For business owners, the cleaning requirements of an office are little more than an invoice that comes in the mail once a month.
Yet truth be told, cleaners are the silent heroes of offices everywhere.
For Sydney-based family business Cleancorp, and the recent recipients of the Infusionsoft Small Business ICON award – a simple idea to retain existing clients has yielded impressive results.
Lisa Macqueen, Cleancorp co-owner and Director of Sales & Marketing, tells Dynamic Business that the company identified a definite disconnect between their clients and janitors.
“We created a campaign using send-out cards, personalised cards from the janitor, with the photo of the janitor on it, a little bit about him, and we found that when we put that in place, the response was phenomenal – because all of a sudden, they knew each other,” Macqueen says.
The company has found the greatest success in their marketing campaigns since implementing both an online and offline strategy.
“Because we’re a cleaning company people don’t really want to hear that much from us, and we didn’t want people opting out of our materials. Initially we just started sending out greeting cards saying thanks for having us onboard, and it started out as being just a card and some cookies. Then we’d send out cards for ‘temperature checks’ just to see how everything was going.
“At the same time, we stared to notice that as we were growing, we were also losing existing customers. So we decided to send cards to let them know who their cleaner is, showing him in his regular life with his kids and wife or whoever, and just say ‘hey I’m your cleaner and our paths may or not cross, but here’s a few things about me’.”
Macqueen says the feedback they have received has been very positive, and puts it down to the fact that the cards help to humanise the people doing the cleaning.
“It also breaks down stereotypes about cleaners not being smart, or that they’re cleaners because they can’t be anything else. The job itself misrepresents the people who do the job. But in our experience, the people who do the job are professionals, and they really care about the customers. It works so well because all of a sudden our customers were getting the respect and recognition they deserve.”
