Our Complaint Resolution Process: What Happens After You Tell Us

Every cleaning company will tell you they never make mistakes. That is nonsense, and anyone who has run a real contract knows it. We clean offices, care homes, dental practices and warehouses across Gloucestershire six and seven nights a week, and across thousands of cleans a year the odd thing slips. A bin gets missed on the third floor because someone locked the meeting room early. A new operative uses the wrong pad on a resin floor. A supervisor signs off a Friday clean that was clearly rushed. What separates a good contractor from a bad one is not whether problems happen. It is what happens in the twenty-four hours after you tell us about one.

This is exactly how we handle a complaint, from the moment you pick up the phone to the paperwork that closes it off. No vague promises about "valuing your feedback". Real steps, real timings, real names against actions.

Why we treat a complaint as data, not a disaster

A complaint is the single most useful thing a client can give us. It tells us precisely where our system leaked, on which night, on whose shift. When a facilities manager emails to say the kitchen bin liners were not changed on Tuesday, that is not an attack. It is a free audit of our process that we did not have to pay for.

We log every issue, however small, in the same place. Over a year that log becomes a map. If one site generates six complaints about the same washroom, the problem is almost never the cleaner. It is the schedule, the access, the stock levels or the specification. Treating complaints as isolated apologies means you fix the symptom and never the cause. Treating them as data means the same fault does not reach the next client. That mindset shapes every step below.

It also keeps us honest. A contractor who hides complaints looks flawless right up until the day the client walks. We would rather know, log it, and act, because a fault we can see is a fault we can fix.

Step one: how to reach us, and who actually picks up

You should never have to chase a cleaning company to complain. That is the first failure. So we keep the routes deliberately simple.

The point is that a complaint should take you thirty seconds to raise, not thirty minutes. If reporting a problem is hard work, most people give up and quietly go to a competitor instead. We would far rather you told us.

When you do get in touch, we ask for three things only: the site, the date or night in question, and what specifically was wrong. We do not make you fill in a form or justify yourself. The detail helps us go straight to the right shift and the right operative rather than guessing.

Step two: acknowledge fast, before we even have the answer

The mistake most contractors make is going silent while they investigate. From your side that silence looks like being ignored. So we split acknowledgement from resolution.

Every complaint gets a human reply the same working day, confirming we have it, who is now dealing with it, and when you will hear back with something concrete. That reply costs us five minutes and completely changes how the next two days feel for you. You are not left wondering whether the email vanished.

For anything that touches health and safety, security or compliance, that timeline compresses hard. A raised concern about a fire door propped open, a chemical stored wrong, or a missed clean in a care home cleaning environment where infection control matters, gets a call back within the hour and action that night. A missed bin in a back office is important, but it is not the same category, and we are honest about which is which.

Step three: the investigation, and what we actually check

An "investigation" sounds grand. In practice it is a disciplined look at four things, in order.

The record. We start with what our own system says happened. Sign-in and sign-out times, the completed task sheet for that night, any supervisor sign-off, and photos where the contract uses them. Around half of complaints are resolved here, because the record tells us plainly whether the task was done, skipped, or done badly.

The person. We speak to the operative who worked that shift. Not to blame them, to understand. Nine times out of ten there is a reason: a room was locked, a machine failed, they were asked by site staff to prioritise something else, or nobody had ever shown them the correct method for that surface. That conversation usually reveals whether this is a training gap, a scheduling gap or a specification gap.

The site. Where it matters, we attend in person and look at the actual result with you. A description of "the floors look dull" can mean twenty different things. Standing on the floor together, we can see whether it is soil, a stripped finish, the wrong product or simply a surface at the end of its life that needs a deep cleaning intervention rather than nightly maintenance.

The specification. Sometimes the cleaner did exactly what the contract said, and the contract was wrong. If your spec has the kitchen deep-cleaned monthly and you expected weekly, that is not a failed clean, it is a mismatched agreement, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

We aim to complete this and come back to you with findings within two working days for standard issues. If something needs longer, for instance ordering a specialist product or arranging an out-of-hours revisit, we tell you that rather than letting the clock run in silence.

Step four: putting it right, and putting it back

Resolution has two halves, and weak contractors only ever do the first.

The first half is the immediate fix. If we missed it, we come back and clean it, usually the same night or the next, at no charge. If a floor was damaged by the wrong method, we restore it. If a task was under-specified, we quote the correct scope so you can decide. This is the visible part and it matters, because a clean building is what you are paying for.

The second half is the fix that stops it recurring, and this is where the complaint earns its keep. Depending on what the investigation found, that might be:

We tell you which of these we have done. "We have retrained Marcus on the vinyl floor and added it to the Thursday supervisor check for the next month" is a resolution. "We apologise for any inconvenience" is not. You should be able to see, in plain terms, what has changed so that the fault cannot quietly come back.

The follow-up that proves it stuck. A fix you never verify is just a hope, so we close the loop deliberately.

For a one-off issue, your account manager checks back after the next clean or two to confirm the problem has genuinely gone, and tells you so. For anything that involved a change to schedule, training or specification, the supervisor's audit carries the extra check for a few weeks, and we share those results with you rather than keeping them internal.

If the same issue reappears after we said it was fixed, that is a serious signal and we treat it as one. It means our resolution missed the real cause, and it triggers a proper review of the contract with a senior manager, not another quick apology. Repeat faults are exactly the thing our complaint log is built to catch, and we would rather escalate honestly than watch a good client drift away disappointed.

Preventing complaints in the first place

The best complaint process is the one you rarely need. Most of what we have learned from years of these logs feeds straight back into how we run contracts, so problems get caught before you ever see them.

Regular supervisor audits are the biggest lever. A supervisor walking a site on a rotating schedule catches the dull floor, the dusty ledge and the under-stocked washroom before the client does. Clear, specific specifications are the second. Half of all "complaints" are really disagreements about scope that a properly written spec would have prevented. Consistent teams are the third. When the same operatives clean your building week after week, they know your quirks, your priorities and your problem areas, and standards climb. High churn is the enemy of quality, which is why we work hard to keep site teams stable.

Good communication ties it together. A client who can reach a named person easily raises the small thing on Tuesday, before it becomes the big thing on Friday. Whether you run an office, a dental practice cleaning contract or a busy warehouse, the same principle holds: cheap early feedback prevents expensive late failure. You can see the full range of what we cover on our commercial cleaning services page.

Frequently asked questions

How quickly will you respond to a complaint?

You will get a human acknowledgement the same working day, confirming who is dealing with it and when you will hear back. Standard issues are investigated and answered within about two working days. Anything involving health, safety, security or compliance gets a call back within the hour and action that night.

Do I get charged if you have to re-clean something you missed?

No. If we missed a task or did it below standard, we come back and put it right at no charge, normally the same night or the next. You only pay for additional work where the investigation shows the task was outside your agreed specification, and in that case we quote it clearly before doing anything.

Who actually deals with my complaint?

Your named account manager, the one person who already knows your building, owns it from start to finish. They pull the records, speak to the operative, attend site if needed and confirm the fix with you. You are not passed between departments or handed to a call centre.

What if the same problem keeps happening?

A repeat fault means our first resolution missed the real cause, so we escalate it to a senior manager for a proper contract review rather than issuing another apology. Recurring issues are precisely what our complaint log exists to flag, and we treat a second occurrence far more seriously than a first.

What information do you need from me to look into it?

Three things: which site, which date or night, and what specifically was wrong. That lets us go straight to the correct shift, task sheet and operative instead of guessing. You do not need to fill in a form or justify raising it.

Will complaining damage my relationship with your company?

The opposite. We treat every issue as free data on where our system needs fixing, and the contracts that complain openly are usually our strongest and longest-running. A client who tells us when something is wrong is helping us keep their building right.

How do I raise an issue or ask about your process?

Call us on 0800 069 9055 or email [email protected], and you will reach someone who can see your site notes on screen. You can also start a conversation through our contact page and your account manager will follow up directly.