7th July 2022
“I’ve always been very proud of the high quality of our cleaning services, which has resulted in very high client retention rates and growth through word of mouth” said Caroline. “Like many service providers, our business was almost brought to a halt when the COVID pandemic first hit and, if it hadn’t been for the Furlough scheme, we may not have survived. Coming out of the pandemic, we decided we needed to grow faster to achieve a scale that would help us survive future economic shocks. We realised we needed to do this by focusing on the source of our past success, which has been about treating our staff really well” she explained.
“Since my early career working for airlines and marketing agencies, I’ve understood the link between happy and motivated staff and high levels of service. And I’ve tried to bring this philosophy to Betterclean and the way we manage our teams” said Caroline. “But, to achieve the scale we needed after the pandemic and in the face of chronic staff shortages in front-line service sectors, we realised we needed to redouble our efforts as a good employer.”
“But, above all, we’ve really focused on good management of our teams” Caroline explained. “I spend much of my time talking to our managers about what our staff need from us. The topics are wide and varied, ranging from making sure we approve holiday requests quickly to giving additional time off to deal with personal crises, to helping people find housing or counselling resources. In addition to being supportive, we aim to be very clear about what we expect of people in their roles and we try to deal very quickly and fairly with any underperformance or disciplinary issues.”
“We have won many new contracts this year as a result of other cleaning companies struggling to deliver service in the face of staff shortages and recruitment difficulties. This has led to high rates of referral from new clients who have been so pleased we’ve been able to bring their cleaning services back to good standards that they have been spreading the word” Caroline explained. "I see word of mouth marketing as a key success metric for the business and over the last 9 months about 80% of new business has come via referral” she added.
“I’ve got such a great team in place that I’m confident we can grow. I’d rather continue to put my time and money into our staff, over other costs like marketing and sales, because this creates the solid foundation we need for our rapid growth. I also need that growth to continue providing career development opportunities for the staff that want them.”
30th June 2022
Saira Poonawala, the franchise owner at Betterclean Services Manchester, has been busy with charity events.
24th May 2022
Rick Jefferson took on the contract of the Fulford School cleaners at short notice and all the cleaners’ jobs have been transferred over to Betterclean Services York.
18th October 2021
Saira the Franchise Owner of Betterclean Services Manchester discusses her last quarter
Over the past 2 years, I have doubled the revenue and far exceeded the growth and income targets I had set myself. Betterclean provides franchisees with robust operating systems and procedures, that have allowed me to focus my energies on building a staff team that I am proud of, on developing strong client relationships, and on delivering a service that differentiates from other cleaning services.Caroline Spiller, Director of Betterclean Services Exeter & Taunton
The support and mentorship I’ve received from the Betterclean team have been invaluable, in terms of filling gaps in my knowledge, but also giving me the confidence to grow my business to a highly profitable £400+k turnover in 4 years.Caroline Spiller, Director of Betterclean Services Exeter & Taunton
Having taken over a Betterclean franchise 10 days before the country went into the first COVID lockdown, you can imagine the challenges I was facing. I’m delighted to say that Dan, Mike, Abi and the team were great in supporting us through those critical first few weeks and months, and they showed the sort of flexibility you’d hope for when priorities were changing on a rapid basis.Richard Jefferson, Director of Betterclean Services York/Harrogate
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