Most importantly, you need to assure that the company of your choosing is insured and bonded. This is something that is not always asked yet is extremely important! The company being insured will assure you that if someone is hurt in your home it will be covered under workmen’s compensation and it will never affect your homeowners insurance. This could be someone’s worst nightmare in the event the employee has a permanent injury. They should also have liability insurance in case of a major damage to the home for instance, bleach on your carpet and or a gauge on your wood floor. Bonding assures no one in your home has a criminal or theft record.
Other than assuring the company is properly insured, you should question what products are used during the cleaning. You want to be sure that the products being used in your home not only clean but they also disinfect especially in areas like your kitchen and bathrooms. Also what kind of equipment is used, for example what kind of mops are used and how are they disinfected. You also want to ensure that the service you have hired has new cloths and mops for each stop that way nothing is cross contaminated between homes.
All companies have an hourly rate that they use to estimate their jobs. Whether they choose to be honest about it or not, what is important for you to know is how long they are allowing themselves to do this job, how many individuals they will be sending and how long will it take. Think about it this way, how long would it take you to clean your home the way you would like it? Especially if you are paying someone else to do it for you. Be realistic when accessing the time, is the service giving themselves enough time to do a thorough job? Just as an example, how long would it take you to do your kitchen thoroughly including the tops of the kitchen cabinets, stop top burners, hood filter, moving the refrigerator, cabinet fronts, cleaning & moving everything on your counter and cleaning it as you put it back. If the service tells you that this will take 2 people 2-3 hours, do you think you are getting a thorough cleaning?
Most of us have an expectation of perfection when hiring someone to do something in our home. If it is not meeting or exceeding your expectations we often feel like, I will save the money and do it myself. The service should be better and more efficient than what you’re capable of doing yourself so that it is worth it.