In managing a business, customer service is seen as one of the most important characteristics for business efficiency and productivity. Yet one of the key tenants the presentation of your business, similarly tied into customer service, as well as the safety of your employees and the overall work environment, is that of cleanliness. No matter the business — school, hospital, doctors office, restaurant, etc. — ensuring that your business is up to health code standards is principal.

When to Look for Janitorial Services

Whether you manage a business that consists of both customers and employees interacting with one another or your business is just an office setting, utilizing janitorial services is a must. If your business is struggling with clutter, cleanliness, and health issues, you should definitely seek out the cleaning services of a professional company. However, even if you have an office environment or business that seems clean, it is still worthwhile to seek out business cleaning services. These companies will help you to ensure that your business is meeting the cleaning requirements as required by industry regulation (OSHA, hospital specifications, etc.), providing a safe environment for workers and customers.

Types of Cleaning Services

While there are a number of cleaning services available for hire, it is worthwhile to consider environmental, ‘green’ commercial janitorial services. Most common janitorial services will utilize unsafe products, all of which contain a number of dangerous chemicals, that can provide more harm than they do good:

• Chemical-based cleaning products can make indoor air pollution levels as much as 100 times worse than outdoor levels
• Common household cleaning products, which can contain carcinogenic chemicals, attribute to 80% of all cancers, when comparing environmental factors to genetic factors
• Nearly 3% of global disease is caused by indoor air pollution

On the other hand, rather than hiring janitorial services that use dangerous cleaning products, you can work alongside a green company, one that will use environmentally safe cleaning products.

Advantages of Hiring a Janitorial Service

A clean business is an efficient, prosperous business. When the workplace becomes disrupted with clutter, health violations, and more, the environment becomes ineffective and performs at a lesser standard. Providing a clean workspace is an easy way to keep an environment professional, successful, and manageable. Similarly, by keeping your office/business clean, you can provide a more approachable, comfortable, and healthier environment for both customers and employees.

Reducing Workspace Clutter: Office clutter can begin to accumulate quickly — notebooks, files, documents, printing materials, merchandise, kitchen items, etc.. 50% of respondents from a recent Staples survey noted that office colleagues tend to leave dirty dishes in the kitchen, making the workspace difficult to navigate and causing aggravation. By reducing clutter, you can effectively reduce distractions, improving office productivity and comfort at the same time.

Improving Health Standards: While an office might appear to be clean from a first glance, there might be dangers lurking right beneath the naked eye: a dirty desk can have more than 400 times as much bacteria as a toilet seat; less than 10% of office employees regularly clean their work keyboards or phones, even when considering them to be the dirtiest items in the office; and nearly 100% of workers say that they are worried about catching a virus from their work environment. By employing janitorial services, you can curb the bacteria and viruses lurking within the office, providing a healthier environment for both your employees and customers. With workspace organization, proper ventilation, and regular cleaning, your office can become a safer, distraction-free place of work.

Improving Customer Relations: Recent surveys taken with gym goers found that (1) 90% of members would renew their membership if their gym was “extremely clean” and (2) that 88% of members wouldn’t exercise in a gym with cleanliness issues. By providing your customers with a cleaner business environment, you are ensuring that they have a comfortable experience. This is key to customer service, and it can come through the form of general cleanliness (removing dirt and odor), ensuring open visibility with workplace organization, and assuring all usable technology is in working order.