Local vs. National Janitorial Companies: Which Is Better?

When you’re looking for a janitorial company out of the 836,000 companies in the U.S., you’re going to come across two types: local and national.

There’s quite a debate between the two and which one is better. You want to make sure that you hire the best janitorial company that meets your needs. It’s not something that you want to leave to chance or assumptions.

How can you sift through the important information to choose the right janitorial company for you? Read on to discover the key differences between local and national janitorial companies.

What to Look for When Hiring a Janitorial Company

Before we dive into the debate as to whether or not a local or national janitorial company is better for our business, let’s review a few points to look for when deciding on a company to work with:

• Experience
• Licensing
• Hiring Standards
• Reliability
• Ability to get the job done.
• Professionalism
• Stable of Happy clients
• Costs

These are some of the things that you’ll need to take into account with hiring a janitorial services company.

Local vs. National Janitorial Companies

Let’s look at how local and national janitorial companies rate in each area. You might be surprised to learn the differences between the two.

Ability to Get the Job Done

Generally speaking, people will think that local janitorial companies are better than national ones because they tend to be a family-run company with local ties. While that may be true, local companies tend to be smaller companies. They have a small service area.

On the other hand, national janitorial companies have a larger footprint in terms of who they serve and where. Because they have a larger footprint, they will have more customers to manage. In order to be efficient, they have to have systems in place to manage those customers. They’ll have to be organized in order to serve all of their clients on schedule.

Costs

When janitorial services companies get cleaning supplies, some companies often get volume discounts. National companies are likely to qualify for great discounts because they have to purchase supplies for several locations.

Smaller, local companies won’t have that type of discount and have to keep the costs higher, where national companies often pass the cost savings on to the customer.

Standards in Hiring

National janitorial companies are likely to have an HR department to manage hiring. They are likely to have a documented hiring process and standards to ensure that every location sticks with the same standards.

Local companies may not have such standards. They may have higher turnover because of that, which could impact the quality of service that you receive.

Plus, they’re more likely to have opportunities for employees to advance within the company. That makes employees more inclined to stay and work for the company longer. At smaller companies, there really aren’t those types of growth opportunities.

Reliability

This is where having systems in place is critical for janitorial companies. Whether you’re working with a local company with a healthy stable of clients or a national company with a lot of clients spread across a wide territory, you want to make sure that your jobs don’t fall through the cracks.

With a local company, it can be hit or miss as to how they’re organized. Some companies may do everything on Excel or on paper. Other companies may invest in a scheduling and customer management program to help them with client management.

With national companies, you can be sure that they have a high-end system in place to help them manage a huge stable of clients, even those with multiple locations. You can be sure that your company won’t miss an appointment.

Professionalism

National companies rely on the strength of their brand and brand reputation to build business. They want to make sure that the brand experience is consistent across locations.

What that means for you is that you can expect your janitorial services company to show up looking professional in attire that carries the company’s branding. You’re also going t get the same type of service no matter where you are.

With local companies, they may not have those standards. It would really depend on the company that you work with.

Which Type of Company is Right For You?

There’s a growing trend where shoppers will choose a local company just because it’s local. It’s great to support local companies, but you may not realize that national companies hire people locally and contribute to the local community, too.

They also have more at stake because they have to keep clients happy across the country. A national janitorial company will be a great fit if you have a number of locations that need service across a wide area.

If you want a company that offers a wide array of services, a national company is a good fit. For example, a larger company can handle landscape management, pest control and more on top of janitorial services.

No matter which one you choose, you want to make sure that you have one dedicated person that you can go to for questions.

Local vs. National Janitorial Companies

When looking for a janitorial company, you really want a company that can get the job done. You’ll want to opt for a company that you can trust, that has a strong stable of reviews, and is sure to hire trustworthy employees.

National janitorial companies do a much better job at all of these things because they have the experience and they are likely to come across any situation. They also have systems in place for hiring and hold high standards for customer service.

If you’re ready to hire an experienced and reputable janitorial services company, contact us today.