Customer Service for Cleaners

LearningGuide

Customer service for cleaners

28356 Demonstrate knowledge of customer service
in the cleaning industry / Level 2 / 2 credits
Name:
Workplace:

Introduction

Customers

Customer service

Good customer service

Personal presentation and hygiene

Communicating with customers

Keeping people safe

Maintaining confidentiality

Cleaning instructions

Cleaning schedule

Customer service for cleaners(US 28356) Learning Guide © Careerforce – Issue 1.0| April 2015

Introduction

This learning guide is about providing customer service as a cleaner.

How to use your learning guide

This guide supports your learning and prepares you for the unit standard assessment.

This guide relates to this unit standard for cleaning at level 2:

28356 Demonstrate knowledge of customer service in the cleaning industry (2 credits).

This guide is yours to keep. Make it your own by writing notes that help you remember things, or where you need to find more information.

Follow the tips in the notes column.

You may use highlighter pens to show important information and ideas, and think about how this information applies to your work.

You might find it helpful to talk to your colleagues or supervisor.

Complete this learning guide before you start the assessment.

What you will learn

This guide will help you to:

understand your customers and their needs.
provide good customer service.

Customers

For you as a cleaner, a customer is anyone who uses the facilities you clean. You and your work makea difference to cleanliness and hygiene for people working in, living in or visiting the place you clean. It also makes a difference to other staff members and even to you.

An office

There are different types of customers.

Contract customers are the people in the organisation which contracts your cleaning company to clean their facilities. This includes office workers, shop staff, and residents and carers in rest homes.

Third party customers are people who use the facilities you clean, such as visitors or customers.

Internal customers are the people within your cleaning company. They use the facilities and they benefit from the cleaning that you do. They may be fellow workers.

Write

Who are your customers?

Give an example of a contract customer.

Give an example of a third party customer.

Give an example of an internal customer.

What do your customers expect of your work? Talk to a fellow cleaner about this.

Customer service

Customer service means taking action to meet customer needs and customer expectations and what the customer expects. It is about caring for your customers.

Think about when you are a customer and you go into a shop to buy something. You expect to leave with what you came for and you expect polite, friendly, helpful service from the shop assistants you deal with.

Depending upon the situation, you may have other expectations.

For example, you expect fast service from a food drive-through but you may expect to have to wait in a queue at a food court in a mall.You expect a food place to be hygienic, the people serving your food to be clean and tidy, and the food to be hot – unless it is an ice cream parlour.

Some cleaners may have their customers present as they work and may have to work around these people and their routines. An example would be a residential care facility or a hospital, or when cleaning a shopping mall during opening hours.

As a cleaner you may be concerned about disturbing people as you clean, perhaps by the noise of machines.Cleaning should be completed with minimum disruption to people who are there.

Some cleaners know that their customers exist but they may not see them, especially if they are cleaning a building out of work hours.

Good customer service

Good customer service keeps customers as it keeps customers happy. Happy customers will renew their cleaning contract with your cleaning company.

Reputation spreads by word of mouth. Satisfied customers talk about your cleaning organisation to other people. This may bring in new and more work.

Good customer service also gets customers. The work that you and your cleaning company do is visible to others, especially in a building that the public uses. This good work may result in new cleaning contracts.

Poor customer service is equally powerful, with bad news spreading faster than good news. Poor customer service can mean lost contracts, contracts which are not renewed, a poor reputation, a loss of business and a loss of profits.

You have a role to play in customer service, not only with how well you clean, but being presented tidily, communicating positively with your customers, keeping people safe and maintaining confidentiality.

Personal presentation and hygiene

Being clean and tidy at work is important as this can affect health and safety. You are responsible for the health of yourself and other people.

You may be provided with a uniform and this and the clothes you wear must be clean and in good order (not ripped or stained).

Even if you don’t often see your customers, it is important that whenever you are seen at work or you are on your way to work that you give a good impression.

Looking smart in a clean uniform shows that you understand the importance of cleanliness. Remember you are representing your employer and how you look reflects on them.

If you have a name badge, wear it.

Attention to personal hygiene in the workplace reduces the spread of germs and disease.

Our bodies have over two million sweat glands and these can produce a lot of sweat each day, especially if we are hot. Sweating can cause bad or offensive smells as bacteria may be present on the skin, creating odour.

There are lots of things we can do to keep ourselves clean, including:

using deodorant or antiperspirant each day.
bathing/showering regularly (including washing your hair).
keeping your hair tidy, brushed and tied up or out of the way.
cleaning your teeth.
having clean and trimmed nails.
washing hands regularly.
wearing clean clothes.

Protect yourself by wearing personal protective equipment (PPE). You may have to wear different equipment each time you clean, depending on the situation.

/ Be well presented

Communicating with customers

You may need to communicate with people in the building, your workmates or your supervisor.

Usually your supervisor will be the person who communicates with the people who contract the cleaning services.

/ Communicating
Your supervisor will tell you who
youcommunicate with in your workplace.

You could communicate:

face-to-face and through meetings.
over the phone, by email or text.
by writing messages in a day book.
by using signs to inform people about the cleaning. For example, using a white board in the toilet which gives the time it was cleaned.

Be polite to other people even if they interrupt/distract you. You may have to politely tell people that you cannot stop and chat and that you have to keep moving as you have work to be done by a certain time.

Keep a positive attitude while at work by:

greeting others in a friendly manner (smile).
having a positive mind set.
assisting and helping others.

Respond to requests positively, as long as these are things you do as part of your job. Remember you should only do those things that are in your job description.

You have responsibility to clean according to the cleaning instructions or cleaning schedule. There are limitations on what else you can do.

It can be difficult when you get a request to do something from a person in the building that is outside the boundaries of what you usually do in your work role. Explain that you are unable to help with this as it is not part of your job, and who they should contact to assist them.

Keeping people safe

You may be working in a place where there are people all around you. It is important to keep people safe and informed.

If people are in an area that you have to clean, you can handle this in several ways:

go to another area to clean and come back later.
work around them if possible.
close their doors, before vacuuming outside of their offices.

Make sure you work in a way that keeps the environment safe for people.

To warn other people about your work, put out a warning sign, cordon or barrier. Check that the sign is clean and easy to read.

Make sure that you put it in a place where people can read it and where it will not cause a hazard.

/ Warning sign

Some of the places you work may be very busy places. Focus on your work and avoid getting distracted by other things happening, like noise and activity around you. Being distracted is a safety issue and can be dangerous and may impact on the work you are doing.

Maintaining confidentiality

You may hear or see personal and medical information about people.

It is important to keep someone’s private information safe. You must never repeat any information about another person you hear or see at work to anyone else.

If you see anything with confidential on it while you are cleaning an office or desk, do not read it.

Write

Write down three examples of good customer service you can provide.

Cleaning instructions

Before you start to clean, you need to confirm the cleaning instructions. When you confirm instructions you need to get up-to-date instructions for that job and make sure that you understand them correctly.

You may get instructions from the customer or from your supervisor.

The instructions will include the following.

A list of the areas to be cleaned. There may also be a list of areas that you are asked notto clean.
Types of cleaning to be done, for example, vacuuming, damp wiping, cleaning hand basins and toilets and so on.
Hours of work.
A schedule of work: this is a list of cleaning tasks to be done. It may show the order in which the tasks should be done. You may get a daily or weekly schedule.
Timeframes: how long each task should take.

The customer may have special requirements for cleaning. For example, polishing hand rails, cleaning glass windows in offices.

Before you start to clean, you need to find out if there are any special conditions.

You may get instructions on special conditions from the client or from your supervisor. Special conditions may include any of the following.

Specialised equipment that is to be cleaned. This may include telephones, computers, or other office equipment.
Security arrangements. This includes how to enter and exit the building and how to turn off and set security alarms.
Supervision. If you have supervision, someone will come and check your work to make sure that it is up to the correct standard.
Operation of premises during cleaning. The supervisor will tell you if people will be working while you are cleaning. There may be special instructions on areas that you must not enter or must not clean.

If you get a request to do something from a person in the building that is not what you usually do, explain that you are unable to help with this as it is not part of your job. You should let your supervisor know about such requests.

Cleaning schedule

A cleaning schedule is an agreement between the customer and your employer about all the different cleaning jobs to be done.The cleaning schedule will set out your job.

A cleaning schedule includes the following information.

Whereto clean and all the different areas that are to be cleaned. For example, toilets, hallways, offices.
What to clean: all the different cleaning tasks that need to be done in each area. For example, in the toilets: clean toilets, urinals, basins, mop floors.
When each of the cleaning tasks must be done. This is sometimes called the frequency and it could be daily, weekly, as required, or every 2 hours.
How each cleaning task must be done. This includes the instructions. Not all cleaning schedules will include detailed instructions.

For example, to clean basins:

using a crème cleaner, clean the inside of the hand basin.
clean around the bottom of the taps with the crème cleaner.
rinse the hand basin to remove the cleaner.
with a damp cloth wipe the taps, exterior surfaces, pipes under the basin and the vanity unit.
with a dry cloth dry the taps, exterior surfaces, pipes under the basin and the vanity unit.

Cleaning schedule for the Smith Building

Area / Frequency
Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat
Outside entrance:
Sweep entrance
Take out rubbish / 

Reception
Dust reception desk
Mop floors
Vacuum carpet
Remove rubbish / 


 / 


 / 


 / 


 / 



Polish floor with floor scrubber /  / 
Vacuum visitors chairs / 
Stairways:
Sweep stairs
Wipe handrails / 
 / 
 / 
 / 
 / 

Mop stairs / 
Offices:
Vacuum carpet
Remove rubbish / 
 / 
 / 
 / 
 / 

Wipe desks
Clean phones / 

Toilets:
Clean urinals
Clean toilets
Clean basins and taps
Clean door handles
Mop floors / 



 / 



 / 



 / 



 / 




Polish floors with floor scrubber /  /  / 
Office kitchen:
Sweep and mop floors
Wipe bench and sink
Wipe table / 

 / 

 / 

 / 

 / 


Polish floors with floor scrubber /  / 
Clean inside and outside of fridge / 

How to read a cleaning schedule

The top rows of the table give the headings.

Area / Frequency
Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat
Reception
Dust reception desk
Mop floors
Vacuum carpet
Remove rubbish / 


 / 


 / 


 / 


 / 



Polish floor with floor scrubber /  / 
Vacuum visitors chairs / 

To find the area you want, read down the column.

In this example, we are looking for ‘offices’.

Under the heading ‘offices’ read the list of cleaning tasks for this area.

Stairways:
Sweep stairs
Wipe handrails
Mop stairs
Offices:
Vacuum carpet
Remove rubbish
Wipe desks
Clean phones

To find out how often to do each cleaning task, read across each row.

Area / Frequency
Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat
Offices:
Vacuum carpet
Remove rubbish / 
 / 
 / 
 / 
 / 

Wipe desks
Clean phones / 


In this example, how often would the carpet in the offices have to be vacuumed?

Area / Frequency
Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat
Offices:
Vacuum carpet /  /  /  /  / 

Look for a tick  beside each day of the week. In the table above for example the carpet has to be vacuumed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (but not Saturday). The building isn’t cleaned on Sunday.

A note about days of the week: In some cleaning schedules, the days of the week will be written in abbreviation (in short form):

Full word / Abbreviation
Monday / Mon / M
Tuesday / Tue / T
Wednesday / Wed / W
Thursday / Thu / Th
Friday / Fri / F
Saturday / Sat / S
Sunday / Sun / S

Customer Service for Cleaners

Contents

Introduction

How to use your learning guide

What you will learn

Customers

Customer service

Good customer service

Personal presentation and hygiene

Communicating with customers

Keeping people safe

Maintaining confidentiality

Cleaning instructions

Cleaning schedule

Cleaning schedule for the Smith Building

How to read a cleaning schedule

To find the area you want, read down the column.