Quality Carpet and Furniture Cleaning: Why high standards matter

"Good" is the enemy of the Best

One of my early objectives of the re-launch of ServiceMaster of HRM Commercial is to be certified as a ServiceMaster Clean QC2 business; a Quality Commercial Care specialist. As a growing small business this is a big undertaking with extensive training, systems assessments, quality audits and eventual Green Belt certification in 6 Sigma, our company's international quality standard. Why? Because meaningful standards matter.

A large number of our clients are ISO registered, many others are involved in global trade and service that requires them to provide assurance of rigorous quality. Caring about you, our customers, requires us to think with your needs and goals in mind and align our resources to give you what is promised. EVERY TIME. To help our clients succeed, we aspire to meet and exceed those standards. This is what excites me about coming to Halifax with this business model.


State of the Carpet Cleaning Industry in Halifax

The Good carpet cleaners in the Region cut their teeth on residential carpet cleaning and are more "at home" there. The soil issues, moisture problems, job scope and carpet construction are completely different. The truck-mounted equipment that excels in homes for deep cleaning aren't particularly useful in an office tower and are overkill for maintenance cleaning. These providers may have a lot of experience and quality systems addressing the needs of "A" class office space but it is their sideline.

The Bad carpet cleaners for consistency are the janitorial providers in your building. In nearly a dozen years of working with clients I have observed the struggles of janitorial providers keeping good staff and training them to take care of the basics, let alone manage the client needs of specialty cleaning. Part of this is your fault folks; paying minimum wage is at the heart of the problem and in our society we don't value janitors.

The Ugly carpet cleaners are the one's who want to learn on your job. There are a lot of hopeful entrepreneurs who enter the carpet cleaning business every year. Check last year's yellow pages compared to this year. The equipment costs aren't that high and for "in-and-out" cleaners learning on the job isn't hard--unless you are the client. "Good enough" gradually improves with practice.

There are no other "commercial only" specialty cleaning businesses in Halifax. ServiceMaster started segmenting markets with dedicated franchises 30 years ago. In Canada there are now Commercial Specialty Cleaning businesses in every major market. Quality is easier to manage when you have a clear client focus and know that market. That is what the QC2 program is all about.

Our value propostion as a commercial specialty cleaning firm is to provide best-in-class operational excellence without compromise. Aside from the core values of ServiceMaster that guide our business, the actionable principles give us the transparency to serve with integrity, professionalism and fun!

We are able to focus EXCLUSIVELY on the unique needs of commercial leasehold tenants and owner-occupiers. We are not a "division of" a Restoration business, a residential carpet cleaner or a janitorial provider. Our clients do not have to address our services through a property manager like a janitorial firm, or through and insurance adjuster like a restoration firm, or a "in-and-out" technician whose mindset of a care is a lowest price residential cleaning.

Over the next few months I will be updating on progress as we make our way to QC2 certification so that we can serve you better.