Is It Time to Re-Evaluate Your Current Commercial Cleaning Company? (Clear Signs + Examples)

March 13th, 2025 | 12 min. read

Look, we all fall into this trap, right? You sign up with a vendor (in your case a commercial cleaning company), and you just keep going. You stick with them year after year; not because everything’s perfect, but because, well… it’s easier to just leave it. You don’t really think about it.

It’s the same thing we do with our home insurance, or our mortgage, or our phone plan. We take it out, we set it up, and then we never go back and re-evaluate. It just becomes something that sits in the background. Your cleaner's no different, but that approach can come back to bite you.

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Let me tell you a story to show you want I mean.

There was this client we’d been speaking to just before COVID hit. Now, they’d had the same cleaning company for 14 years, and the managing director knew things weren’t right. He said to me:

“We’ve had some issues, but I don’t want to upset the apple cart. It took us ages to find this company. I’d rather stay with the devil we know than the devil we don’t.”

That’s the exact phrase he used. They were hesitant, didn’t want the hassle of change.

But Then April 2020 Hit. COVID.

Suddenly, they needed proper disinfection. They needed to know that their cleaning provider could step up. But the company they’d stuck with for 14 years? Couldn’t do it. They just weren’t equipped. And do you know what they did? One Saturday, they packed up their gear, pulled it off site, and sent the client an email saying:

“Thanks for having us, but we’re no longer your cleaner.”

Just like that.

No phone call. No warning.

Their commercial cleaner had abandoned them when they needed them most.

Now, lucky for this client, we’d already been having conversations. So they called us in, and we stepped in. But it never should’ve gotten to that point. That’s why I say to every business I talk to—it’s not about being disloyal. It’s about being proactive. Regularly evaluating your cleaning company isn’t about nitpicking. It’s about making sure the partner you chose five years ago is still the partner you need today.

Because your business has probably changed. Your needs have evolved. Maybe your ESG requirements are stricter now. Maybe you’ve got a new waste stream system. Maybe you’re dealing with psychosocial hazards you weren’t even aware of a few years back.

Can your commercial cleaner still keep up? That’s what this article is about. Whether you’re seeing big red flags or just have that gut feeling something’s off, I’m going to walk you through the signs that it might be time to reassess your provider, and how to figure out what’s really going on before something breaks.

Often Commercial Cleaner Red Flags Show They're Not Equipped to Deal with Change

Most of the time, businesses don’t just suddenly decide to change their cleaner. Something’s been niggling at them for a while. You’ve had that gut feeling things aren’t right, but you haven’t acted on it yet. Maybe it feels like too much hassle, or maybe you’re just not sure what you’re looking for.

But here’s the problem. The red flags you want to look for aren’t always missed bins or streaky floors. Sometimes they show up in the moments where your cleaner just isn’t equipped to deal with what’s happening in the real world. That’s when you really see what they’re made of.

Here's another example from the early days of COVID that may shock you. One of my main suppliers told me he had over a hundred cleaning companies come to him asking how to disinfect. That’s not a small thing. That’s a massive red flag. If your cleaning company doesn’t already know how to disinfect your site—especially during a pandemic—then what are they doing on your site at all?

That tells you everything. In moments like that, your cleaning partner should already know what to do. They should be walking into your office saying, “Here’s what we’re putting in place. Here’s what’s changing. Here’s how we’ll keep your site safe.” You should be able to rest easy knowing they’ve got it under control.

Instead, these companies were caught completely unprepared. They hadn’t trained their staff. They didn’t know the difference between a sanitiser and a disinfectant. They didn’t understand dwell time. They didn’t have systems. They didn’t have procedures.

And the result? Hundreds of businesses were left exposed at the worst possible time. So when I talk about red flags, this is what I mean. Not just “Is the job getting done?” but “Is this company capable of handling the real-world pressure when it shows up?”

What Do You Look for When It's Only Your Gut Telling You Something Is Off?

You know those days where you walk into your office and something just feels... off?

We’re talking about cleaning here. And you can’t quite put your finger on it. The place looks clean, but it doesn’t feel clean. You walk into the lunchroom and, yeah, it’s been done, but not properly. The toilets look alright, but they’re just not right. The office area? Same thing. It’s like everything’s technically been done, but something’s still not sitting well.

In those moments, what do you look for? What are the signs that your cleaner might be cutting corners, even if nothing obvious is jumping out? These are the same things I look for when we’re doing our own audits, and the same things I teach our team to check.

Here’s what you want to walk around and look at.

Start with the lunchroom. Go to the kitchen sink. If the bottom of the sink is brown, if the drain hole’s brown, it hasn’t been cleaned. Open up the dishwasher. Look along the sides—where people stack their coffee cups and water splashes up the sides. If that’s dirty, no one’s cleaned it properly.
Head to the bathrooms. Look behind the toilet bowl. Look underneath the seat. Look at the front of the urinals. Are the vents in the ceiling covered in dust? These are small details, but they’re the giveaways.
Move into the office. Are the bins being changed as often as they need to be? Are the desks being wiped behind the computers? Are the window sills being dusted? Are the edges and corners of the carpet being vacuumed?

These are the things that tell you whether the job’s really being done—or whether someone’s just giving it a once-over and moving on. Now look, I’m not asking you to be unreasonable. I’m not talking about nitpicking. I’m talking about the basics, the stuff you’re paying your cleaning company to do. The stuff you expect to be done.

And if you start walking around and spotting a few of these things? That gut feeling you’ve had?

It’s probably spot on.

Cleaning Has Changed a Lot. Can Your Cleaner Keep Up? (Here's How to Tell)

Start by asking yourself one simple question: Is your team still happy?

That’s always a good gut check. Are people complaining about the bathrooms? Are they constantly raising little issues that never really get resolved? Sometimes the problem isn’t that your cleaner’s doing something wrong—it’s that your business has evolved and they haven’t kept up.

That’s the part most people forget to look at. Today’s cleaning needs aren’t what they were five years ago. It’s not just about showing up with a mop anymore. We’ve got new workplace standards, new compliance expectations, new environmental goals.

We’re talking about ESG—Environmental, Social, Governance.
We’re talking about psychosocial hazards.
We’re talking about separating waste streams properly.

And if your cleaning company doesn’t understand those things—or worse, they’ve never even heard of them—that’s your answer right there. For example, just implementing a basic waste separation system in an office these days? You’d be shocked how many cleaning companies either can’t or won’t do it.

Why? Because it takes proper training. You’ve got to show your cleaners what goes where, how to do it right, and why it matters. Same thing with psychosocial hazards. There are 12 of them. It’s not just a buzzword, it’s a responsibility. And if your cleaner doesn’t know what that is, they’re already behind.

With that in mind, as your current cleaner these questions:

Do you know what ESG stands for?
Do you train your cleaners on psychosocial hazards?
Can you support a proper waste stream system?
Do your cleaners understand which chemicals and solutions to use where, and when?

Don’t be surprised if the answer’s no to any of your questions. Because I can tell you now, the majority of cleaning companies out there will hear “ESG” and say, “Yeah, environmental sustainability goals”—which is wrong. It’s Environmental, Social, and Governance.

So, if your provider stumbles on these questions or gives you blank stares, then I’d say it’s probably time to start looking for a modern cleaning company. One that’s set up to meet the real-world expectations of today, not just the ones from 10 years ago.

If Your Business Is Growing, Can Your Commercial Cleaner Grow with You?

This is a question I’ve had from a lot of clients over the years—and to be honest, it usually comes up at the point where a business is expanding. They’re opening new locations, maybe even across states, and they start wondering:

“Wouldn’t it be easier if we just had one cleaning company handle everything?”

I get the thinking. On paper, it sounds simple: one contract, one point of contact, one company across all your sites. But I’ll be honest with you... nine times out of 10, it doesn’t work. It’s a red flag in disguise.

The second you hand over multiple sites (especially across different regions) you’re setting yourself up for problems unless you’re dealing with a massive company that can actually supervise those locations properly. And let me tell you what happens more often than not: you get sham contracting. That’s how most cleaning companies “solve” the problem. They subcontract it out and lose all control. That’s not a cleaning company managing your sites. That’s paperwork. That’s risk.

I had a client recently who was part of a chain of car dealerships. They were going to send out an RFQ for multiple locations across Australia, and they said to me, “We want one company to handle them all.” I told them straight up: “That’s actually what you don’t want.”

Let’s say I took that job. I’d have to get cleaners into the Brisbane dealership, the Sydney dealership, the Melbourne dealership. How am I supposed to supervise that? How do I make sure the standard’s the same? Something’s going to go wrong. That’s just reality.

What works is local. You want a cleaning company in Brisbane that handles your Brisbane sites. One in Sydney that handles Sydney. One in Melbourne for Melbourne. That’s how you keep supervision tight, and that’s how you keep standards consistent. Because the minute you try to centralise it all without the infrastructure to back it up, you’re not scaling your cleaning—you’re diluting it.

So if you’re growing, and you’re asking, “Can our cleaner grow with us?”—you need to dig deeper. Can they actually supervise those sites? Can they maintain the outcome you expect? Or are they going to scramble and subcontract it all out? If they can’t give you a clear answer on how they’ll maintain control as you gro, then no, they’re not the right fit anymore. And the worst time to figure that out is after you’ve already signed the contract.

If Your Cleaner Is No Longer the Right Fit, What's Next?

If you’ve hit the point where you know your cleaning company isn’t working anymore, here’s the truth—it’s probably not going to be a quick fix.

First, you need to stop and figure out why it’s not working. Is your scope of works up to date? Are the outcomes you’re expecting actually written down? Or are they just assumed? Because if there’s no clear definition of success, then no cleaning company—new or old—is going to hit the mark.

From there, ask yourself:

What do you actually want in a provider now?
What kind of support?
What systems?
What certifications?
What backup if something goes wrong?

Once you’ve got that clarity, then it’s time to start the RFQ process. But if you skip that step—if you just grab a few quotes and hope one of them’s better—you’re setting yourself up to land right back in the same spot six months from now.

So don’t just swap one cleaner for another. Reset. Rethink. Rebuild it properly from the ground up. That’s how you make the right change to the best-fit commercial cleaning partner for your organisation—the one that actually lasts.

If you're interested in learning more on how to choose the correct commercial cleaning partner for your organisation, you can download our guide, 10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Commercial Cleaning Company. Or you can contact us at any time with your questions, or to start a conversation about how we may be of service to you.