Cleaning Company Questions to Ask for Your Business Type

Most "questions to ask a cleaning company" checklists read as if every business is the same box with the same bins. They are not. The questions that protect a dental practice are useless to a warehouse, and the questions a solicitor needs about confidentiality would baffle a gym owner. We have cleaned all of these across Gloucestershire, and the fastest way to spot a cleaner who will let you down is to ask them something specific to your sector and watch whether they answer with detail or with waffle. This guide sorts the questions by business type, so you can walk into a site visit knowing exactly what a good answer sounds like for your trade.

Start with the questions that apply to everyone

Whatever you run, four questions cut through the sales patter before you get into sector specifics. Ask them first, then move on.

• "Who actually cleans my building, and will it be the same people each week?" High staff churn is the single biggest reason standards slip. A cleaner who names a supervisor and commits to a settled team is worth more than a cheaper quote from an agency that sends whoever is free.
• "Show me your public liability and employer's liability certificates." Not "yes we're insured" — the actual documents, with current dates and cover levels. If a mop bucket floods your server room, £5m of public liability is the difference between a claim and a closure.
• "Are your operatives DBS-checked, and how do you manage keys and alarm codes?" Anyone cleaning out of hours holds the keys to your business. You want a documented key-holding policy, not a fob handed around a van.
• "What happens the week someone is off sick?" A real answer names relief staff and a supervisor who steps in. A vague one means you will find out the hard way in flu season.

Those four are the floor, not the ceiling. Now match the rest to what you do.

Dental practices, GP surgeries and healthcare

Clinical settings are where a general cleaner gets exposed fastest. The stakes are infection control and CQC inspection, so your questions need to go well beyond "do you clean the toilets".

• "Are you familiar with HTM 01-05 and colour-coded equipment?" A cleaner who works in dental practices should immediately know that mops and cloths are colour-segregated by zone so a toilet cloth never touches a surgery surface. If that phrase draws a blank, they have never cleaned a compliant practice.
• "How do you handle the decontamination room versus reception?" These are different worlds. You want to hear that the clinical areas follow the practice's own protocols and that the cleaner works around, not through, the dirty-to-clean workflow.
• "What disinfectant contact times do you follow on chairs and touch points?" Spraying and immediately wiping does nothing. A specialist knows surfaces need to stay wet for the product's stated dwell time.

If you run a surgery, weight the whole decision toward evidence of clinical experience. Our dental practice cleaning and care home cleaning teams are briefed on these standards because a reception-grade clean simply fails an inspection.

Offices, professional services and law firms

For an accountancy or law office, the risks are confidentiality, consistency and not disturbing sensitive work. The building is not hazardous, but the information inside it is.

• "How do your cleaners handle desks with papers, files and screens left out?" The right answer is that they clean around confidential material and never move or bin documents. Solicitors and accountants have regulatory duties around client data, and a cleaner who tidies paperwork into the recycling can cause a genuine breach.
• "Can you work after 6pm or before 7am so you're not in the way?" Professional offices usually want cleaners out of sight. Confirm they can key-hold and work unsupervised out of hours.
• "How do you keep meeting rooms and client-facing reception consistently sharp?" First impressions win business. You want a specific routine for the rooms clients actually see, not a blanket "we do everything".

Consistency matters more than heroics here. A tidy, quietly reliable clean five nights a week beats an occasional deep blitz. Our office cleaning contracts are built around settled evening teams for exactly this reason.

Restaurants, pubs and commercial kitchens

Hospitality is graded by the Food Standards Agency, and a poor clean shows up on your public score. The questions here are about grease, pests and the paperwork an EHO wants to see.

• "Do you degrease canopies, extract filters and the ductwork behind them?" Grease in extraction is the number one kitchen fire risk and a common insurance requirement. A good answer distinguishes the filters (regular) from the deep duct clean (scheduled, with a certificate).
• "Will you give me a certificate after a deep kitchen clean?" That certificate is what you show your insurer and the EHO. If they cannot provide one, they are not doing the job to standard.
• "How do you avoid cross-contamination between the kitchen and the front of house?" Separate equipment, separate cloths, and an understanding of food-safe chemicals near prep surfaces.

Ask to see an example schedule that separates nightly wipe-downs from the periodic heavy degrease. Our restaurant and kitchen cleaning work is planned around the Food Standards Agency's expectations so your rating holds up.

Retail, showrooms and customer-facing floors

Shops live and die on how the floor looks during trading hours, with the added headache that you cannot close to clean. The questions are about timing and daytime presentation.

• "Can you clean before we open or discreetly during trading?" A retailer needs a cleaner who can be in at 7am and gone by opening, or who can work a shop floor without wet-floor signs blocking the tills at lunchtime.
• "How do you keep entrance glass, floors and fitting rooms looking new all day?" High footfall trashes an entrance within hours. Ask about daytime touch-point checks, not just an overnight clean that looks tired by 3pm.
• "Do you handle spillages and busy-period call-outs?" A dropped bottle in a supermarket aisle is a slip claim waiting to happen. You want a response commitment.

Presentation is the product in retail, so lean on evidence of daytime, low-disruption working. Our retail cleaning teams schedule around trading hours rather than fighting them.

Warehouses, industrial units and gyms

These sites are about scale, safety and sweat. A domestic-minded cleaner will be overwhelmed by the square footage or the specialist surfaces.

• Warehouses and industrial units: ask "Do you use ride-on or industrial scrubber-dryers, and are your staff trained to work around forklift traffic and racking?" A mop and bucket does not clean 4,000 square metres of concrete, and safety around moving plant is non-negotiable.
• Gyms and leisure: ask "How do you disinfect high-touch kit, mats and changing rooms, and how do you tackle the humidity and odour?" Gyms are a shared-sweat environment where touch-point disinfection and ventilation-aware cleaning genuinely reduce illness and complaints.

For both, the tell is whether they talk in terms of the right equipment and the right frequency for a high-demand space, or whether they quote you as if it were a small office.

How to compare the answers you get

Once you have asked the sector questions, you will have a stack of answers to weigh up. Score them on three things. First, specificity: did they answer with your world's vocabulary (HTM 01-05, extract ductwork, scrubber-dryer) or with generic reassurance? Second, evidence: certificates, references from businesses like yours, a written specification you can actually check them against. Third, honesty about limits: a cleaner who says "we do not currently do high-level duct cleaning, but we subcontract a certified partner" is more trustworthy than one who claims to do everything.

Be wary of a quote that sits far below the others. In practice that gap is funded by cutting corners you will feel later: undertrained staff, no relief cover, thin insurance, or hours on site that do not match the specification. Cheap and sector-appropriate rarely arrive together.

If you would like a straight answer to any of the questions above for your own building, talk to us. Call 0800 069 9055 or email [email protected] and we will tell you honestly what your sector needs and what it does not. You can also see the full range on our services page or get in touch for a site visit.

Frequently asked questions

Do I really need a cleaner who specialises in my sector?

For low-risk offices and shops, general commercial experience is usually enough as long as they are reliable. For anything regulated — dental, healthcare, food, care homes — you genuinely need a cleaner who knows the standards, because a generic clean can fail an inspection and cost you far more than the contract saved.

What is the single most revealing question to ask?

"Will it be the same team every week, and who supervises them?" Consistency is where most contracts fail. A cleaner who commits to a settled, supervised team is signalling that they retain staff and take responsibility, which underpins every other standard.

Should I ask for references from my own industry?

Yes. A reference from a business like yours is worth ten generic testimonials. Ask to speak to a client in your sector and ask them about consistency, how issues were handled, and whether the cleaner still turns up when it is inconvenient.

How do I check a cleaning company is properly insured?

Ask to see the actual public liability and employer's liability certificates, check the dates are current, and confirm the cover level suits your risk. A firm with nothing to hide will send these over the same day without hesitation.

Is the cheapest quote ever the right choice?

Rarely. If one quote is dramatically lower, ask exactly how many hours on site it buys and what is included, because the saving is usually funded by fewer hours, less training or thinner cover. Compare like for like against a written specification, not just the headline price.

What should a good written specification include?

Every area, the specific tasks in each, and the frequency of each task — plus products, access and key-holding arrangements, and how quality is checked. It is the document you hold the cleaner to, so if a company will not put the job in writing, treat that as a red flag.