleaners are highly trained to make sure your office or industrial space is perfectly clean and healthy for your staff and customers. They use large-scale cleaning equipment that focusses on ensuring a sanitary environment that fulfils your needs and those of regulatory bodies, like WorkSafe and the Health Department. Without their expertise, your office or retail space would look very shabby, very quickly – and you’d be losing business as a result.
- Cleaning a house is easier than cleaning a commercial space. You know where you stand with a home clean – the main areas that need a deep clean are always the bathroom and kitchen. When you’re doing regular cleans, other areas will remain relatively tidy for longer, requiring a simpler once-over. In a commercial space, the extensive square-footage can be a genuinely daunting and time-consuming proposition. The clean must be planned, and even more attention is needed to ensure every inch is spick and span. Commercial cleaners are often required every day or multiple times a week, and there's never any once-overs – everything must be cleaned in-depth from top to bottom each time.
- Commercial cleaners are (often) vampires. They only come out at night. Because daily business operations can't be interrupted, commercial cleaning teams roam the city from early evening onwards or on the weekends. Good luck trying to find a domestic cleaner who wants to do the job after 6 pm or on Sundays.
- Residential cleaners can clean less in an hour. Productivity is different between domestic and commercial cleaners. In a home, a cleaner can generally tidy 65 to 100 square metres per hour. However, an excellent commercial cleaner can get through 230 to 370 square metres in the same timeframe.
- Commercial cleaners can cost you less per square metre. Most commercial cleaning contracts go to tender, which means the best bid wins. You get to specify exactly what tasks you want the cleaning crew to perform and choose the company that gives you the highest value for money. And your contract with them will include a detailed list of exactly what you require them to do, your terms and conditions, and break clauses if they fail to live up to your expectations.