Questions to Ask a Cleaning Company: The Complete Vetting Guide

We have sat on both sides of the table. We have pitched for contracts, and we have taken over buildings from firms that talked a good game and then quietly stopped showing up on a Friday. The gap between a cleaning company that sounds professional and one that actually is professional almost always comes down to the questions the client asked before signing. Get those right and you weed out most of the trouble before it starts. This is the complete guide to the questions worth asking, why each one matters, and what a straight answer actually sounds like.

Treat it as a framework rather than a script. You will not need every question for a small two-office let, and you will need more than these for a multi-site NHS estate. But the seven areas below cover the ground where contracts go wrong, and if a prospective supplier can answer all of them clearly, you are dealing with an operator who has done this before.

Start with the questions that protect you legally

Before you talk about how sparkling the floors will look, sort the insurance and employment status. This is the boring bit that becomes very interesting the day something goes wrong.

Ask to see the public liability and employer's liability certificates, and check the dates and the cover limit. Public liability of at least £5 million is standard for commercial work; anything less and one flooded server room could bankrupt a small contractor and leave you chasing thin air. Employer's liability is a legal requirement the moment they employ anyone, so its absence tells you they are either uninsured or using people they should not be.

Then ask the question that catches a surprising number of firms out: are the cleaners your direct employees or subcontractors? Directly employed, PAYE staff mean the company carries responsibility for training, right-to-work checks, tax and cover. A chain of self-employed subcontractors means responsibility evaporates, quality drifts, and you may inherit liabilities you never agreed to. We employ our cleaners directly, and we say so plainly because it is the single biggest predictor of consistency. Ask, and listen for a firm, unambiguous answer rather than a vague "it depends on the site".

Dig into who will actually be in your building

Contracts are won by managers and delivered by cleaners. The people who turn up at six in the morning are the ones who decide whether this works, so the staffing questions matter more than most buyers give them credit for.

Ask whether you will get the same cleaner or team each visit. Continuity is worth an enormous amount. A regular cleaner learns that the finance office needs bins done before the early shift arrives, that the glass meeting-room doors show every fingerprint, that the disabled toilet radiator leaks and the floor there needs an extra pass. A rotating cast of strangers relearns nothing and cuts corners. We build routes around fixed teams for exactly this reason.

Then ask about cover. Everyone gets ill and takes holiday; the question is what happens when they do. A serious firm has trained relief cleaners and a supervisor who can step in, not a scramble to find a warm body. Ask about staff turnover too. A company churning through cleaners every few months will never give you the consistency you are paying for, and high turnover usually means people are underpaid or badly managed.

Security questions belong here. Ask whether staff are vetted, whether DBS checks are carried out where the site needs them, and how keys, alarm codes and access fobs are controlled. If your building holds sensitive data, confidential files or valuable stock, this is not paperwork, it is the difference between a supplier you can trust after hours and one you cannot. For a fuller treatment of vetting and out-of-hours access, our guidance on reliable commercial cleaning covers the controls we put around keys and lone working.

Pin down exactly what is included, and what is not

The commonest cause of a soured cleaning relationship is not poor cleaning. It is a mismatch between what the client assumed was included and what the contractor priced for. Kill that ambiguity before you sign.

Ask for a written specification, room by room, task by task, with frequencies. "Daily office clean" means nothing on its own. Does it include emptying and relining every bin, or just the general waste? Are internal glass doors done daily or weekly? Whose job is the kitchen washing-up, the dishwasher, the fridge clear-out, the water cooler? Are consumables such as toilet roll, hand towels and bin liners supplied and restocked by the cleaner, or left to you to remember? Each of those is a small thing that becomes a weekly irritation when nobody owns it.

Clarify the boundary between the regular clean and periodic deep work. Carpet extraction, hard-floor stripping and resealing, high-level dusting and internal window cleaning are usually scheduled separately and priced separately. A good supplier will tell you upfront how often those are needed and what they cost, rather than letting the carpets grey out and then quoting you in a panic. If your site needs periodic intensive work, it is worth reading up on what a proper deep cleaning service covers so you can tell whether a quote is thorough or thin.

Ask how they prove the work was done

Anyone can clean well on the first visit. The test is month six, when the novelty has worn off and nobody is watching. Ask how the company keeps standards up when the manager who sold you the contract has moved on to the next pitch.

Ask about supervision. Is there a supervisor who physically inspects the site, and how often? Ask about audits. Do they run scored quality checks against the specification, and will you see the results? Ask what happens when something is missed. The honest answer is that things occasionally are; what separates a good firm is a clear route to report it, a named contact who answers, and the problem fixed on the next visit without a fuss or an invoice. We would rather a client tell us the third-floor kitchen was skipped than quietly grow resentful and switch supplier in six months.

Get the pricing and contract terms in daylight

Cheap quotes are usually cheap for a reason: too few hours allocated, no supervision built in, consumables billed separately later, or wages so low the staff will not stay. Rather than chase the lowest number, ask what the price is built from. How many cleaner-hours per visit, at what frequency? That single figure tells you more than the headline monthly rate, because it reveals whether they have genuinely scoped your building or just guessed.

Ask what triggers a price rise and how much notice you get. Ask whether one-off jobs, extra visits or reactive callouts are charged separately, and at what rate. Ask about the contract length and, crucially, the notice period to leave. A rolling contract with a fair notice period signals a firm confident you will stay because the service is good. A punishing twelve-month tie-in with heavy exit penalties often signals the opposite. Read the termination clause before you sign, not after you want out.

The value question sits underneath all of this. The right supplier is rarely the cheapest and almost never the dearest. It is the one whose price maps sensibly onto the hours, the staff, the supervision and the consumables you actually need. For an office contract, our overview of professional office cleaning sets out the elements that a fair quote should account for.

Check the evidence before you trust the pitch

Sales patter is free. Ask for proof. Request references from clients of a similar size and sector to you, and actually ring them. Ask those clients the questions that matter: does the same team turn up, does the company answer the phone when there is a problem, have prices been fair, would they sign again? Two honest reference calls will teach you more than any brochure.

Ask how long the company has been trading and whether they can show you sites like yours. A firm that regularly cleans dental practices, warehouses or schools already understands the specific standards those settings demand, from infection control to health-and-safety around machinery. Look at online reviews too, but weigh how the company responds to criticism rather than just the star rating. A measured, fix-it reply to a complaint tells you how they will treat you on a bad day.

When you have your shortlist, ask each to visit and survey the building before quoting. A supplier who quotes over the phone without seeing the space is guessing, and you will pay for that guess later in disputes over scope. The site visit is also your chance to meet a real person and judge whether they listen. If they turn up late to win your business, imagine the service once they have it.

Happy to answer any of these ourselves, in plain English and without the sales gloss. Call us on 0800 069 9055 or email [email protected] and we will arrange a site visit, walk your building with you, and put a proper written specification in front of you before anyone talks about price.

Frequently asked questions

What is the single most important question to ask a cleaning company?

If you only ask one thing, ask whether the cleaners are directly employed or subcontracted. Directly employed, PAYE staff mean the company owns training, vetting, cover and quality. It is the strongest single predictor of whether you will get consistent, accountable service rather than a rotating cast of strangers.

How many quotes should I get before choosing a cleaning company?

Three is a sensible number. Enough to compare pricing and scope without drowning in site visits. Ask each supplier to survey the building and quote against a written specification so you are comparing like with like, rather than a thorough quote against a thin one that will grow with extras later.

What are the biggest red flags when hiring a cleaning company?

Reluctance to share insurance certificates or references, a refusal to visit before quoting, vague answers about employment status, no written specification, and a price that looks too good to be true. Any one of these is a warning; two together mean walk away.

Should I ask about DBS checks?

Yes, if your building holds sensitive data, confidential files, valuable stock, or if cleaners work near vulnerable people such as in a school or care setting. Ask how staff are vetted and how keys and access codes are controlled. For a general office the vetting bar is lower, but you should still know who holds your keys.

How do I know if a cleaning quote is fair?

Ask what the price is built from: how many cleaner-hours per visit, at what frequency, with what supervision and consumables included. A quote you can break down into hours and tasks is trustworthy. A single monthly figure with no workings behind it is a number to be suspicious of.

What should be in a commercial cleaning contract?

A room-by-room specification with task frequencies, the price and what it includes, the terms for extra or one-off work, the notice period to leave, insurance details, and a named contact for problems. If any of those is missing, ask for it in writing before you sign.

Can I switch cleaning company if I am unhappy?

Yes, subject to the notice period in your contract, which is why you should read the termination clause before signing. A fair rolling contract with a reasonable notice period is a good sign. If you are considering a switch, ask your prospective new supplier to survey the site and quote against a clear specification so the changeover is clean.