CLEANING AUDITS
Cleaning Audits are a major contribution to ensuring that your clients and end users are satisfied with the service you are providing.
WHY IS CLIENT AND END USER SATISFACTION AND CONFIDENCE IMPORTANT?
In addition to the moral obligation companies are under to perform to the agreed specification, there are also economic considerations to be taken into account.
REPEAT CUSTOMERS
Satisfied customers are likely to purchase from you again. One Easy way of knowing this is through customer satisfaction surveys. Ask them to rate their satisfaction levels on a scale of 1 to 10. WINNS operates a system where anything below 8/10 is unsatisfactory and in additIon we closely monitor the NPS.
COMPETITION DIFFERENTIATOR
Customer satisfaction is the key to making or breaking brands. No amount of marketing campaigns and promotions will help you if your customers are not satisfied.
REDUCE CUSTOMER CHURN
Pricing is surprisingly not the main reason for customer churn, it is customer satisfaction. Continuous tracking of customer feedback ensures that your company stays on track with customer satisfaction. WINNS seeks client feedback on a monthly basis to ensure issues are addressed as quickly as possible.
DECREASE NEGATIVE WORD OF MOUTH
Research suggests that an unhappy customer will tell about their experience to anywhere between 9-15 people, that is a lot of negative press, which has the potential to directly impact your business revenue and brand reputation.
RETAINING CUSTOMERS IS COST-EFFECTIVE
The cost to acquire new customers is 6-7 times more than retaining your current customers. This puts into perspective how vital customer satisfaction is. Rather than spending huge amounts of money on acquiring new customers, spend a fraction of it on improving your existing processes and systems to retain customers. This will go a long way in saving costs and growing your business revenue.
TOP FIVE KEY BENEFITS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
CUSTOMER LOYALTY
When your customers are satisfied, they believe in the brand and become loyal. These loyal customers give brands repeat business and form a major part of the revenue.
SUPPORT PILLARS
Satisfied customers are more likely to stand by in times of crisis; they care for the brand and want to see it thrive.
SALES REVENUE
Brands focussing on customer satisfaction actively have healthy sales revenue. They do not lose old customers and have a steady revenue stream from repeat business.
BOOST BRAND REPUTATION AND POPULARITY
Customer satisfaction impacts brand reputation and popularity.
REDUCE MARKETING EXPENSES
Satisfied customers are your biggest advocates. Their positive word-of-mouth lends your brand credibility, popularity, and helps acquire new customers. This saves brands a lot of money that they would spend on marketing and promotional campaigns to acquire new customers.
A cleaning audit should be conducted to verify if the environment is cleaned to the agreed specification.
THE BENEFITS OF CONDUCTING A CLEANING AUDIT INCLUDE:
- Verify that areas are being cleaned to agreed standards
- Highlight any service issues
- Compile reporting data for management analysis
- Highlight areas for re-training
- Increase the responsibility of the cleaning teams
- Ensure client and end user satisfaction and confidence
- Experience less employee absences from workplace illness
STEPS TO CONDUCT A CLEANING AUDIT
DEFINE GOALS OF THE AUDIT - KPIs AND SLAs
Before an audit is undertaken you will need to agree KPIs and SLAs against which standards are to be measured. Conducting a cleaning audit without defining the result, procedure, consequences, etc. can cause team members frustration rather than motivation.
AGREE A TRACKING AND MEASUREMENT TOOL
WINNS use IAuditor for their audits as it allows for results to be immediately transferred to the client and have a time and GPS stamp for authentication.
CONDUCT CLEANING AUDIT IDENTIFYING ANY SERVICE DELIVERY FAILURES
The audit system should allow for the taking of pictures to provide examples/evidence of cleaning levels and service delivery failures. These failures should be reported to the client and accompanied by an Action Plan that details how failures will be rectified, i.e., re-training, equipment, chemicals.
FORWARD A COPY OF CLEANING AUDIT RESULTS TO THE CLIENT
A copy of the Audit should be emailed directly to the client or their representatives following an audit. The results of the Audit should be discussed at the Monthly Client Meeting and rectification of service failure discussed.
RE-TRAIN OPERATIVES IF NECESSARY BASED ON RESULTS
Most service delivery failures can be addressed through re-training. It is easy for operatives to get into bad habits or forget the correct procedures for addressing their work, especially if they work on their own.
SERVICE DELIVERY FAILURES TO BE DISCUSSED AT BOARD LEVEL TO MINIMISE FUTURE DELIVERY FAILURES
All failures should be cascaded to the Board for consideration of alternative methods to ensure there is no repeat.