When you ask your cleaner to ‘just wipe down the surface’ what does that really mean to a cleaner and what exactly can you expect?
We can all be guilty of saying things with the presumption that others understand our vision and share our outlook. Claiming to only require a ‘quick wipe down’ is a great example of this.
Cleaners tackle many jobs and all require different amounts of elbow grease, chemicals, bruises and pulled muscles to complete to a good standard. So to a cleaner, a ‘quick wipe down’ means that the surface is generally clean, requires little energy and can be remedied with a swipe of a cloth – a quick wipe down.
However, a quick wipe down can mean something quite different to a homeowner and sometimes more accurately represents the amount they wish to pay, rather than the reality of the time required for the task.
For this reason cleaners tend to tread carefully when the term is used as many have fallen in to the trap of optimism on the part of the homeowner.
Here’s a quick guide to how a cleaner views it
A quick wipe down is something we’d expect to do on a surface that has been fairly well maintained. By this, we expect that the build-up of daily grime is no more than a few days of average use. Your cleaner will expect that whatever is on the surface will come away with little elbow grease, using few tools and chemicals.
It is rarely possible to quickly wipe down:
- scuffed, oily, greasy or dust caked skirting boards
- an oven or hob with cooked on residues
- fat spattered hobs and greasy cooker hoods
The art of managing expectations
A great relationship is based on both homeowner and cleaner knowing what to expect from one another. Cleaners are sometimes guilty of taking offence to the fact that homeowners are not usually meant to know how professional cleaning works. The lack of time afforded to the task can be viewed as a slight as the cleaner is rushed or forced to work beyond their hours because they don’t want to disappoint, usually resulting in them burning themselves out.
It is important to honestly represent the task to a cleaner and adapt the time and/or fee to reflect the request. This usually culminates in a happy result for the homeowner and cleaner.