Does your janitorial survey ask the right questions in the right way? If not, you could be missing valuable information about your work.

Your best source of new revenue is from the clients you already have. There are plenty of ways to keep those clients on your roster, but one very simple and constructive way is through a janitorial survey. They give your clients the opportunity to evaluate your business and help you make it better.

But you can’t just make up four or five random questions and send it out. If you want your janitorial survey to do what it’s supposed to, you need to put a little effort into asking the right questions – and asking them in the right way.

As an example, you’ve probably seen those “surveys” on social media that go something like: “Does pineapple belong on pizza? A) No way B) That’s disgusting C) What kind of monster would do that?” Clearly, the survey writer doesn’t like pineapple on pizza and is just having some fun. It’s not uncommon, however, for more serious surveys to ask questions and provide answer options that follow this same track. Here’s what one of those might look like in the commercial cleaning industry:

“Are you satisfied with your cleaning services? A) Yes B) Yes, but I’d like more frequent appointments. C) I don’t need all the services you offer.

On the surface, this seems like a fair question-and-answer combination. The problem is that the answers don’t directly address the question, except for A) Yes. There’s no space for someone to say they’re mostly satisfied, or perhaps they’re not satisfied at all.

So let’s look at some questions and approaches that will make your janitorial survey a powerful tool for customer retention.

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How to write a janitorial survey that works

Before we get into the questions, here are a few rules of thumb for surveys:

Make it easy by providing multiple choice answers with additional space for comments.
Try to avoid yes or no answers. Yes or no answers are sometimes necessary. However, a range of 1-5 or 1-4 can give you much more detailed information. As an example, Is this helpful? Yes/No vs. On a scale of 1-5, how helpful is this? 1 2 3 4 5. If you don’t want to use numbers, some people offer options like Poor, Fair, Average, Good, Great. The concept is still the same.
Keep it short. You can get a lot of information from your clients in less than ten questions. Depending on your goal, you may only need a few.
Make it anonymous, so your clients feel free to answer truthfully.
Don’t overdo it. You can check-in with new clients after a few weeks on the job, but otherwise, limit your janitorial survey to two or three times per year.
If you have trouble getting responses, offer an incentive, such as entrance into a raffle for a free add-on service for a month. This would, of course, negate the anonymity, but if it helps you get more responses, it could be worth the trade-off.

So what questions should you ask? Here are 5 questions you can ask on a general janitorial survey.

How satisfied are you with your overall janitorial services?
How professional is our janitorial team while on your premises?
How satisfied are you with the communication from our business?
How satisfied are you in being able to reach our team with questions or concerns?
How likely are you to recommend our janitorial services?

You could also go in-depth with a janitorial survey if you wanted more specific information. Here’s an example of what that might look like regarding a complaint or request from a customer about a change in products or services.

Overall, how satisfied are you with the outcome of your recent request?
How well did our team respond to your communication?
How well does the new product/service meet your needs?
Were we able to implement these changes in a timely manner? (This is a question where you may need to switch from a scale to a yes/no/somewhat answer format.)

There’s one last question that should be on every survey you send out:

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Set this up to be a short answer response. You want people to have the opportunity to write anything they need to tell you. And again, keep your surveys short. You’re more likely to get responses that way, and you can always follow up with your clients if you need more information.

How to set up your survey

There are more than a few online survey offerings available, some of which have incredibly helpful data collection options. In many cases, though, you’re probably fine using Google Forms. They aren’t fancy, by any stretch, but they are user-friendly both for the survey creator and the recipient.

We’d also recommend emailing these to your clients. You can add surveys to your website, too, as some cleaning services do. However, the goal is to make this as effortless as possible for your clients. When you email the survey directly to them, all they need to do is click the link.

Remember, even a seemingly simple survey can provide you with valuable information that can help you turn your commercial cleaning business into a successful, profitable endeavor.

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