Corporate Stores Cut Cleaning Services

Some of the large stores in this economy have cut back on their maintenance & cleaning services. Regardless of the condition of the stores or quality of their cleaning they are just wanting to save money. But are they really? Have you ever washed your car then took it for the first drive after the wash? Everything just felt better about it. It there was any mechanical problems they just seem to fade into the background. Your loan on the car didn't change. Gas prices didn't move but you felt better about it, and any thoughts you may have had about repalceing it dissapeared.
What about a restaurant. Have you ever went into a place to eat & it just felt dirty. There was no obvious signs of uncleaness but you just got a bad feeling about the place. Just as people do not want to buy a car from a company in bankruptcy. People do not want to buy from a retailer that seem its going down. In New York they call it Broken Window Syndrome. If you allow broken windows to exist, more will come. But by fixing them immediately, people take care of them, & criminals break less windows.
The top paying consumers will drive across town to go to the identical store just because it feels cleaner, its in a nicer area, or the service seem better. These in reality may not be the case. But customer perception seem to be the key to selling any product.
Floors are the canvas of your business. People rarely notice the floors unless there is a major spill or fault. But if overall their not clean, people just know it. They may blame their lack of buying on customer service, management, or even prices. But many in Food Service Management know they sell their products on Atmospehere as much as quality.
One high end restaurant manager told me that they were losing money but he still needed 5 receptionist at the counter. He said this made them look busy, which just as important as being busy. Their still in business and doing well. Cut back by making good economic desicions, save for down times, & plan for the future. But by all means stand tall, show leadership, keep your quality high & give your customers a reason to believe in you.

Blending Stripped Floors

Why would someone want to strip half or part of a floor? There are many reasons but not any good ones. The floor looks so much better when you are able to strip the entire thing. But because of chemical spills or scarring and a host of other reasons. Some just want a partial strip. I this case you must be excellent at blending. New wax starts curing fast, the next time you come in to strip the adjacent area, you have a different color wax when dry. In the art of oil painting they call this the wet on dry method. Meaning the same color drying at different rates means different colors. In reality its a wet on partial wet method. The secret to fixing this problem is also an art. Overlapping new wax & old way in layers helps a lot. As well as overlapping the new & old with a light scrub. Blending can actually be invisible to the untrained eye. But most experienced floor techs can spot a blend right away. Also partial strips makes the old floor look worse. It's like washing half of your car. In any case this is not a good idea.

Here's an interesting article about this industry.
http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/1998/03/09/focus1.html

"The Tennessee Department of Employment Security reports the janitorial and cleaning industries will continue to be one of the fastest-growing segments of the economy for the next decade. Not only is demand increasing because of new buildings, but also because the janitorial industry is not keeping pace with current demand by adding new workers for every worker it loses. The DES reports an estimated 41,650 people were employed in the industry in 1994. By the year 2005, the report says the industry will grow an estimated 26.8 percent and will need 52,820 workers to keep pace with that growth. Service Magazine, a publication of Building Service Contractors Association International, a Fairfax, Va.-based trade organization, reports nationwide employment of janitors and maids will rise 559,000, or 18 percent, between 1994 and 2005"

Also recently I went to a medical office to discuss their maintenance program. The workers were using Pine cleaner on waxed floors. Fortunely the floors were newly waxed & they may have used it only 2 to 3 times. Enough to do real damage but they dodged the bullet. Medical maintenance can be tricky. You really shouldn't use acidic cleaners on sealed floors but bacteria & other biological concerns exist. It really important to choose the right chemicals.

This morning we sent a truck out to do a final cleanup job in memphis. This is a large retail store with a variety of cleaning needs. Like most construction cleanings, this was very typical. The original cleanup crew left a lot to be desired. Sometimes its not any blame to the cleaning company. In many cases, the construction isn't completed in time. Scheduled dates have to be re-arranged over and over. Workers have to continue to readjust their schedules to complete one of the hardest jobs they will perform and usually under time constraints & downward pressure. Still, our crew personell in this case has to follow up on someone elses work. Usually there's always more than expected. They will likely have to use a variety of equiptment; carpet machines, auto-scrubbers, window extensions, & scissior lifts along with common equiptment.
Where as other jobs would use one person w/experience in one of these areas, (ex. Window Cleaning Co., or Carpet Techs) here we must have one or two individuals w/experience in all of these areas. Carpet spotting alone can cause many headaches if the wrong chemicals are used on the wrong fabric. Then the use of heavy equiptment on sealed & waxed floors requires protecting some surfaces while improving others.
So off they went this morning with an arsenal of chemicals & equiptment, likely not to return for 12 hours. Thank you kind families for permitting this.

New blog just starting

I'm very new to blogging although its been out for years. I guess it wasn't as important until our website started buzzing. In any case, I will answer cleaning questions, paste simple solutions, and tell of new happenings in the industry, as well as other useful items. So lets start!