Commercial Cleaning Industry News, Tips, Guide and Checklist

Change is uncomfortable but failure is downright painful. This is what Clean Group Melbourne believes in. We stayed to be the number one commercial cleaning company in Melbourne because we welcome and embrace change. When you decide to grow your business, you will feel uncomfortable.

Throughout the years, Clean Group Melbourne learned that change is not as painful as you thought it would be after the fact that you learned from your past experiences.

Limiting Beliefs In Melbourne’s Cleaning Business

Here are some limiting beliefs that you need to shed in order to run your commercial cleaning business successfully and know why cleaning is important in Melbourne:

You Are Not the Customer

Oftentimes, business owners tend to think like a customer instead of business owners when it comes to pricing. Over the years, a Commercial Cleaning company in Melbourne learned to look at pricing from a customer’s perspective. Stop thinking like an owner that no one will pay such a high amount for commercial cleaning.

Customers are grateful that they have finally found a high-quality, trusted cleaning service that would take good care of their premises and do it with integrity. They are glad that they had found that service when they hired us and they will gladly pay for what it is worth.

This mentality holds most business owners to charging what they really are worth.

You need to make decisions on pricing your service based on what other professional services are able to get. You need to know what the competitive market will bear. Compare yourself to the professionals.

Stop telling yourself that you cannot charge a certain amount because you feel like it is expensive because it is not true. Do not limit your potential.

Stop making it your goal to provide high-quality services at an affordable price. Lose the belief that you need to be affordable. Let the customer decide if they can afford a professional commercial cleaning service in Melbourne. Do not make being affordable your goal. You need to price your service reasonably.

Do Not Hide What You Charge from Your Employee

Do not hide what you charge from your employee, they know what you charge anyway. It is public knowledge. It is not a crime nor a sin. It is a limiting belief to think that you can hide what you charged and to think that you should hide that.

Your employee will not resent you for charging what you are worth and them not getting all of it.

Your employee will really not care as long as you are fair and you are paying them right. The prices you charge as you grow and expand your business are going to make or break you.

If you are too cheap or undercharging, you will not be able to pay employees what you need to pay them for them to value their job. Pricing will become the number one factor as you grow your business.

It is a very limited way of thinking that you can keep your prices low while expanding and growing and getting more leads. It is not possible. You have to charge what the market will bear in terms of professional commercial cleaners services in Sydney.

Always Remember That You Are the Owner of the Business and Not the Cleaner

Employees can work a full day. They do not have to finish their job at a certain time. They are cleaning in an airconditioned, very nice working environment.

They are cleaning inside, pushing a vacuum cleaner for seven or eight hours a day. It is not difficult. It is not impossible and it is not too much.

As business owners, we tend to think that we cannot do that. We think that it is too difficult and too tiring for us and that other people cannot. Well, they can. Give them seven or eight hours of work a day and pay them well enough.

What Got You Here in Business Will Not Get You There

Oftentimes, business owners will say that they have not spent a dime when they built the business. It is impossible to expand or grow the business with zero marketing expenses limiting beliefs in the commercial cleaning business in Melbourne. Referrals will only take you so far.

If you want to grow to the next level, you need to spend money on marketing. The levels of perfection you deliver in the premises that you cleaned is not scalable.

Your Customer Will Only Accept You

This is one of the limiting beliefs that Clean Group Melbourne does not believe in. Many customers will say that they will only hire you to do the cleaning for their premises. It is a limited belief to think that the customer will only accept you and you alone.

We assure all our customers that all our cleaners are competitive, hardworking, and screened. They do not worry about transitioning because there will always be a supervisor to check the status every now and then.

Being Fired Is the Worst Thing That Can Happen

Getting fired is inevitable. This is part of expanding and growing the business. Being fired is not the end of the world. It does not mean that you are a failure when you get fired. It is the fear that we have as business owners. Get over it and move on.

Once you started to grow your business, you have to have a system and process for everything. Chaos breaks out if you will not develop a consistent and proven system as you grow and expand your business. You cannot wing it anymore as you grow.

You have to carefully define your model. It is no longer acceptable for you to make the decision based on the problems that you are having as you grow.

Commercial Cleaning company in Melbourne has designed a proven business model that ensures the highest profit and the absolute best quality of life in running the business.

If you want to make sure that there is a distinction, make sure to work on your branding and image. Make sure to look professional so that your customer will not underrate you.

With the right start, you have to have a reason for everything you do. It cannot be because you are trying to a problem. As you grow your business, always remember if these will make you more money, will it create job security, and will this ensure the quality of life for me.

If you make it too complicated, you will not have high profits. You will not have a long term situation.

I want you to think about everything that you do. Is that the most profitable way to do it? Will this be a lasting policy? I want you to ask these questions before you make decisions and when you make changes about limiting beliefs in Melbourne’s commercial cleaning business.

Limiting beliefs will hold you back. I hope that these lists will help you improve the way you run your business. If you find this article helpful, please share and feel free to drop a comment.

Today you’re going to know the secrets that make Clean Group the best office and commercial cleaning company in Australia. Let’s kick things off with secret#1

What’s the secret to having a fast-growing and profitable cleaning business? The isn’t one secret. There are several strategies and steps that you need to learn, which help to build the company that you desire. It is also not advisable for an office and Sydney commercial cleaning company to have one secret.

Why? When everyone learns that one secret, you will have a ton of competition beating up on you. Instead, when you learn several strategies, you will build up a company that can be very stable and can isolate you against the competition.

Second, picture the cleaning business that you would like to have. If you have a cleaning business the way you wanted it, what would it look like? What would it feel like? While we thought about that for the first time, we had gotten to the point where we had said, “We like to have customers.” “We want to have a lot of customers.”

The only secret to surviving this business is keeping our customers happy. The only question is, how are we going to make them happy.

Keys to Your Success

Here are a few objectives that every commercial cleaning companies like Office Cleaning have in mind: 

• Happy and satisfied customers
• Great and reliable employees who do a great job and like to work for us
• We want our cleaning business to be financially stable
• Have fun while running the business

In short, we want our customers, our employees, and ourselves to be happy and productive with what we are doing.

Customers

Your customers are the number factor that will determine the success of your business. The world is waiting for commentaries and feedback from your customers that will pretty much summarize the reputation of your company.

It is essential to pay attention to online reviews. Invest in a system that can gather as much feedback as possible. Before you do that, make sure that you have the following:

• An active website where customers can leave comments and feedback
• You are engaged in all social media channels
• You are searchable in google

Not online reviews from clients will stick to potential customers. Your challenge is how you will make your online review sticks. I will share some of the things that we do to achieve the “stick” factor with our potential clients.

• Again, we use a system to get reviews. Your main goal is to secure as much feedback and reviews as possible. The more reviews you get, the better the chance that you will go to have good reviews. It will go without saying that you are giving excellent service to your customers.
• If your customer uses Yelp, have them go to Google first. Have them click the link to your website first, before clicking the Yelp sign for the review.

What To Do When You Get a Negative Review

Before calling your customer to tell them to remove the bad review, ask them first why they had left negative feedback. Hear them out first. Empathize with your customers. For Office Cleaning Sydney, communication plays a vital part in this section.

Try to deescalate the issue by offering them a solution to fix the initial complaint that they had brought to you. When that is all settled, and you feel like the customer is delighted, that is the time that you ask them to take down the bad reviews.

Let your customers know that you are serious about what you are doing, and you care about the review and would like to hear what they say. Do whatever you can to make amends with your customers.

Hire a Customer Service Representative

Invest in customer service. Have a dedicated staff in the office that will cover all day-to-day tasks. This will also involve dealing with complaints through phone or via email. Train the person in charge to be as pleasant, friendly, and positive as possible.

The person in charge of customer service needs to feel and think like the customer. This will help them understand the situation more. By doing that, the solution to whatever issue will be straightforward to overcome.

Hire someone confident to talk on the phone. This displays authority, and it gives the air of security to the client as well.

A good customer representative is responsive. Having a fast response time makes the customers feel important. Always remind your representative to respond promptly if they received a query or complaint via email. Tell them to call back if they had missed a call.

These simple things will translate to how vital your customers are to you. Do not let the day end without calling the customer, especially if you had received a complaint about your service.

Customer’s Feelings First

Customer satisfaction should always be our number one priority. Clean’ Group office and commercial cleaning Services are proud that we can put our customers first. Customers are the blood of each business.

As the saying goes, the customer is always right. This is very true in our industry. We need to pamper each customer in a way that they never expect. We need to go beyond what they expect from us.

Talk to your customers, and do not be afraid to show them that you care about them.

At the end of the day, your customers will make you shine in whatever field you are in. Customers’ recommendation is also the most effective and cheapest form of marketing. If you treat your customers well and they value your service, they will tell it to the world.

Employees

Hiring and choosing the right people to run your business is also a must. In-Office Cleaning, we make sure that our employees are here for one purpose.

They are part of every success and failure of our company. Keeping them happy and motivated is our serious campaign too.

Our employees represent us every step of the way. They carry the name of our company in every company that they clean. We want our employees to be efficient and effective with the task that is assigned to them.

On the contrary, our employees also expect us to be supportive of the training and equipment that they need. These will make them more confident and competitive with the career that they have chosen.

How to Keep Your Employees Motivated?

Motivation is a process of getting the need of the people realized to induce them to work for the accomplishment of an individual job assignment. 

• Extensive Training – before we assign our cleaners in Commercial Cleaning Sydney to their cleaning assignments, we make sure that they were trained by our Cleaning Supervisor. The Cleaning Supervisor ensures that the job scopes are explained to the person doing the job. A checklist is provided so that the cleaner can quickly identify the responsibilities that are being bestowed upon him on each site that he needs to work on.
• Access and Equipment – Each cleaner is provided with calendar access. The calendar will give them quick and easy access to know where they need to go and what the companies that we had lined up for them that day are. We also ensure that our cleaners are well equipped with working cleaning equipment, and they are only using the safest cleaning chemicals that will make their job easier.
• Autonomy versus Control – Autonomy, by definition, gives someone the freedom to do the task in whatever way he or she can produce the same result. This is the opposite of controlling someone by telling them what they need to do every step of the way. Autonomy promotes creativity since your employees will exercise the power of thinking for them to accomplish a particular task.

When a task is mostly creative and conceptual, the approach should be a bit different. An adequate remuneration is required so the money issue is off the table.

When money is off the table, we want to create an environment that then creates autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

The people who work for us are more inner-driven than we think. Creating the right environment will help us awaken that internal drive in each of us as we seek enjoyment and achievements.

• Value Choices – We value our self-directed employees. We take pride in creating an environment that pushes our employees to choose what they do. We want all our employees to feel that the people that they work with are someone that they can trust. They work for us because they wanted to assist us and watch over the well-being of our company.
• We push each other – It is nice to work with people that you can depend on. It is also very unusual to see that all our employees are pushing each other to meet a specific goal and having fun.

Using the stick and the carrot method to motivate employees is outdated. It is time that we work on a new generation of work environments.

An environment where we focus on autonomy and not control by letting people choose their tasks, their time, their teammate, and their way of doing the job. A place that encouraged people to accomplish their best work.

Show your employees that you are there for them. Recognize their milestones and reward them for a job well done. Always emphasize what they contribute to your organization.

It is also crucial that your cleaners and subordinates know that you trust and depend on them.

Confidence can get them through. Encourage your employees to have a life-work balance. Give them paid time off to relax and recharge.

Always remember that a successful company is the fruit of successful and happy individuals who work tirelessly to achieve the common goal that you set for your business. The quality of your cleaner’s job will become the face of your business.

Financial Aspects of the Business

This is the usual gauge of how successful the business is. Cash flow determines the ability of your business to grow. Do you have a credit line, or are you purchasing your supplies in cash? Can you afford wages? Are you covered with insurance?

Tips on How to Be Financially Stable

• • Do not do cheap labour. Some business owners are already trapped in thinking that offering cheap labour will give them the number of customers that they desire. You pretty much know what’s the fair price for a cleaning service so why offer something less than what the market is offering? Cheap labour usually constitutes shortcut jobs and unsecured workers. Underselling your service is a bad practice that will make them fall from your business.
  • Do not take every cleaning opportunity that comes along your way. Choose a niche on which you would like to focus and be an expert on it. After all, taking every opportunity is really not a good idea because you have to train people on how to do almost all kinds of cleaning and you need to purchase equipment and cleaning materials for all types of cleaning too.
  • Choose a reliable supplier. Purchase all of the things that you need in one store as much as possible. Build a relationship with the supplier so that you can apply for credit in the long run.
  • Understand how the economy works and level the cost of your service with that movement. Always consider the price of petrol and the cost to operate your business when bidding for a cleaning job.
  • Always check your labour cost as this is the most expensive part of your business costing. Make sure that your labour cost is parallel with your revenue. If you are paying for so much workforce and your sales are dropping, you need to study and find out why as soon as possible.

Invest in modern marketing. Make an online presence since marketing traffic is now online. Take time to read or study or hire someone who is an expert in this field to level up your game.

• Get insurance. Accidents can happen anytime, and you do not want your company to be caught up with something you are not ready for. Damages may be extremely expensive, and you do not want this cash to be coming out of your company’s revenue. Insurance is a good investment. It will also give you tremendous peace of mind.

In this post, I am going to show you the 8 actionable commercial cleaning tips (That Works Great). Keep reading.

Clean Group always loves sharing commercial cleaning tips and secrets that had helped us build this company and of course, clean better.

Clean Group has been in business for more than a decade and we take professional commercial cleaners services pretty seriously. We also want to teach you guys how to clean like a pro.

Over the years, we have researched, studied, and practised. We have learned a lot from other people and of course, we have trained hundreds of people and taught them how to become professional commercial cleaners.

The 8 Most Important Commercial Cleaning Tips You Need to Know

In this blog, we will share with you our actionable commercial cleaning tips. 

Tips 1. Cleaning from Top to Bottom

The first commercial cleaning tip is cleaning from top to bottom and from left to right. You will do this simultaneously. When we first started cleaning, we were going all over the place.

With this practice, we were not able to do the cleaning done and we were spending so much more time and were forgetting things, it was kind of ludicrous.

When we learned about this top to bottom, left to the right business and we started to implement it, we really noticed a change. If you do not clean this way now, you should totally give it a try because it is really easy to do.

When we say clean top to bottom, the reason we suggest that is because dust and dirt fall from the top to the bottom.

When you are wiping something, obviously you will be going to have dirt falls from top to bottom.

• In the kitchen, we make sure that the commercial cleaning checklist will show wiping the kitchen cupboard first before cleaning the counter. You will not like to clean the surface twice if you this the other way around.
• When our professional cleaners attend to the office, we advise them to always clean and wipe the floor because we know that they will attend to the floor last.

Tips 2. Cleaning from Left to Right

Now when it comes to working your way from left to right or right to left, we ask our professional commercial cleaner to pick which direction do they want to do as long as they will be consistent with it.

Once you have this in place, you can rest assured that your cleaner will not miss a spot. We will know every corner, every section of the room is going to be cleaned because Clean Group professional commercial cleaners work in this consistent manner. With this, you can promise efficient and effective work for your customers.

Tips 3. Prepare All the Things That You Need Before You Clean

When we first started this commercial cleaning company, we regret to follow this information and we just proceeded to run back and forth from the custodial cabinet every time we forgot something that was needed for the cleaning.

Even if we have our best interests in mind to have the cleaning done as best and as fast as possible because we want to move on to the next client, it never really worked that way.

We decided to implement a rule of thumb that all our professional cleaners need to bring all the possible tools and chemicals that they need to complete a certain task.

It is best to have a cleaning caddy and position the caddy in the middle of the room or surface that you are about to clean. This will ensure that you do not need to run back and forth. It is a big waste of time. It is always a good practice to time yourself and it made a big difference.

The next time that you are scheduled to clean a particular room, get all the products and tools that you need before you get to your cleaning.

Tips 4. Read Instructions and Manuals Before Cleaning

Before we started Clean Group, we had watched tons of cleaning commercials about cleaning products and tools. Pro-tip that you need to share with your professional commercial cleaner is to read the instructions or manuals before using a tool or cleaner.

Product efficacy depends on how long you let it dwell on the surface that you are cleaning. It needs to sit for some period of time. This has two main effects:

• The first one is that the product will clean something and it needs time to do its work. You can’t just dump a cleaning solution to a surface and rinse it off right away expecting that it will show the result that you wanted. It needs to sit. Spray it on a surface, let it sit, the product will then be able to do its thing, then you can wipe it off and get the best result. The same principle applies to green cleaning chemicals.
• The second reason why it is important for professional commercial cleaners to let the product dwell is these products have their own disinfectants. The product will need between 5 or 10 minutes to actually kill that bacteria. So once you are using the product, apply it, let it sit there for a few minutes, then wipe it off that way you are getting the clean that you want and the disinfecting that you need.

Tips 5. Start with the Safest, Most Gentle Product

Only work your way up only if you need to. This is especially prudent for professional cleaners with asthma or allergies. We find a lot of people who will just go and clean their toilet with whatever products they can grab or the most powerful product just to clean whatever it is that they meant to clean that they think is too dirty.

Offices are less dirty than how you think it is. Gentle products can often accomplish a lot of cleaning so you do not need such a strong product.

However, if you are in a situation where let us say you have a really greasy surface or rings on the toilet, in that case, you do want to use the stronger, more powerful product but in most cases, the gentle or environmental friendly chemicals that we talked about are really efficient and safe for you to use to get that cleaning done.

Tips 6. Eye-Level Test

When you have a commercial cleaning company, you will always have this defining moment where little things happened to you that will forever affect the future of the people that work for you. Implement the eye-level test.

That means crouching down to eye level of the surface that you have just cleaned to have a glance at it and to see if there’s anything that pops out of you.

When we train our professional commercial cleaners, we always tell them that this is the eye-level test, I want you to go to your individual work and I want you to crouch down and have a look at it on an eye level. When you come up and look at something straight down, you will not really see what is underneath.

Tips 7. the S Pattern

Commercial cleaning jobs today follow the S Pattern. This pattern is pretty famous in the world of commercial cleaning. The S pattern is really an interesting thing.

When we were not yet considered professional in this cleaning industry, we used to wipe in whatever motion that we please. We thought that that was how it was meant to be done.

When you clean a surface in a circular motion, you are literally wiping the dirt all over to the surface. Circular motion will guarantee marks and streaks and at the end of the day, you will require to work harder than you need to because you are not getting the results that you desire.

When you use the S pattern, you will start at the top right-hand corner of a surface, you will swipe all the way to the left and then zig-zag your way down.

It will change the way that you clean because you will get less to zero streaks with half the effort that you put in if you will do it in the wrong way. The next time you clean, instead of breaking up the soiled surface with a circular wiping motion, try the S pattern and watch how quickly and more effectively were you able to complete the task.

If you also need to dust a ceiling fan or light fixtures, ask your cleaning company to provide you with a bendable duster. These dusters are so helpful and so handy because they will let you do your dusting in a quick and easy way. They are also washing machine safe.

Also, rather than purchasing a lot of cleaning tool that sometimes does not work, simply take a mop pole and a sock, flip it inside and out and tie it with an elastic band, with this, you can begin removing the cobwebs that piled up from the edges of the room like you are using a microfibre cloth.

You can also use a flathead mop or a sweeper and take a microfibre cloth. You can use this to wipe your walls clean from marks and dust.

Just go in an up and down motion and dust the office wall in an easy, most inexpensive way. For exhaust fans, just see it is already covered in dust. Just take your regular vacuum machine, put on a brush attachment, and vacuum your way to getting rid of dust and cobwebs from the exhaust fan.

A lot of people are also curious about how we keep the baseboards clean. This requires manual labor if you are the type of cleaner who does not want to stoop down and clean with your hands and microfiber rags, do the same thing that we did with the mop poles and sock. With this, you can just scrub your way to the baseboards.

Tips 8. Perpendicular Pattern

The last but not least, this thing that we will discuss is something that we learned from home study and experiences many years ago. When we used to clean at the beginning, we were not quite sure how to make things look tidy. Half of cleaning especially when you are cleaning professionally is making something look tidy.

Sometimes, even you had spent more than an hour cleaning removing dust, dirt, and bacteria, the place still looks like a mess if space is scattered. The perpendicular pattern is something that will make any surface looks super tidy, clean, and pleasing to the eye.

Not only you do have a clean surface, but you also have a tidy space which will make your place super clean. The first thing you need to do is pile your items.

Pile them up or line everything up to the edge of the surface that the item is sitting on either in a parallel fashion to the edge or a perpendicular fashion. In that way, you will have these nice, clean, straight angles which are very pleasing to the eye and it looks clean.

For more actionable commercial cleaning tips, queries, or if you are looking to hire commercial cleaning Sydney. Visit us on our website and drop us a message.

Conclusion

These right here, are the professional tips that some of you do not know about.

How did you like this article?
Are the tips practical to the commercial cleaning business?
Are the tips worth sharing?

If your answer is yes to all of these questions, please feel free to spread the word by sharing this with your colleagues, staff, and friends.

Feel free to voice out your opinions, suggestions, and your own commercial cleaning tips by leaving a comment below.

 

In this post, I am going to show you the techniques on getting more leads for commercial cleaning businesses by Clean Group in Sydney. Keep reading.

This article is for both residential and commercial cleaning business owners. I am writing this for an in-depth large Sydney commercial cleaning account. The good news is, if you are doing a residential cleaning business, this information all works amazingly well, you just may not have to go as deep as we are going to go. Take it all down, understand it all.

If you are one of the office cleaning business owners out there that is tired of going on to 20 bids, during the bidding process, the leads may be very responsive and you already get to this notion that you can potentially close the deal but when you call them back the following week, they are no longer picking up. You will end up chasing the leads and they are playing hide and seek with you.

If you ended up with these kinds of customers, then you are in the right spot. Some leads will straight away sign the contract and they will ask you to bring your price down as low as you can go, you can say that you are still on the right track.

There are some weeks when leads piled up and some weeks, there are no good leads at all.

Some leads say they will think it through, they have to do this and that, have to talk to their boss and the management, you are still on the right spot. These are the usual setbacks when nurturing clients and these are the issues we will unravel in this article.

There is a difference in how you will deal with someone who was referred to you than to the lead that you met in a Tradeshow, or the lead that had found you on the internet. Google search is great because they are typing in, that’s already a buying sign.

Why, because they are looking for a daily cleaning provider and will most likely hire someone for the service. The problem is, Google will not give the lead your web page, it will give the lead a thousand worth of commercial cleaners in the area that offers the same business as you do.

You got to understand the way that you are going to talk to somebody will be different in how they come to you. The goal is to get everybody up to speed so they all know you, trust you, and see you as an authority to help them in their business, not just someone who will give them a low bid.

As far as call handling for the office cleaning business, most often than not, your salesperson tends to talk a lot on the phone and it kinda gives the customer overloaded information about the cleaning business that you run.

All you do is talk about how great your business is and you already neglect to listen to the underlying statement of your lead. To tell you honestly, your customer does not care. Your customer only cares about why they need you in the first place. They called you because they need a Sydney office cleaner.

They want to know how you can help them. Ask questions and listen to what your customer is saying. This is one of the reasons why your customers will love you. Time your conversation with your lead.

The more they talk, the more information you can get from them to close that deal as you go on because you will understand their needs more.

The second mistake is as soon as a lead calls in, the person on the other line tends to invite them or have them come out for an onsite visit. With this in mind, the sales personnel tend to bombard the lead with so many questions with the goal of having the visit happen at the end of the conversation.

The goal should not be to get an appointment. The goal is to qualify or disqualify the lead. useful tips you might take to get the most out of the cleaning company you hire. You are too busy to qualify yourself as the best cleaner out there.

You should also have some time to qualify if the customer is a perfect fit for your commercial cleaning business. This will also save time and effort for those sales manager who goes out to meet with the lead because they will not meet the leads that will at least minimum requirement that your business sets.

Now that you understand the need for your lead and how likely it is that they will hire you as their commercial cleaner, it is also very important for you to set ground rules.

It is best that your lead agrees to meet and talk with you the moment that you go and visit the place. Do not just allow them to let you see the place and leave the premises.

Make them meet and talk to you. Get their first reaction on how likely it is that they will hire your commercial cleaning business. You can just plainly ask them the question and explain that this is just a normal practice to set the expectation of the business as well.

On the other hand, you can also tell them right away if you feel like your company is not a perfect fit for their cleaning requirement once you had surveyed the place. This will also both save you time and the lead will definitely thank you for your honesty.

Today you’re going to see how Clean Group stands out in providing excellent commercial cleaning. Let’s get started.

As the old saying says, the customer is always right. I guess this applies to all natures of business. Customers or consumers are the bloodlines of each establishment. It is important that you make them feel that you greatly value their contribution to your business no matter how big or small. Clean Group has been in business for over a decade.

I guess, our tenure is a piece of clear evidence that we provide quality work that customers come back to us over time. Customer service is a skill a few of us master. There’s a certain art in how you communicate with clients.

It should be observed with a warm, welcoming vibe that you will let your customer feels every time you communicate with them. It can be in person or in email or through the phone. You must let them feel that you are very happy with their presence.

Commercial cleaners need to have this certain charm too. Some of them will be stands out in providing excellent daily commercial cleaning services during working hours and this will expose them to dealing with customers.

Let me count the ways how Clean Group managed to be on the surface of providing nothing but seamless customer service.

Whenever you walk into a store, are you not expecting the salespeople to greet you and ask you what your needs are? That is exactly how customers would like to be treated. Office cleaning services need to put emphasis on how well they treat each and every one of their customers as if they are all VIPs.

A business should learn how to show the appreciation that this customer chooses to trust and hire them to do a certain business.

A simple thank you note that goes with the monthly service invoice will do. You can also show your appreciation every time that the customer will correspond with your email or phone calls. 

Showing how sincere you are when dealing with your customers every day will also show a great impact on your customer satisfaction score. Do not treat your customers as if their concerns are all the same.

Office cleaners should display an attitude that they are really making an effort towards meeting the expectations of their customers. 

In the commercial cleaning industry, integrity and keeping your word is also important trait. In the midst of complaints, do what you promise. If you promise to return a call, make sure that you do it.

Always remember that your work ethic is the face of your business. If you promise to send the cleaner and do something that is out of the ordinary, make sure that you will do that too. That is why sometimes, setting the right expectation is a great help. Do not over-commit.

Do not promise anything that you know is impossible to achieve as it will only backfire on you. 

Do not settle for what is acceptable. Office cleaning is a world of competition. Mediocrity is a disease that most business succumbs with. Try to out beat yourself in terms of customer service. Continuously measure your target when it comes to providing excellent customer service.

There are plenty of ways how you can gauge your customer satisfaction rate depending on the frequency that you desire. You can send emails on a quarterly basis just to ask for their feedback and opinion on how well have you been doing the job.

You can also add a value-added question like which areas they think you can improve on. Some companies even measure the factor of how likely it is that they will recommend your service to others. 

In our modern world, social media plays a vital role in businesses too. Most of the time, customers will not only spend time browsing thru social media for possible suppliers.

They also spend time reading reviews, comments, and feedback on your website or possibly, from your own social media page. Clean Group helps stand out in providing excellent commercial cleaning businesses advertise and market their services thru Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

You can never avoid a customer from leaving a negative impact on your page which your potential customers may also see. If this happens, always make sure that you are on top of your game.

Address the complaints right away and do not let a day pass by without talking to that customer who left a bad review on your site. Make this an opportunity to improve your communication ability and how well will you be able to contain the situation.

On the other side of the coin, when the customer is really pleased and satisfied with the service that they got from you, thank them and appreciate their time and effort for leaving a nice comment on your page.

If your business is really fairing well, you can also practice giving them a small token of appreciation. These actions will secure your overall relationship with your customers.

This is a complete guide to know what is the catch between janitorial services and commercial cleaning by Clean Group.  So let’s get started

Introduction

Cleanliness is part of our life. It is important as the environment in which we reside gets dirty and the major cause of making it dirtier and unhygienic is you. All the unhygienic dirt comes from you, your people, office employees, etc.

The germs and bacteria from you get accumulated inside your house and offices and affect the environment. Also, the customers and visitors will not get comfortable in such offices or houses.

You must make the work environment clean and tidy so that every individual in your surroundings will not get affected. Janitorial services are the most prominent method to clean and make your space hygienic.

Your premises look more open, airy, and enjoyable which poses a positive impact on your employees and business. Janitorial cleaning is basically held in a small way i.e in-house onsite cleaning and thus did not need any more training skills.

Commercial space comprises offices, malls, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, railway stations, bus stands, airports, etc. If you have your own office or any other commercial space or you are on rent then you are urged to maintain a daily cleaning so as to maintain the healthy environment for you and your employees. As in your daily life germs and bacteria get accumulated in your surroundings and reside there.

These germs and bacteria get spread in the air and on the objects which you along with your employees, visitors, and customers mutually touch or come in contact with.

Commercial cleaners need training and are subject to cleaning the particular space which poses some risks and needs a complex tool and equipment so as to get the space clean and tidy.

It is sad to know that various house owners along with business people are not aware of the difference between janitorial and commercial cleaning companies. They were just not able to find the services that furnish them with their cleaning needs.

It is true that janitorial and commercial cleaning are closely associated and the same, however, there is a difference thus it is a recommendation that you shall learn more prior to giving a contract to the commercial cleaning company.

To tell you honestly, I myself could not tell them apart until I became a part of a Commercial Cleaning Team. Business owners right now recognize the benefit of providing a clean workspace for their employees.

A lot of studies show the significant productivity that was being delivered by those employees who work in a clean and safe workspace. You know that I am not kidding you because if you browse through the internet, you can see a lot of articles telling you what are the benefits this.

What is Janitorial and What is Include in Janitorial Services?

If I were to define Janitorial Services I will say that it is your day in day out cleaning needs. These are the small things that your regular housekeeper does for you. To name a few, these will cover sweeping, vacuuming, wiping dust, restroom cleaning, and all those simple things that you normally do in your daily routine.

Janitorial services will definitely cover your everyday cleaning duties on a regular basis. With consistent routine cleaning, your workspace will look good and will always be ready to receive visitors.

A janitorial service is concerned with the commercial property which consists of professional offices, medical and industrial business cleaning. While commercial janitorial services consist of maintenance or handling of the property. The people who perform and engage in all these aspects are said to be custodians, janitors, or cleaners.

When it is best to opt for commercial cleaners, it is mandatory to determine the distinct kinds of professional cleaning services available. Clean Group checks out the need for the janitors to clean the business premises however they look towards the everyday cleaning duties.

They are enabled to clean the bathrooms, sweep and mop floors, tidy break rooms, dust, vacuum, and disinfect surfaces through basic cleaning products or cleaning solutions.

The Janitorial or custodial staff indeed looks for small repairs or building maintenance and facilities maintenance. Also, you can see some janitors are hired as an employee in the house to look after the house as well.

It states that they are part of your company so they are said to be employees who possess payroll, insurance, sick leave, paid leave allowances, and taxes.

It also gives the direction that they are present on-site during major business hours. It reveals that they are required to carry out their work besides the other staff members going about their daily work.

However, it is effective that if the janitors are present on site all day to help through the emergency repairs or other clean-ups, this could conflict with other objectives for instance they are about to clean the washroom when people might use them.

There is no training needed for the commercial janitors. People in these roles often possess experience through the household or professional office cleaning services or get trained while they continue to join through the experienced janitors.

The in-house janitors and cleaners are security screened during their recruitment for look after of the particular space that does offer you some specific level of flexibility, quality control, and certainty.

The major advantage of having a janitor cleaner is you can ask to clean the specific space if needed or whenever you feel like the place is somewhat dirty or poses dust.

As a cleaner in your house cleans shall have the routine of cleaning and wiping all the inhouse things like floor, door handles of fridge and microwave along with doors and windows. In addition to that, you may ask for cleaning services apart from his routine cleaning wherever you want.

Task Included in Janitorial Cleaning

In the Janitorial cleaning services, there is various space which is needed to get cleaned. Routine cleaning is needed in the janitorial cleaning. Below are some services that come beneath janitorial cleaning.

The janitorial cleaning services consist of:

• Hard-surface floor cleaning and maintenance- Cleaning of the floor and maintaining the space by regular cleaning through broom and wipes.
• Daily carpet care- Carpet cleaning is to be done as the carpet captures the dust and dirt from the shoes and sandals of the people who walk through it. The carpet must be cleaned through a vacuum cleaner or washed with time as needed.
• Reception area or lobby cleaning- This area draws the attention of the people and visitors thus it is needed to be cleaned and disinfected.
• Dusting and window washing- Dusting can be executed through a broom or through a vacuum cleaner. Window washing needs complex tools which can be cleaned through it.
• Office system cleaning- Office cleaning consists of daily cleaning of the space with a vacuum cleaner, and broom up the webs or the spider then wiping down space with a wet cloth.
• Waste removal- Waste can be eliminated by dumping the unwanted things and then cleaning after waste gets removed.
• Sanitation programs- It is more important in the current time as in the house, or at commercial places, etc. things are in contact with people mutually such as door handles, Fridge handle, microwave handle, taps, etc and all these consists of germs which get exchanged from person to person. Hence daily sanitization of these objects along with the space in which people sit should be done.
• Kitchen/restroom cleaning/restocking- All these need daily cleaning before you go out with the related operations. Cleaning, washing, and disinfectant must be done all through the said space.
• Daytime cleaning- Brooming is the initial process or vacuuming all through space is to be done and post to that wipeout space with wet broom or wiper takes place.

What is Commercial Cleaning and What is Include in Commercial Cleaning Services?

Commercial Cleaning Services – this my friend, requires professional skills. This is something deeper, something more than Janitorial services. Something like your regular cleaning lady cannot do for you. Steam Carpet Cleaning, Pressure Washing, Strip and Seal of the Vinyl floors, are part of this.

Nowadays, companies are drawn to schedule cleaners to come and attend to their needs on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly basis (it really depends on how often they prefer it). Professional cleaners are trained to use cleaning products and equipment to minimize the risk of cross-contamination and sanitize the workspace.

Commercial Cleaning covers a wider range of cleaning jobs that are usually not part of the regular routine cleaning. Most companies hire professionals to perform these services annually or quarterly.

Almost all commercial establishments look for some form of professional cleaning to be carried out just to maintain their establishment cleanliness.

Who Offers Most Affordable Commercial Cleaning Services in Australia?

With Clean Group, we service different kinds of businesses including offices, gyms, hospitals, childcare centres, industrial work areas, showrooms and many more. Commercial cleaning companies provide a number of services to ensure that your property is sparkly clean.

If your business is just after a consistent cleaning that will keep your office clean and presentable, then get someone who can do Janitorial Services. For something bigger like upholstery cleaning or power washing, get a commercial cleaner. But in this day in age, a lot of cleaning provider offers both and they can provide it throughout the year.

That is how Clean Group runs the business. We take pride that our customers can take advantage of both cleaning services anytime and day. We save them the trouble of finding and having to work with different cleaning contractors.

That is how Clean Group runs the business. We take pride that our customers can take advantage of both cleaning services anytime and day. We save them the trouble of finding and having to work with different cleaning contractors.

Now, if you are a business owner and you are wondering what type of service do you actually need, I wish you will find this article helpful.

Every business dreams of a consistent clean. We all believe that a reliable cleaning service will keep the office clean, presentable, and safe. Commercial cleaners specialise in heavier cleaning requirements like upholstery cleaning and power washing. 

Most commercial cleaners in Australia can offer both routine and specialty cleaning throughout the year. Clean Group runs its business this way. All of our customers take advantage of both cleaning types anytime on any day. 

We want to introduce our company, Clean Group, to you. As a business owner, your primary duty is to provide a safe and healthy environment for your team. Please do not hesitate to call us. We know that we have a cleaning solution for your unique cleaning requirement. 

Please share this article and let us know your thoughts about the importance of janitorial services and commercial cleaning by Clean Group

Commercial cleaning consists of harder, bigger, and more specialized tasks which the janitorial staff shall not be able to execute. It consists of things such as carpet cleaning, window washing, power cleaning, or hard floor deep cleaning.

All these jobs come under the regular jobs implemented once or twice in the year or you shall have a commercial cleaner which comes in for the particular job role. These commercial jobs proceed on a bigger scale and come through with some more health and safety guidelines or may engage tough conditions for the workers.

For instance, cleaning a commercial window that is at some height has a risk and thus needs safety with intricate tools and equipment. Commercial cleaning is itself a specialized area in which only people with training and experience can execute the cleaning operations safely. A risk is engaged in it and is unsafe for those who are not experienced with it such as custodial staff.

Hiring a professional commercial cleaning business poses another bonus. It implies that there is no payroll or tax to be anxious about. You shall be required to pay the flat fee, or fixed rates relied on the kind of services implemented. These can be executed on the prescribed quote of the company.

So as to ensure security and safety your cleaners are trained in the professional standard and screened through our security during their recruitment. They are flexible to work when it suits your business which is basically outside of standard working hours of cleaning so that they don’t disrupt your daily work.

Cleaning deep inside the space such as offices, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, etc is said to be commercial cleaning. The commercial cleaning space consists of tile cleaning, door cleaning, ground cleaning, hard surface cleaning, power washing, window washing, etc.

Making your office clean and germ-free is needed which can not be executed by you on your own due to a lack of cleaning skills and knowledge.

This can be done with the help of a professional commercial cleaning service provider. They are trained professional cleaners in Sydney and pose with experience in cleaning vital surfaces and objects. They have the latest technology equipment and tools. Also, they get regular training for different cleaning skills.

They just very well know how to deep clean the object with quality. Though commercial space poses large and bigger walls thus the non-professional person does not know how to execute the cleaning process in a proper manner that a professional cleaner knows.

Making your business look effective needs cleaning. Through the assistance of the commercial cleaning company i.e Clean Group who possess technical trained experts with equipped tools, every inch of your space shall look clean and tidy and sparkle and thus attracts the visitors to sustain for a longer time which also increases your business revenue.

From upholstery care to building windows crystal clear, we produce a range of specialty cleaning services in Sydney that improve both your working environment and your perception and your business image. The Clean Group has been chosen by a majority of people in Sydney Australia.

They are just happy with the service provided by us. There are various factors which are needed to be considered before hiring commercial cleaning services such as:

Portfolio of the company: It is the most important aspect that you need to think about the commercial company. As the brand shall tell you about the company profile and how much experience the company has and how much efficiency the company can provide the cleaning. Customers can best determine the services through their brand value and that is the reason why the portfolio of the company matters a lot.

Additional services: It reveals how capable the company is to give you its services. You must not come beneath the consideration of the discounts that companies are providing as they are generally indulging in these activities so as to boost up their sales.

But the companies who offer you services are in a state of confidence saying that they are here to assist you in every process. You should only trust only those types of companies as they are your true well-wisher for offering you the cleaning services.

Company background: No cleaner can provide or sustain itself without any training in their field or they are running themselves by hiring other vendors. Vendors do not possess any specific training in cleaning and do not know about the latest cleaning tools and equipment thus outsourcing effects both the clients and the company as well.

Equipment, supplies, and Processes: Latest and updated equipment help to clean the space in less time. Indeed it produces effective quality cleaning as compared to the older tools.

The professional cleaners use bigger machines and tools so as for easy and quick cleaning of the premises. It reduces physical work. They use industrial grade with several modules which can make the cleaning work simpler.

Task Included in Commercial Cleaning

It is clearly known that cleaning commercial space is somewhat harder as compared to a residential one. This is due to the difficult infrastructure, in order to make assets of your office’s life longer such as office equipment, office floor, furniture, and other office elements, here are the most basic daily commercial cleaning services which can be cleaned on hiring a commercial cleaner:

1. Daily Vacuuming: The dirt and debris should be cleaned off from the floor of the office on the daily basis. Vacuuming makes your office clean and urges visitors to visit the offices.

Daily vacuuming assists to maintain a dust-free area that is helpful for employees or clients who have allergies and wants a clean and healthy environment so that they can work efficiently.

2. Mopping of Tile and Hard Floor Area: As people walk on the floors inside the commercial spaces and from that, a bunch of germs and bacteria gets accumulated on the way of the floor or blow in the air that goes inside you. This hard floor should be mopped daily. It disinfects the surface area and maintains the tidiness of the floor. It makes the life of the floor much longer.

3. Wipe Down and Disinfect All Glass Surfaces: In your environment, there are various germs and bacteria which fly in the air in your space. Disinfecting through the cleaning solution on wiping makes your glass surface lessening the germs in your office.

It indeed protects your office staff and employees healthily from getting in contact with such surfaces which makes sure that they are all safe and able to work with no stress every day.

4. Wipe out the door handles and electric switches: Both the switches and the door handles are the two things that people regularly touch and both of them are the most touching things on the office premises.

Germs and bacteria get accumulated on Switches and door handle hence there is a majority of chances of getting an infection as switches and door handles are getting touched mutually. It needs to be disinfectant and cleaned regularly so as to avoid illness or any other disease.

5. Empty all the waste bins and properly wash all of them: You or your office servant must empty your office bins on a daily basis. If you do not regularly do it then it drives unpleasant odours, upsets customers, and can leak or stain the surfaces around it. After emptying the bins you should wash them with cleaning solutions and then pour the water in them and then clean them properly.

Professionals Can Save Time and Efforts Here Is How

Professional cleaning companies are fast developing themselves with time, some are developed and some others are still developing. A professional cleaner is a term which means the company time to time provides training to their cleaners and makes them expert with the companies training compliances, also the company has the training skills that how to clean the space with quality and no germs and bacterias left, they are enabled to do so because of the kind of skills they pose. Indeed the professional cleaning companies truly gain some experience from their past records and learn from various ups and downs or from their cleaning drawbacks.

The above are some major aspects of saving time and effort in cleaning the space, but there are some other conditions of professionals which helps them for saving time and effort and cleaning, these are mentioned below:

1. Schedule Cleaning

The Clean Group’s professional cleaners schedule all of their cleaning time down to the minute. The Clean Group does not show up on Monday to clean the shower and return Tuesday to clean the toilet.

2. Prepare Before Vacuuming

Clean Group when vacuuming ensures that the room has been prepared. You must opt for everything from the floor, move the furniture and pick up the area rugs. Implementing that shall assist you to move through the room faster and decrease starts and stops.

3. Dust BEFORE Vacuum

Cleaning companies like Clean Group remove the dust from the floor and from the usable objectives before vacuuming as vacuuming shall not clean the dust and they need to do the process again if you do vacuum before dusting.

4. Effective Tools and Equipment

A Clean Group has proper effective equipment and tools which are of the new and latest technology. All these tools set themselves automatically as per the surface which is about to clean.

5. Training

Training professionals have the skills and knowledge about cleaning spaces. The trained cleaners are set to be the experts who have immense knowledge in cleaning specific surfaces. The skills help the cleaners to save and securely clean the space with quality.

6. Set Start and Stop Time

The professional cleaners of the Clean Group set their start and stop times by planning each and everything they are needed to clean. They can even work at night with your permission so your business and employees won’t get disturbed and affected by them.

7. Shut the Distractions

The professional cleaners have the skills that they do not distract themselves from any other thing or person while executing their work and this helps them to specifically produce quality cleaning.

8. Follow the Cleaning Procedure

Whatever be the size of the premises the Clean Group’s expertise follows the step-by-step procedure of cleaning the premises. These step-planned procedures help themselves to clean at a faster rate without any hurdles.

9. Mange and Tuned Up the performance and Tools:

As per space, the professional cleaners will handle their performance and the tasks, along with that they shall set up the speed of the electrical equipment according to the space needed for cleaning.

10. Quicker Sink a Bath:

The Clean Group uses the herbal bath to wash and clean your sink as this not only saves time but also it protects your sink from Abrasive cleaners that might produce scratches on your sink.

We use various bunches of rosemary or thyme in hot water for some hours, then strain. Stop up the sink, pour in the herb solution, and let it sit overnight. In the morning, you’ll see a glistening, fragrant sink.

11. Fizz Your Toilet Clean

You may see that most professional cleaning companies use harder solutions to clean your toilet such as acid. The Clean Group uses a gentler solution that does not have any side effects on the life of your toilet.

During cleaning the toilet the experts drop two denture tablets into the bowl and leave for at least 20 minutes. Then brush the inside surface of the bowl and flush it. The same action that brightens dentures will leave your toilet shiny.

12. Quick Carpet and Mat Cleaning

A carpet and mats are the major things that catch dust along with germs and viruses. All this unwanted dust gets accumulated inside the mats and carpets. Such unwanted things came from the shoes and sleepers that the people wear and walk through outside of the office or house.

But you do not need to worry at all about contracting the Clean Group, the experts with the help of the latest technology vacuum cleaner that has a high-frequency speed can just take less than 15 minutes to clean even the bigger size carpet that saves your time, work and energy.

Clean Group the Best Commercial Cleaning Company

We can assist you with daily school, commercial office, and restaurant cleaning or we can take on the more specialist and difficult jobs such as window cleaning, carpet cleaning, and floor polishing.

The major thing you need to consider is that you can trust the Clean Group’s highly trained and security screened experts to do their work in a safe way with quality.

The Clean Group poses all the required safety measures which are needed during the cleaning of the surface or the premises so as to ensure that no one can be hurt during the cleaning operations.

The most qualitative services that the Clean Group provides are office cleaning, commercial strata cleaning, gym cleaning, school cleaning, carpet cleaning, warehouse cleaning, house cleaning, and church cleaning.

The Clean Group is a cost-effective cleaning company it only places the cost as per the need of the client and the premises. It does not impose the cleaning cost which does not require any cleaning. Also, no other expert of the Clean Group shall recommend you to clean that particular area that does not need any cleaning and liable to pay for that.

Our plans for cleaning cost is also lesser with respect to the other cleaning companies along with that if you feel that the specific area has not been cleaned properly or left with a mistake then the only thing you need to do is to call us and we immediately come and clean that particular space with any charges.

The Clean Group provides green cleaning which implies that it lessens the inorganic supplies and is environment friendly. It does not have any side effects on cleaning the space. This ensures that it lessens the environmental allergens or respiratory objective that are surely damaged if they use chemical supply.

You should talk to your cleaning service provider. They will tell you the difference between organic and inorganic cleaning solutions. You must ensure that they should follow all the safety guidelines and authoritative guidelines from standard bodies like OSHA and CDC during their work.

The Clean Group itself has its own wide variety of cleaning tools and equipment which can clean the surface with quality. We are regularly upgrading with the newer technology tools available in the market. You can approach the Clean Group for your in-house or office cleaning.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, the major thing revealed is the difference between janitorial and commercial cleaning where janitorial cleaning the cleaners involved are not at all trained one but can be used to work for the personal onsite inhouse cleaning, they are not much aware of the use of tools and equipment and does not know how to clean the bigger space as of lack of cleaning skills.

While commercial cleaning poses the experienced and trained cleaners who have been provided with skilled training by their companies and also have the latest technology tools and equipment. They very well know how much tuning is to be needed for the cleaning premises.

The tasks and the activities of both the janitorial and commercial cleaning differ from each other the janitorial cleaner only practices cleaning the houses, lobbies, and corridors, while the commercial cleaner cleans the whole building from inside and outside, over the walls, heightened windows with the help of stairs and practices equipment for cleaning purposes.

It is known from the discussion that commercial cleaning is more appropriate and accurate for providing quality cleaning than janitorial cleaning.

It is also concluded that professional cleaners can save time and money for the customers. They too are also saving time when they actually concentrate on the space to get cleaned.

They use their trained skills and then implement the cleaning part with the help of the latest technology and upgraded tools which assist in the higher removal of dirt, germs, and bacteria and produce high-quality cleaning in a lesser time. The professional cleaner decides and sets the time for cleaning the spaces and does manage the operation accordingly.

There seem to be various companies who provide professional cleaning services, one of them is Clean Group which is a licensed company and can produce the best guarantee, it has been present in Sydney Australia for more than a decade. The Clean Group has a stronger and bigger customer base and provides services all across Sydney Australia.

The group is involved in providing Commercial Cleaning, Office Cleaning Warehouse Cleaning, Medical Centre Cleaning School Cleaning, Child Care Centre Cleaning, Church Cleaning, Gym Cleaning.

All these services are provided with the help of our company-owned upgraded cleaning tools and equipment through our skilled cleaning technique posed by our cleaning experts.

It is the most important part that you must trust your commercial cleaners when you are leaving the whole responsibility of the space which is needed to get cleaned on our hands. As Clean Group presents in this business for more than a decade and this is possible because of your trust and faith in us.

This is a complete guide to other marketing tools and tips that are helpful for a commercial cleaning by Clean Group. Let’s dive right in.

Clean Group had survived more than a decade of providing nothing but pure commercial cleaning satisfaction to our customers. We are proud that we came this far.

We came up to this point because we never stopped learning and we never stopped evolving. The traditional way of marketing had been long forgotten. With the dawn of e-commerce, consumers have a wide array of choices presented at their fingertips.

One of the common marketing tools that helped emerging commercial cleaning businesses is SEO. What is SEO in a general sense and what does it do for a business. By its very definition, SEO stands for Seach Engine Optimization.

This process involves intricate and relevant keywords that are specific to make your website come up as the most relevant match. The online marketing competition is extremely aggressive and office cleaning businesses should know how to make sure that their business stands out among all the rest.

If a customer is in search of a local commercial cleaning service nearby, it will be beneficial if your business is the first to come up on the list.

There are small tricks in using algorithms in search engines that will give us the favourable result of coming out on top. These methods are technical and rather complicated which is why many companies offer this commercial cleaning service.

You can consider doing this if you are willing to pay a little more to get your business name on top and increase the chances of getting more customers. 

Simple things like asking your customers to leave comments and reviews online can also help to boost your business on the Search Engine. Online reviews can help Google Search Engine.

You can also verify your business in Google by searching the name of your business and then making sure that the website and phone numbers are correct. These will help to draw more attention to your office cleaning business. 

You can also maximize Linked In to target the customers and potential office cleaners that you need to hire. Linked In is a free website for all and you can connect to employees and employers alike.

This social media platform can also help you be on top of the latest advancements or strategies in Marketing. Maintaining an account with Linked In will help you make valuable connections with other entrepreneurs, suppliers or as I said, new employees. 

One of the traditional marketing that Clean Group still practices is On-the-Go Marketing. This involves the use of Logos such as magnetic logos, car stickers, and professional business cards. We imprint our vehicles with our company logo.

We also make sure that all of our commercial cleaning cleaners wear a shirt that has our logo on it. Our Sales Manager also needs to bring his business card handy and ready for a potential customer. Providing a business card is a sure way to make sure that your contact information ends up in your customer’s wallet. 

Always have a good ear for what the market has to say about your business. Know your strength and weaknesses. Make yourself aware of the feedback and reviews that are being left on your website for you to focus on the areas where a customer may be dissatisfied.

Start a marketing campaign that will encompass specific quality and cleaning equipment for business 

Think about what makes your business stands out from the rest. What can your business offer that other businesses do not have? You have to find a unique selling point on how to market your industrial cleaning business and use it to your advantage.

Once you are used to using that often enough, customers will start to associate your business with that quality or idea. Office cleaning is a nice business if you know what to focus on.

You just have to hire the right people to be office cleaners or commercial cleaners. Most of the time, the quality of your employee’s job will do the best effective marketing for your business.

Make sure that they perform very well and always check with them if they are happy with what they are doing. As their employer, you need to secure the contentment of these employees for them to shine in each and every career that they function for your company. Never underestimate the action of your employee.

Hear them out when they tell you that a customer is not happy about a certain task that they performed. At the end of the day, this feedback will make or break the reputation of your company.

Learn how to resolve issues as soon as the issue was served. Sometimes, we tend to procrastinate on issues because we tend to think that it is just a minor one.

All we know, these minor issues compiled to become complex problems that will destroy the presence that we already project and established as a business.

In this guide, I will show you exactly what is considered commercial cleaning. So let’s get started.

Commercial cleaning is a growing industry. In fact, with the right knowledge, skills, and equipment, anyone can start a cleaning business. But what is exactly considered commercial cleaning?

Simply put, it is a cleaning service that caters to business owners. Cleaning companies under this category deal with sites and premises where business transactions occur, happen, or are held. To better illustrate what is considered cleaning, here are a few of its types:

Types of Commercial Cleaning:

Retail Store Cleaning

As the name explicitly states, this type of cleaning involves cleaning business properties where products and goods are sold. This includes shopping centres, clothing stores, car dealerships, showrooms, and grocery outlets.

The service includes cleaning the storefront area, shelves, racks, floors, windows, storage rooms, and even restrooms. Retail store cleaning is essential for any retailer as it helps create a pleasing shopping experience for customers.

Medical Cleaning

Medical cleaning is another type of cleaning. Why? Because medical clinics are places where business owners and their staff provide health care services.

But unlike other types of cleaning, it requires a more meticulous process. Therefore, this type of cleaning service cannot be performed by just anyone.

Medical cleaning requires specialised skills and knowledge about the industry and the standard cleaning processes. That is because medical cleaners deal with medical facilities and equipment on a daily basis.

They are therefore required to perform sanitation and disinfection processes to help control the spread of diseases and infection among the staff and the patients.

Office Cleaning

Office cleaning is the most common type of cleaning. In fact, for some, it is the first thing that comes to their mind when they hear the word “commercial office cleaning”. By its name, you can already tell what type of business property it deals with – office buildings.

Cleaning of this kind includes cleaning of workstations, emptying of bins, cleaning reception areas, meeting rooms, office kitchens as well as restrooms.

Business owners can schedule considered commercial cleaning with their service provider on a daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal basis to ensure that the workplace stays in its best condition.

Gym Cleaning

Gym cleaning is a type of cleaning that deals with maintaining cleanliness in gyms and fitness facilities. It includes frequent wiping and disinfecting of exercise machines and gym equipment.

Gym cleaners also have to keep floors, windows, the reception area, and the restrooms clean and sanitized. Furthermore, this type of cleaning can be tough, especially during busy days when more people than usual come to the gym to work out. This is why gym cleaners need to be fast, and they should be able to keep up with the number of gym-goers during peak seasons.

Childcare Centre Cleaning

Childcare service is a type of business that provides care and education to clients. Buildings where this kind of service is provided, such as childcare centres, also require regular childcare cleaning and maintenance.

It includes cleaning classrooms, offices, lunchrooms, play areas, toys, and restrooms. Cleaners may also provide business owners with cleaning products such as wipes, liquid soaps, and hand sanitisers.

Conclusion

Knowing the type of considered commercial cleaning service you need will help you get the exact service you need.

It will also help you maximize the benefits you can get from outsourcing your business cleaning. Clean Group knows that each business is unique.

Therefore, each one of them has different cleaning needs. We do not provide a one-size-fits-all kind of cleaning.

Rather, we take into account your specific requirements. If you have a business in need of cleaning services, talk to us today and let us help you maintain the upkeep of your site.

Introduction

Cleaning is a part of our day-to-day life, it is so because to own a clean and healthy environment is just a need of human beings, they just cannot survive in a dirty environment. Thus cleaning is just important in both the residential as well as commercial places.

Here the biggest question is that what is the difference between residential and commercial cleaning, although both are directed towards cleaning, in this article we shall discuss specifically about the major differences among them. When we talk about commercial cleaning, then we usually think of a step up from residential cleaning. The infrastructure along with the objects of the commercial cleaning is somewhat bigger with respect to the residential one.

Commercial places are built for the use of multiple people, whereas residential are just owned by a person or a family where limited people reside. For instance, a refrigerator placed in the hotels shall be used by more people rather than the residential refrigerators.

From the same instances, you can conclude that the refrigerator placed in the hotel requires more cleaning services as compared to the refrigerator which is placed in the house. Residential areas needless cost to get clean whereas the commercial area poses high-cost cleaning due to their larger infrastructure and complexity.

The major cleaning areas of residential and commercial cleaning are that the residential cleaning services indulge in cleaning the floors, bedrooms, and bathrooms of your house. Whereas commercial cleaning services comprise offices, buildings, or retail stores.

The Clean Group is the leading cleaning company in Australia which provides a service for both residential and commercial cleaning. We shall discuss in depth about this professional cleaning company and the type of services they provide, their expertise and the equipment they use.

What Is Commercial Cleaning?

Commercial cleaning is a cleaning that is to be carried out through commercial cleaning firms a firm that employs trained cleaners who uses the specialized technology to sanitize the commercial buildings like:

• Offices
• Cleanrooms and R&D Facilities
• Medical and Healthcare Facilities
• Schools
• Commercial Kitchens
• Industrial

The commercial cleaning firm specified with the teams of specialists that practices the specialized cleaning technologies to ensure the optimal hygienic conditions and keep following the most stringent needs when there is a remediation or cleanroom development conditions that need to be acknowledged.

Technology is the larger section of what commercial cleaning firms pose. Some firms provide the electrostatic spray disinfection that the tool uses to apply disinfectants, mold protection, and sanitizers to 3D surfaces for a 360-degree comprehensive cleaning.

There are some commercial cleaning firms that use environment-friendly products and green cleaning techniques in their daily cleaning services. Green cleaning technologies and chemicals not only lessen the environmental impact but it limits the unwanted influence on the people who used to clean the buildings in their routine.

Commercial cleaning provides more effective billing options. Indeed, they provide it in packages for a routine cleaning or some specific cleaning services. The customers who give the contract are billed either monthly, weekly, or yearly, depending on their agreement among their cleaning service providers.

The major advantage of contracting the commercial cleaning firms is that the companies are indeed bonded and insured, which means that damage or theft that might undergo during cleaning operations will be covered.

More importantly, a commercial cleaner must be used for cleaning the commercial place or particularly the facilities which need advanced knowledge, training, and technology to effectively deep clean environments that are needed for the safety of their staff and visitors.

Commercial cleaning can be implemented either in the daytime or at night when no official work is there or zero presence of people. The cleaners shall then be enabled to finish their work more quickly and effectively at night as there is no disruption of the company’s daily duty.

Task Included in Commercial Cleaning

Commercial cleaners need to cover much larger spaces. They clean a complete office building, the whole warehouse, or all the rooms in a school. As per that, commercial cleaning is more laborious and takes more time, and is difficult to overcome.

Commercial cleaning caters to any establishment where a business is conducted. Commercial places consist of offices, shops and stores, schools, medical facilities, warehouses, and more. The past is hired by homeowners, while the latter is hired by business owners.

The Clean Group has bigger commercial cleaning packages for all types of commercial space. Below is the mentioned checklist that the Clean Group follows down for their commercial clients.

Sitting office cleaning tasks:

• Dusting the walls, windowsills, ledges, blinds, and bookshelves.
• Straightening cushions and pillows for the visitors.
• Sweeping the floor.
• Mopping the floor.
• Vacuuming carpet floors.
• Clean and polish mirrors
• Clean all glass (windows, mirrors, glass tables, etc.).
• Emptying the trash and replacing the bag.
• Sanitizing doorknobs.
• Cleaning of the break room.
• Cleaning small appliances in the break room.
• Wiping down tables.
• Sanitizing phones and headsets.
• Dusting ceiling fans and desks.
• Your cleaner should ensure all areas are clean & arranged properly.
• Spray buff all hard floors.
• Clean all glass inside & outside with a squeegee.
• 32. Vacuum vents and chairs.

Pantry and Washroom Cleaning:

• Empty waste receptacles and replace liners. Wash as required.
• Wipe hand towel dispensers/hand dryers
• Wipe down doors and sills – remove all dust and prints
• Clean and sanitize all basins. Polish all brightwork
• Dust partitions, tops of mirrors, and frames
• Toilets cleaned and disinfected.
• Sinks scrubbed.
• Replacing toilet paper and paper towels if needed.
• Spot clean internal glass indoors 29. Toilets and urinals to be cleaned and disinfected on both sides and disinfected/sanitized and wiped dry.

What Is Residential Cleaning?

As the name suggests, residential cleaning is something that the cleaners or the house members used to clean the owned places. But the training, technology, and processes depend upon the service provider or an individual and majorly differ from case to case.

A residential cleaner can be part of a bigger firm or maybe a self-employed person. Because of the lack of similarity between the two towards the uniformity, there are some residential cleaners who are urged to get the optimized cleaning techniques.

There are various residential cleaners who pose their own tools and equipment when it is the question of opting and using the cleaning supplies and technology but it has some demerits that are it gives unhygienic or harsh chemicals signifying employed rather than green choices.

When it is the concern about the schedule, then cleaning schedules of the cleaners have the more rigid schedule in cleaning the residential places, however, the cleaners can clean with or without the presence of the house owners. The Clean Group mostly chooses morning timing for cleaning the residential space. This is because cleaning the house at night when people are sleeping is not possible.

Moreover, the cleaning quality will also get affected and varies in a bigger way among the different residential cleaners through the outdated technology of tools and due to lack of training which influences the quality of cleaning which the residential cleaner shall carry out.

Rates for residential cleaning services are mostly based on the amount of work needed. The bill for the same will be higher if there is more and more work relevant to cleaning. They are asked to furnish the cost of operation on the very same day as the bill gets initiated on the same day.

The other major distinction is the insured or bonded status of residential cleaners. Towards a single or residential cleaning firm, insurance is not needed which directs that the repairing cost of the property shall need to be furnished by the individual hired cleaner or from the owner’s pocket.

Task Included in Residential Cleaning

Residential cleaners clean areas that can only be found in homes. These consist of the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms. Due to this, residential cleaning usually covers a smaller area than its commercial counterpart. As the word suggests, residential cleaning is the place where the families get reside.

You are required to make a list of house cleaning to refer to when cleaning the homes and offer it to the customers. The checklist assists you to know exactly what you shall be cleaning in the customer’s house.

Indeed it must be available on your website and the cost along with that so that the customer shall be aware of what exactly is going to get cleaned in his house.

The Clean Group uses the mentioned cleaning checklist template to ensure that no cleaning is to be left from the package.

Regular House Cleaning Tasks

Space Cleaning in the Whole House:

• Dust surfaces
• Dust and hand wipe furniture tops
• Dust baseboards, chair rails, and door panels
• Dust ceiling fans (within reach)
• Vacuum carpets
• Vacuum and damp mop floors
• Dust blinds, window sills, and lock ledges
• Dust furniture
• Dust pictures frames
• Dust lamp and lampshades
• Dust and clean mirrors
• Empty all trash

Bathrooms:

• Dust surfaces
• Dust blinds, window sills, and lock ledges
• Dust cabinets, door panels, and baseboards
• Clean and disinfect surfaces
• Spot clean cabinet fronts
• Clean, disinfect, and shine showers and tubs
• Clean and disinfect toilets inside and out
• Clean and disinfect doorknobs and switch plates
• Shine fixtures
• Vacuum and damp mop floors
• Empty trash

Kitchen:

• Dust surfaces
• Dust blinds, window sills, and lock ledges
• Dust chair rails, cabinets, door panels, and baseboards
• Dust top of the refrigerator
• Clean and disinfect countertops
• Spot clean cabinet fronts
• Clean and disinfect doorknobs and switch plates
• Clean and disinfect sink
• Clean and disinfect microwave inside and out
• Clean, disinfect, and shine outside of oven and top of the range
• Clean, disinfect, and shine outside of the dishwasher
• Clean, disinfect, and shine outside of the refrigerator
• Clean and disinfect kitchen table
• Vacuum and damp mop floors
• Empty trash

Bedrooms:

• Dust surfaces
• Dust and hand wipe furniture tops
• Dust furniture
• Dust baseboards, chair rails, and door panels
• Dust blinds, window sills, and lock ledges
• Vacuum carpets,
• Vacuum and damp mop floors (if non-carpet)
• Change sheets (upon request)
• Make beds (upon request)
• Empty trash

Spring or Deep Cleaning Tasks:

• Damp wipe baseboards and window sills
• Damp wipe door panels and frames
• Vacuum upholstered furniture
• Remove cobwebs
• Damp wipe kitchen and bathroom cabinets

Professional Can Save Time and Efforts Here Is How

Professional cleaning firms exactly know the process to provide a smooth cleaning at a faster pace. In the current situation of the pandemic, cleaning is a more important part of our life and must be executed through own or through hiring a professional cleaner.

However, there is a difference between the two, as you know that you yourself do not possess any effective cleaning skills which shall clean your place with quality along with that you too do not possess the latest cleaning tools and equipment.

Indeed, you are not aware of how much time is to be allotted for the particular task, which task needs less cleaning, which needs more. There is a risk of getting hurt from a height during the cleaning of a space or object at a particular height. There are some additional things which you, yourself unable to get clean, such as some of the places you might forget to clean or it is difficult to clean those.

A professional cleaning company poses an experienced team. They own upgraded tools and equipment and have amazing trained skills. The cleaning companies regularly upgraded with the latest skills needed for simple and timely cleaning.

The cleaning companies from time to time give training to their employees so that any type of cleaning gets easier for them. There are some important things that the time and effort in cleaning can be saved some of them are mentioned as:

1. Schedule Cleaning

Professional cleaning companies like Clean Group set their time by dividing the space cleaning into various parts. Every part has been separated from the time needed to get clean. A Clean Group only gives enough to the specific space as needed.

2. Prepare Before Vacuuming

Before vacuuming, the experts ensure that the room has been prepared or not. They pick up the things which are kept lying on the floor. Move the furniture and pick up the area rugs. Realizing that shall help you to walk through the room quicker and reduce starts and stops.

3. Dust Before Vacuum

Experts eliminate the dust from the floor and throughout the used things prior to vacuuming. Vacuuming will not clean the dust.

4. Use of Tools and Cleaning Equipment

A Clean Group poses upgraded cleaning tools and equipment that consists of the newer and latest technology. All these tools set themselves automatically on the surface of the wall and provide effective cleaning.

5. Training

The training people possess skills and knowledge for the cleaning premises. A skilled cleaner can professionally do his work in an efficient way whereas an unskilled person cannot possess quality while cleaning the space. The cleaning skills assist the cleaners to clean the surface safely.

6. Set Start and Stop Time
The professional cleaners set their start and stop times through planning on the cleaning part. They take upon the cleaning by dividing the spaces which are needed to be clean.

They one by one cleansing the task through following the procedure. They can work at night as per your permission so that your business and employees shall not get affected by them.

7. Close the Distractions

The trained professionals pose with the skills which help them to not get distracted themselves by the other object or individual during the cleaning operations.

8. the Process of Cleansing

The experts of the Clean Group follow the steps in brightening the space. This is needed to get implemented as this poses a road map which assists us in cleaning the premises along with that it will help us as a checklist to ensure that there should be no space left uncleaned inside the building.

9. Rectify the Performance

The skilled performer of the Clean Group can control the cleaning tasks by setting up the time needed to clean the specific space or object. Also, they turned up the tools and equipment as per the need only. By handling such a thing can save time in cleaning and rectify the performance of the cleaner. It also helps to provide a timely cleaning of the space.

10. Bath a Sink in Less Time:

Clean Group practices herbal bath for washing and disinfecting the sink. It saves the time of cleaning and saves your sink from Abrasive cleaners that might produce scratches on your sink.

Clean Group exercises various bunches of rosemary or thyme in hot water for some hours, then strain. Stop up the sink, pour in the herb solution, and let it sit overnight. In the morning, you’ll see a glistening, fragrant sink.

11. Fizz Your Toilet Clean

You know that most professional cleaning firms practice harder solutions to clean your toilet. Their harder solutions are like acid’s high reactive cleaner. But similar to the other group Clean Group does not practice these solutions. Clean Groups use gentler solutions that do not pose any side effects on the elements and objects inside the toilet.

A two-drop denture tablet in the bowl is dropped while cleaning the toilet and it then leaves for 20 minutes. Then you must brush the inside surface of the bowl and then flush it. It then makes your toilet clean and shiny when brightened dentures shall be used.

12. Swift Carpet and Mat Cleaning

You are aware of the mats and carpets on which people use to come through. It reveals that the dust placed inside the shoes or other footwear gets removed and gets inside the mats and carpet by rubbing the footwear.

All the germs and bacteria get placed inside the carpets and mats which surely require cleaning if it is not done then various bacterias and viruses fly in the Environment and affect all through them.

This unwanted dirt comes from the people who use to go outside and return or when a visitor arrives at the premises. The Clean Group has the finest solution for the same issue and i.e our technicians through the company upgraded tools and equipment will clean your place.

The vacuum cleaner, which has a high-frequency speed can just take less than 15 minutes to clean even the bigger size carpet that saving your time, work, and energy.

Clean Group the Leading Professional Cleaning Company

There are various professional cleaning companies that are indulging in cleaning activities. One of them is a Clean Group which is a licensed company and offers a guarantee of quality cleaning for your space. The company provides its services all across Sydney Australia.

The company has been present in this business for more than 15 years. The customer base of the Clean Group is bigger and is recognized by them. The group is committed to providing Commercial Cleaning, Office Cleaning, Warehouse Cleaning, Medical Centre Cleaning School Cleaning, Child Care Centre Cleaning, Church Cleaning, Gym Cleaning.

The Clean Group owns the latest upgraded quality of equipment which itself is tuned automatically as per the cleaning needs. The Clean Group takes the exposure of the new technology cleaning tools whenever it arrives on the market.

The group owns various technical cleaning experts who have cleaning experience. These experts pose the latest cleaning skills that normal cleaners do not know about.

Green cleaning is said to be better as compared to chemical cleaning as it saves the environment from getting hazardous. Clean Group offers green cleaning which states that it lessens the inorganic supplies and is environment friendly.

This does not produce any side effects on the premises. It does not possess any environmental allergens or respiratory objective that clearly damaged by using the chemical supply.

You need to discuss this service with your professional service provider to see if they are giving you the green cleaning or not and also ask them about the difference between organic and inorganic cleaning solutions.

You should see that if they follow the safety rules and authoritative guidelines under the companies of bodies like OSHA and CDC during their work.

A Clean Group shall help you in cleaning the school, office, restaurant cleaning, etc. we are experts in cleaning even that space which is difficult to clean or can cause accidents such places are at height these are windows, chimney outlet, air vents, etc.

Even this difficult cleaning is available to you at a lower cost as the quotes offered by the Clean Group are less as compared to the other professional cleaning companies.

Unlike residential cleaning, which only deals with homes, commercial cleaning requires skills and expertise. It deals with a wide variety of commercial spaces, so commercial cleaners need to be versatile.

They should know the different cleaning methods that apply to each kind of property. Moreover, aside from routine cleaning services, commercial cleaners should also be well-versed in specialized cleaning services.

That’s because delicate items in commercial spaces such as windows, carpets and upholstery, and floors require special care and attention. These major differences between janitorial and commercial cleaning explain why choosing the right kind of service for your property is a must.

If your business needs cleaning, let Clean Group can help you. They are a commercial cleaning company that provides reliable cleaning services to a wide variety of businesses in Sydney.

FAQ

Q1 Which Segment Will Be Costlier in Cleaning Residential or Commercial?

It is well known that a commercial space occupies a larger area and owns more and more things such as artificial items, electronic items, small plants, etc. which the residential space does not own.

Indeed the area of the commercial space from the outside and inside is so much bigger and higher than the residential area. A commercial area thus requires more cleaning solutions and sanitation along with efficient tools and cleaning equipment as compared to the residential place.

Q2. Do the Commercial Cleaners Possess Police Verification and Insurance?

Yes, We work at an infinite rate so as to maximize your safety and minimize risks. Full background (including police) checks are conducted. We are also fully insured to protect you from theft and damage.

While contracting us you do not need to get worried about your house. You just need to trust our work as we previously are being trusted by various customers who approach us for cleaning services.

Q3. What Services Are Being Provided by the Clean Group?

The service of the Clean Group consists of mopping, vacuuming, cleaning desks, window washing, pressure washing, upholstery cleaning, bathroom, and toilet cleaning, rubbish removal, etc.

we can also customize our services as per your space as in some premises delicate and valuable assets might be placed on that there might be a chance of getting it broken or harmed it in any way. Thus we can manage our services accordingly.

Conclusion

From the above-discussed part, you get to know about the difference between residential and commercial cleaning. The major difference between them is that residential places sort with the limited area which is needed to get clean whereas commercial areas are the bigger ones which cannot be cleaned by an unskilled individual without any tools and equipment.

Business properties generally need a cleaning service provider who on a regular basis cleans the premises. Residential cleaning is simple to execute and is less costly due to its limited size and objects placed while commercial cleaning is hard to execute and often complicated along with that the commercial places are more costly to get cleaned as compared to residential places.

A professional cleaning company provides cleaning for both residential and commercial. But residential owners think that there is no need to hire a professional for such small premises where there are fewer objects placed also they think that ordinarily no or few visitors or an outsider comes in their house so there are fewer germs and bacterias accumulated in such place and is the reason that less cleaning is needed. But you are wrong if you are the owner of the house and possess such thinking.

On this, our statement is that for a healthy lifestyle you are needed to clean your home effectively. You must need daily cleaning as germs and bacterias come from yourself and in your air.

Also when you clean it yourself then you cannot do it in an effective way. You might leave some space uncleaned, you do not have any cleaning equipment, and cannot clean at the height of your house.

Indeed you do not have any skills and knowledge of cleaning. From all these subjects your environment cannot get a quality cleaning and you a healthy lifestyle as needed.

Hence our suggestion is that you should opt for our high-quality cleaning methods which we can do in the given time which not only cleans your area but also makes your lifestyle prevent germs and bacterias.

It is a well-known fact that excluding the residential owners the commercial space people cannot survive without opting for a professional cleaning company. Commercial places wholly need cleaning and disinfecting because of various staff and employees working and walking around carrying germs and bacterias.

The infrastructure of the commercial place is bigger with compare to the residentials along with that there are multiple objects places in the premises such as computers, phones, chairs, tables, etc.

All these things require daily cleaning and disinfecting as people exchanges with the germs from the door handles, mouse, keyboard phones, floors which get affected from the shoes of the people carrying dust and bacterias.

The pantry and washroom areas are mostly required for cleaning in the commercial places as it gets affected by the people who use the objects like taps, doors of the fridge, etc. inside these places.

Hence a rich cleaning with quality is needed for such space so as to prevent people from getting irritated from the unhygienic environment, dust, germs, viruses and makes their life safe and happy inside their office.