Janitorial companies are used to working in the background, quietly keeping buildings clean and ready for business each day. But now the COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly thrust your services into the spotlight. Clients’ concerns about disinfection have become a top priority, with your continued success and growth reliant on your ability to adapt to cleaning demands.

Your clients’ expectations will be higher than ever. You’ll need to have the correct answers when they ask about cleaning agents that can kill the coronavirus. This is especially vital when someone calls you for cleaning after receiving news about a confirmed COVID case at their work site. Government health agencies have developed recommendations for cleaning agents for different surfaces and environments. Your first step to making sure that your janitorial company can deliver effective services during the pandemic is to confirm that you’re using the right cleaning agents and processes.

You’ll also face a greater responsibility to:

• Communicate instructions and resolve problems swiftly
• Document cleaning methods and inspections
• Update your cleaners’ training
• Maintain adequate cleaning supply inventories

Let’s go over these and other COVID cleaning demands that your cleaning company must be prepared for.

Deeper Cleaning, More Often

As the pandemic progresses, you can expect your clients to need extra services. A report of a coronavirus infection in an employee or customer could happen on any day. Janitorial business operations will have to be more nimble than ever. For example, reassigning cleaners to different locations may be necessary when emergencies come up. You may need to schedule more cleaners for rapid deployment so a client can open for business the next day.

Making staffing decisions and managing cleaners’ schedules can be challenging on the best of days. During a time of increased economic pressure and natural human anxiety, you can expect to deal with more disruptions and demands for extra service.

The time management features built into the Swept software can reduce your scheduling headaches. Both you and your cleaners will benefit from a mobile app that presents all schedules in an easy-to-read format. You can even make real-time adjustments when clients call with unexpected jobs that require a swift response.

Real-Time Communication

The coronavirus pandemic is a fluid situation. New scientific research might introduce new cleaning protocols that you must integrate into your services. Client requests might come up more often than they did pre-pandemic. Everyone wants reassurance that a location has been thoroughly cleaned.

The Swept messaging boards are where you can inform your cleaners about changing situations. The platform helps you avoid the confusion of ad hoc conversations or piecemeal text messages between you and different cleaners at different locations.

You can also create a running record of what was said and when that is accessible to everyone who needs to know the information. The immediate two-way communication possible with the messaging system gives you a competitive advantage. Remember, clients have a heightened need for high-quality janitorial service. They will appreciate your responsiveness when you can fix issues quickly. You’ll also enjoy not having to communicate the same information over and over, and your staff will feel like they are in the loop instead of always waiting for answers.

Inspection Reports

Your clients turn to you for janitorial services because they want a professional to manage the numerous details necessary to keep facilities clean. COVID cleaning demands will place your janitorial company under greater scrutiny. The ability for certain businesses to stay open may rely on maintaining high standards for cleaning and sanitation.

You naturally want to stand out as a successful service, so you should outshine the competition with consistent quality control. It’s not enough to tell your cleaners what to do. You need to check their work and have documentation that your company completed inspections. The Swept inspection tool gives you the power to do all of this through the same user interface for scheduling and communication.

For example, once you develop your cleaning standards based on EPA guidance about killing viruses with cleaning agents, you need to confirm that these methods are being applied. Swept gives you the power to generate cleaning inspection reports on any smartphone. You choose as many inspection points as needed for your cleaning plan and then measure cleaner performance according to those guidelines.

This inspection system informs every party involved of the expectations. If things start to fall short, you can catch errors quickly and regain compliance with the cleaning plan. Your inspection records can provide clients with peace of mind if they ever get questioned about their commitment to facility cleanliness. Thorough inspections will also be a selling point when prospecting for more business. The pandemic has made potential new clients sensitive to the quality control methods used by janitorial business operations.

Inventory Management

Inventory shortages can sneak up on you when you’re busy with other mission-critical tasks. With today’s rampant supply chain disruptions, you can’t wait until the last minute to start shopping for what you need. Running out of necessary cleaning supplies will throw your work schedule out the window. Additionally, COVID cleaning demands make switching to alternative cleaning agents undesirable. Clients want to know that you’re performing the work up to the standards that you discussed when they hired you.

You can turn to Swept to manage your inventory. The app simplifies tracking supplies across multiple locations, so you can see when supplies are getting low. The software also produces shopping lists. All these features save you from pouring over inventory spreadsheets or trying to keep track of various texts from cleaners asking for supplies.

Additional Training for Cleaners

Your cleaners will need more training so they can master the enhanced disinfection methods provided by the CDC. Making sure that your cleaners know how and when to apply specialized cleaning agents to different surface materials will be an ongoing challenge. Swept’s messaging and time-tracking features will help you organize training sessions and answer questions quickly if your cleaners aren’t sure what to do.

Opportunity Amid the Challenges

As an essential business, you have avoided the COVID-related setbacks endured by other industries. Government agencies, restaurants, offices, medical facilities, schools, and factories need to hire companies that can thoroughly fulfill their diverse cleaning needs. You may already be hiring more people, and you can expect that trend to continue. In March 2020, job openings for cleaners jumped 75%. Swept will help you juggle onboarding new hires, training, inspecting, and acquiring new clients. Your responsive janitorial company, backed up by reliable inspection documentation, is exactly what clients are looking for today.

Swept’s janitorial software helps janitorial company owners build trust with clients and get ahead of the competition by giving them the tools they need to spend more time managing their business and less time working in it.

To see how Swept can help your janitorial company grow, schedule a free demonstration with one of our experts today!