All over the world, cleaning services will tell you why you should choose them. They will tell you that a cleaning service will make your life easier. You might hear that it will help you maintain a healthier home for your family. Or maybe they will say that a cleaning service will protect your investment in your home. All of these statements are true. And yet a cleaning service is not for everyone. Even if a cleaning service IS for you, Town & Country might NOT be the best fit for you…AND THAT IS OK! We would rather you be happy with your cleaning service, even if it means not working with us. There may be some valid reasons why you should not hire a cleaning service.
When you buy a car, for example, a car that works for you may not work for someone else. While the objective of getting from point A to point B is the same, they offer different features. I have a large family, with multiple young children in car seats and booster seats. The new, fully loaded, Toyota Camry that works perfectly in your situation would be an awful choice for me. I would have to leave half of my family at home to drive a Camry. Cleaning services aren’t all that different. They all offer different features. The objective of cleaning your home might be the same. But each cleaning company might do so differently. Let’s look at some situations where Town & Country might not be the best cleaning option.
Scheduling Flexibility
Town & Country Cleaning schedules our cleanings on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly (every 4 weeks) basis. You can count on being cleaned on, say, every other Tuesday. We can even get closer and say that you could count on being every Tuesday afternoon. However, many of our teams are cleaning anywhere from 3-6 houses a day. Because of this, we cannot guarantee that you will always be cleaned at 2 o clock sharp. Traffic happens. Some cleans may need a bit more attention. Parents get calls to pick up a sick child from school. Things happen. Life is messy. That is why we exist.
We understand that your life is just as crazy as ours. That being said, we simply cannot give you a precise arrival time every time. If it might upset your day that we come 15 minutes later than you expect, Town & Country might not be the best fit for you. Instead, you might want to look for a smaller cleaning company or a solo operator.
Specific Cleaning Needs
Town & Country Cleaning has a standard cleaning protocol we follow to clean a home. This ensures that you can expect consistent performance from any cleaning team sent by Town & Country. We can customize your service in a few different ways. We even have services that can be added as needed. However, we do have some things that we simply cannot do.
You may need a cleaner who can come into your home and tackle a To-Do List for you. Perhaps you need someone who can scrub the baseboards every visit. Or you need someone who can put away the children’s toys. The biggest help to you might be someone doing the laundry for you. This is NOT what Town & Country offers. Our schedules are too tight, and our rates might render some of these services cost-prohibitive. Other cleaning services may do these things. We don’t. What we do offer is a specific cleaning service. You might require a solo cleaner who has more availability in their schedule to allow them to do this.
Pricing
Town & Country Cleaning has adopted a standardized pricing scheme. This should allow us to offer estimates much more quickly. It will also allow more transparency in our pricing. We will be able to let you see exactly how much our service will cost right out of the gate.
We are NOT going to be the cheapest service around. If you need bottom tier pricing, we simply cannot offer that. We have to price higher to offer the quality of service, quality of staff, and peace of mind of insurance and workers’ comp coverage. All of these things cost money. To compromise on price would require us to compromise on these areas that we believe are important. Our entry-level employees are paid above the living wage for Chatham County. We have liability insurance to cover. All of our employees are eligible for virtual medical assistance through Healthiest You, at zero cost to them. Town & Country staff also receive paid vacation time. If we want professional cleaners, we must treat them like professionals.
We understand if you cannot afford the rates we offer. Other cleaning services may fit your budget. We might be able to point you in the right direction. While we cannot be the cheapest, we can offer more professionalism, more know-how, and more advanced cleaning methods than other cleaners.
Personality
The importance of knowing you can trust your cleaner cannot be understated. Town & Country runs an extensive background check on all incoming employees. We look at the criminal record, driving record, and sexual offenders record for every employee we hire. Our mission statement says that “we protect your health, your home, and your time”. It is critically important that your cleaners can be trusted.
However, although we try to ensure that you have the same cleaners every single visit, we cannot always do so. People get sick. People need a break. Many of our employees are parents or grandparents. Much as your life can be complicated, so can ours. Town & Country won’t fit your needs if your security or comfort level won’t allow you to have new faces show up to clean. We can ensure that we will offer a cleaning up to our standards with every person we send. While our policy is to send at least one person who has been to your home before, it is not always possible. We will notify you of any changes if they come up. This might not be enough in some situations. We understand fully and would advise you to look for a cleaner who can offer exactly what you need.
Last-Minute Changes
Over and over, a recurring theme in this has been that life is messy. That goes for you and us. We do understand that sometimes your regular cleaning date won’t work out. Town & Country does allow you to reschedule or cancel a cleaning if needed. We do ask for 48 hours notice, but we know that isn’t always possible. For some people, work schedules or other life circumstances might not allow for a consistent cleaning schedule. Every Thursday morning might not always be free for your cleaners to come. Your schedule may always change at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, ours cannot do the same.
Town & Country puts our clients on a fixed schedule for consistency. When we offer a Wednesday morning slot every two weeks, we aim to honor that commitment. Allowing everyone to change their schedule whenever they want does not allow us to offer that kind of scheduling consistency. We need to be able to keep our teams moving from home to home to allow us to pay them what they deserve. We cannot pay them to sit around for two hours waiting to go to another home that cannot be cleaned until the afternoon. Going back to our mission statement, we pledge to “protect your time”. In order to do that, we must be reasonable in how we handle scheduling changes.
Geography Challenges
Having a large service area makes this even more important. Town & Country currently offers cleaning in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Pittsboro, Durham, Siler City, and Jordan Lake area. For clients who live in outlying parts of our service area, we might only be in your area during certain days of the week.
Fluid Work Schedule
This kind of rigid structure doesn’t work for people who have more fluid work schedules. Some people work swing shifts and might need to sleep during the day sometimes. The days they need to sleep might change. Or maybe you travel a lot for work and don’t always know when you will be leaving and returning. If you feel you must be present at every clean, Town & Country might not be your best option.
So What Should I Do?
Having a cleaning service is supposed to take a weight off of you. It’s supposed to make life simpler. Our lives are all different. What works for your neighbor might not work for you. Town & Country would LOVE to be your cleaning service. But we also understand we are not the cleaning service for everyone. If you would like to find out if we are right for you, contact us today. We are happy to talk with you and see if we can serve you. If not, we might be able to point you in the direction of someone who can. We would much rather you be happy with another cleaner than to have you disappointed in us.