What I Wish I Had in Place *Before* My First Nightmare Client

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Introduction

Hello everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the filthy rich cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from serene clean, and in today’s episode, I am going to be deep diving into client guidelines and why you absolutely non negotiable. Need to have these signed prior to ever stepping foot into a customer’s house. And not to worry if you currently do not have client guidelines in place, you can always put them into place and then have your current clients sign them. So don’t worry about that, if that is where you’re at right now. But even if you do have client guidelines, maybe I’m going to go over some sections that you guys do not have in yours. Maybe you have some that I need to put in mine. Feel free to share those in the comments below, of course, and I will obviously be sharing any stories that have affected or caused a section to be added, because I’m sure as we go through these there’s going to be some nonsense I can share about clients behaving in very silly manners, and that is why different sections have been added over the years. Because remember, client guidelines and any other documents we have in our cleaning businesses are living, breathing documents that can be changed and updated. The most important part is that we have these signed by our clients, and on the staffing side, have them signed and acknowledged by our cleaning staff.

Electronic Signing Solutions

Stephanie: So when it comes to signing, before I actually get into the document, go ahead and get sign request. If you’ve ever used DocuSign, where you can electronically sign things, sign request is the much, much, much more affordable alternative to that. I’ve literally been using sign requests the entirety of serene clean, and I’ve never had issues. I think it’s like less than $10 a month. So super affordable, where DocuSign is like 80 or 90 bucks, and for what we need of just electronic signing and being able to look up when and if somebody has signed, it also sends out automated reminders for the folks to sign it, which is super nifty. So overall, it’s just so well worth it, and I highly recommend it you actually just upload your client guidelines. Create a template out of it, and then you can just use that template for every single new client that you’re bringing on, and just have it for your onboarding process.

So that’s very important, and I just really want you guys to get away from in person, paper signing of things, where you have to scan it in, or literally, you’re printing things off, which is just a nightmare. I try to avoid printing stuff as much as I possibly can at serene clean and typically, if you are looking for proof that somebody signed something, it’s because they’re acting a fool and you’re in a panic. So anything we can do to make that much easier, whereas in sign requests, you literally can just search their email or their name and see exactly date and time that they signed it, which there is nothing, let me repeat, nothing more satisfying than when clients are trying to pull some bullshit. And you can say, well, actually, Mrs. Johnson, you signed this at 8:42pm, on February 2, 2015, and that means that you agreed to all of this. And so yes, I can charge you that late fee, or I can charge you that cancelation fee. Or no, we’re not going to clean your litter box, and that was explained, or what have you. So it’s very, very satisfying. And most people, you know, they just skim through and that’s not on you, that’s on them.

The Purpose of Client Guidelines

Stephanie: So the whole point is to have every conceivable thing in here to cover your ass, cover my ass, cover all the asses of the cleaning industry, and make our lives a lot easier when it comes to clients, as well as cause you to think about these things if you’ve never even thought about what you want your policy to be. This is the episode to start thinking about these things. Get it in writing. Obviously, ChatGPT is your best friend here, if you’re struggling or wanting a basic outline, of course, I have serene cleans available as well. If you are interested in having our exact one, I’m going to skim through each section, read some of it. But if you’re wanting our exact one, I do have that but again, no pressure. You guys can figure this out yourselves. This is just the easier way if you were interested.

And side note, my tattoo is shiny and healing here. Look at that beauty. Look at that beauty. Oh my gosh. Got it done on Friday, 15 hours for this. This puppy gonna go back in next week and kind of morph it in up here. You know, I love tattoos, guys. It is healing. So don’t judge. That’s why I’m airing it out right now. And if you’re listening to Spotify, I mean, you know, this is on YouTube, right? You know, you can see my beautiful background right on YouTube, so don’t be afraid to watch it over there, even if you’re just listening while you are cleaning or driving. I’m just, you know, I like YouTube, but Spotify is fantastic too. Or perhaps some other third thing. I mean, I don’t have an iPhone. Is there a podcast player on that, right? I don’t know. I’m a Samsung girl for life. So anyways, that ramble aside.

Here we go. Serene cleans client guidelines. Okay, page one is just going to be setting the tone and establishing the reason why we have these. And side note your client guidelines, other than establishing the rules of what’s about to happen, can help really sell you as a professional service, because individual cleaner, most likely is not going to have these. You might have these as an individual cleaner, but more often than not, it’s more in line with a company, an established company, to have these types of things. Who are going to have staff. That’s oftentimes when we start to think about this type of stuff, because we’re bringing in the liability of staff and other people into the business. So this can really make you look like you have your shit together. You know what you’re doing. You’re professional. So that’s another thing about client guidelines. It’s not all about you need to do this and you need to do this. It’s just explaining what it’s going to be like to work with you and really set the tone so it can be a very positive thing, and you can have a very positive sound to it. It doesn’t need to be this very harsh thing. Just establishing Hey, these are the rules of engagement, if you will.

How to Prepare for Your Cleaning

Stephanie: So first page, little welcome paragraph, and then how to prepare for your cleaning. So this is what we ask people to do in order to prepare for their house cleaning. So I’m just going to read this off. We are thrilled to come clean for you, and want to be able to leave your house sparkling. In order for us to be able to provide the highest quality cleaning possible, we would just ask for you to do a couple things to prepare for our arrival. Please put away anything that would inhibit us from cleaning certain areas, such as loose papers, dog toys, children’s toys, etc. Please make sure all dishes are put away so that we’re able to thoroughly clean your kitchen. In addition, make sure the vacuum is accessible if you want us to use yours instead of ours, and anything of a sensitive nature is put away. You know what I’m talking about?

Doesn’t always happen for any of these categories. The goal is, this is how they prepare the house. Do a lot of clients do this? Absolutely not. I mean, some of them do, some of them don’t. And honestly, how we train our cleaners is, if it’s a mild cluttering situation, it just depends, is it going to take less than five minutes to kind of organize or clear up, then we can do that. We can also just work around piles, depending on the situation, especially with dishes and things we’ll leave them in the sink, because we that’s not the job, unless that is what they’re asking us to do. So for a standard cleaning, the expectation is, pick everything up, push it into piles, or we’re going to work around the piles if there is a lot of piles and obviously sensitive items, depending on what those are, will just be worked around, of course, definitely not touched.

Technology and Customer Experience

Stephanie: Next section is going to be talking about technology and our use of it in serene clean. So serene clean utilizes technology to its fullest to provide an even smoother customer experience. You will receive an automated reminder email three days prior to service, as well as a reminder text the day before you may respond to the email. However, the automated text messages are only one way you do have the option to opt out of these. So this really sells the fact that you are going to make their experience as lovely as possible, and that’s exactly what automated texts and reminders do, as well as help you out the owner. Because one, you’re not have to manually do it. And two, it means that people who are wanting to cancel or reschedule are prompted to do so days prior, not just the day of, and say, Oh crap, the cleaners coming and cancel on you last minute. So that just causes a whole myriad of issues that we do not have to deal with because we use ZenMaid. And so you really selling that we’re using a scheduling software. We’re using technology and investing in technology to make everybody’s experience that much better, more convenient, more communicative and just more streamlined. So big fan of the automated text reminders and telling your clients about it.

Second part of this is our cleaning technicians clock in and out from our scheduling app on their phones, and GPS coordinates are registered at time of input. This is to make sure they have arrived and left safely. And again, this is low key saying we know our cleaners are where they say that we say they’re going to be when they say they’re going to be there. So it really helps give them a sense of security as well. From a client perspective, the next section, I remember adding this because so many people were absolutely flummoxed by what man hours mean when I provided an estimate, they did not understand the concept, and that’s not unusual.

Understanding Labor Hours

Stephanie: We can call them labor hours as well. If somebody has never worked with a company before that charges by labor hours and just charges by jobs, perhaps they may not have experienced these terms before. So I literally have a little diagram, and it explains exactly what a man hour means, and it has one stick person that says one cleaner for four hours equals two stick people, two cleaners for two hours. Man hours reflect actual labor hours. And then for the explanation for standard and deep residential cleanings, we typically charge by the man hour, unless communicated otherwise. This means that if one technician were to be there for eight hours, this would be charged at eight man hours if two cleaning technicians are there for four hours, clock hours, this would also be charged at eight man hours as the amount of labor time is the same. Typically, first time cleans will have two cleaning technicians present, unless the cleaning is for a very small home. So we explicitly explain so they can’t be like, what? Why is my bill this they were only here for three hours, meaning, you know, noon to three, but there was two cleaners, or three cleaners there.

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Work Estimates and Communication

Stephanie: Next section is going to be going through work estimates. When you provide us with the requested information for your home, we provide an estimate based on homes that are similar in size and reported condition, if our cleaning technician arrives and the home will require more time than estimated due to condition or not being picked up, we will communicate this to you before we go over estimated hours for approval slash denial. We will reach out by phone call, text message and/or email if necessary to ensure quick communication, though, we do our best to estimate as accurately as possible. Everyone’s home is different, and two similarly sized homes can take drastically different amounts of time depending on how the owner lives. If additional time is needed, we will do our best to schedule this as soon as possible, so that whole section kind of cleans up a lot of mystery over what happens here? What happens here when it comes to the estimate? And we do explain this during the estimating process as well, that this is how it’s going to happen. But we want to be really explicit and have them sign that they understand this section for sure, we’re going in blind, right? We don’t go do in person, walk throughs or anything like that, unless it’s specific, perhaps a hoarder situation or something we’re not sure we want to take on. But for 99.9% of estimate requests that we get online on the ZenMaid booking form, we are not going and seeing it. So this is really important that we spell this out super explicitly.

Working in the Home Without Distractions

Stephanie: Okay, next section is all about working in the home to ensure our cleaning technicians can perform their duties effectively. It is essential for them to work without distractions. We cannot assume responsibility for the safety of others in your home, including children and pets. If a technician encounters distractions that impact their ability to work efficiently, serene clean reserves the right to charge for any additional time spent in your home. If you have any chatty Cathy’s that like to talk to you the whole time. I’ve definitely had this before. It can drastically slow you down and also just make me off my game. I don’t know if you guys have had that before, where they’re just talking to you the whole time you’re cleaning, which, whatever it’s their house. You know, sometimes I’ll be like, oh, you know, I’ll just always have your butt out and clearly listening to things or, you know, keep, just keep working and give kind of non committal answers, because I just can’t get in deep conversation. I’ll probably just stand there and talk then, and that’s not good for anybody. But this way, again, these, you really have to watch this if you charge by job and not by hour, because that can really eat up your time, or your cleaning tax time. So if, for some reason, somebody’s going over and they say that this is a reason, if you’re charging flat rate, don’t be afraid to adjust the price to accommodate that extra time if that’s the reason why, right.

Safety Protocols and Equipment

Stephanie: Okay, next section, next section is all about safety. Our number one concern is for the safety of our clients and our cleaning techs. Serene clean is ensured and bonded and cannot perform any cleaning higher than a one foot step stool, which we provide. The step stool is provided by serene clean cleaning technicians cannot use any stools or ladders provided by clients, nor are they able to stand slash climb on top of anything other than the step stool that is provided by serene clean and April, my payroll manager, she had climbed onto a step stool that was given to us by the client. Looked totally fine, and the whole thing collapsed under her. And luckily, she didn’t break anything, but just a reminder that unless we’re providing the thing we’re climbing on, we have no sense of is it safe, and from a workers comp perspective and just insurance perspective, that’s just a risk we don’t want to take, is to use a client’s items to climb on top of stuff, and no ifs ands or buts, no climbing on top of counters or tables or anything else, unless you’re Stephanie, in which case the rules don’t apply because I’m not on the worker’s comp. So hypothetically, one may think that I have done that before in order to clean better, allegedly, but there’s no proof of that.

Furniture Moving and Safety Risks

Stephanie: Next part is any heavy or large furniture must be moved away from the walls by the client in order for the cleaning technician to clean behind them. Our cleaning techs will not move furniture in order to prevent damage and to remain safe. That’s absolutely something that’s been asked of us so many times. Why can’t you move this? Why can’t you move this? And it’s like, we don’t move furniture. Okay? So you don’t need to do that. Spell it out in your client guidelines. In instances where a technician feels that their personal safety is at risk due to the actions of clients, guests or pets, or due to conditions within the home, such as extreme temperatures, the presence of weapons, illegal substances, or other safety hazards, they may choose to leave the job site. In this event, this client will be held responsible for the full cost of the service. That’s right, if our cleaner has to leave because of something unsafe, we’re going to charge that client for what it would have been.

This has happened before, especially with temperatures. If for some reason, they don’t have AC, we have ran into that where homes do not have air conditioning, or it’s broken and it’s the middle of summer and it’s sweltering, or vice versa, it’s freezing and it’s negative 20 outside and it’s really, really cold in the house for again, whatever reason. So we just want to establish that. So we will adjust the air conditioning down. We put out a reminder at the beginning of summer in our newsletter about this, just as a reminder, we’re gonna adjust the AC if it is intolerably hot, and we’ll be sure to put it back to where it was before we leave.

And yeah, if there is drugs in the house, that’s something we definitely don’t even want to be around. You know, obviously weed is one thing, and we can all kind of hem and haw over that. That’s kind of a comfort. But if there’s bombs lying all over the place, and our cleaners are not feeling comfortable around that, then they can absolutely leave it’s like, put your drug paraphernalia away, please.

Pet Policies and Biohazard Rules

Stephanie: Okay, pets, we love our clients pets, but for their own safety and the safety of our cleaning techs, please put your large or skittish pets in a secure area of the home or garage. Our cleaning technicians cannot clean animal feces of any kind in order to prevent cross contamination. That’s total biohazard. It’s just not our job. We’re not cleaning up your litter box. We’re not cleaning up dog poop, cat poop, any other poop. You know, that may occur. How many times can I say poop in this podcast? But so yeah, pets can totally be out. That’s not a problem. It’s just if the pet is very disturbed by vacuums or somebody in the home, it’s just best if they’re put into a separate bedroom, put outside, if they have an outside kennel garage, whatever the case may be. And we just add that note to the ZenMaid notes for what is the pet situation for our cleaners.

I just remembered this, and it’s like a core memory. So I can’t believe I forgot it of a client that really, really annoyed me. So it was a very high end client. They had a absolutely beautiful home, just stunning. And they had, I think, two or three laundry rooms in the house, if that establishes with you how fancy they were, and they we had updated our client guidelines to reflect something about the insect infestations, because we ran into several situations where people had fleas in the house, and they had anticipated for us to just deal with that, and also that we were the they hired a cleaning service for extermination services. Literally, I’m not exaggerating. We had one lady who she got us to do a move out. We show up, there’s fleas bouncing all around. Our cleaner gets out of there, lets us know. And we’re like, Hey lady, you got fleas. You need to deal with this. We’re not going to clean. And she’s like, that’s why I hired you guys to get rid of the fleas, and we’re like, Do you know what an exterminator is? Because not us, that’s not us. So we did not service that house.

The High-End Client Who Refused to Sign

Stephanie: But anyway, we had done some updates to these client guidelines, and we sent them to all of our current clients, basically to re-sign and acknowledge because we had made a decent amount of changes. And we had a client who I think had slipped the cracks and never actually signed the document. And this is why we now have a reminder in our click up to double check that people sign their guidelines before we clean their house, because what happened was he viewed them, he never electronically signed them. And this is why even with the best laid plans, people can slip through the cracks, so you really have to double check before you go clean a house. Put a reminder every single day. Okay, first time cleans this week, have they signed it yet? And just double check to make sure you are good, because they have to sign it.

So this particular client, I keep wanting to say his name, this particular client, had slipped through the cracks and not signed it. So we’d made some changes, and that’s when we realized that he had never signed them to begin with. Now I’m remembering correctly, and so we sent the document, hey, you know where I know we’re servicing you, but we realized you’d never sign these. Can you go ahead and sign these and you know, no problem. We’ll continue services. He got so offended because his exact words were along the lines of, are you suggesting that I have insect infestations or that I don’t pay my bill? We have always paid our bill on time, how dare you? We’ve never had an issue when you guys have had to cancel all of these times, and they had requested one specific cleaner. They don’t want any other cleaner. And she had called out sick once, so on their scheduled days, so being very dramatic and frankly, pretentious, and he refused to sign them, and he canceled services over this. And this was a bi-weekly giant house, right? Six hours or something every other week. And so it was just so shocking to me. And again, I’m not going to give details, because it would give away the client, if you are in our area. But he was a business owner himself, the particular business that he is in, you would think he would 100% be on board with having, you know, risk mitigation, if you know what I mean. So it was really shocking that somebody would have an issue with this, signing client guidelines, and we’ve never really had, I don’t think we’ve had that since. It was just very bizarre. I feel like he just wanted to cancel services, and that was him being stubborn, or, I think a lot of times, I don’t know, I’m not trying to stereotype here, but sometimes with really, really wealthy people, they’re used to being catered to, and so if you kind of stand firm on something that they find mildly inconvenient, they’ll just throw an absolute fit, and it’s just very ridiculous, like a temper tantrum, because you’re actually holding them to something, even if it’s as simple as signing a document. We’re not saying you don’t pay we’re not saying you have fleas in your house. So why are you getting so offended over something so simple, and those are the same people that will claim other people are snowflakes. So it’s quite hilarious to me. So anyway, side note, but I had to share that story.

Smoking and Biohazard Policies

Stephanie: Okay, smoking, we do not clean any homes that have been, previously been or currently are being smoked in. If interior smoking is evident, our technicians will not be able to service your home, and you will be charged the full rate of cleaning. Follow up service cannot be performed until documentation is presented showing the home has been cleaned by a professional company that specializes in smoke remediation. And this is something that we added, I think, probably two years and I’ve mentioned this before here, that we don’t clean houses that have been smoked, and then people have thrown a fuss over that. But that’s the nice thing, is we don’t have to do homes like that. There’s many reasons we’ve chosen not to do it, 100% failure rate when it comes to pleasing a client who smokes in their house. And I’m not trying to stereotype. That is my personal experience has been 100% failure rate. They cannot be pleased. It’s like, if you smoke in your house, it means that our estimates are all off. It’s going to take three times as long. We’re probably gonna have to throw our supplies away. My cleaners are going to reek. They’re going to have to change their clothes before they go to a next cleaning. Our kit’s gonna smell like it just, it’s terrible you touch the wall in a home that has been smoked in. And first off, everything’s sticky and yellow. And you touch that wall once, and it’s just like, Okay, there’s now one white spot, and everything else is still sticky and yellow. So you have to clean literally every inch of a home, and it’s very sticky. You’re going to go through water faster. If you’re using a bucket of water, you are going to go through your cloths faster. And again, it’s going to be very hard to clean and reuse those, if not just toss them entirely. And frankly, it just sucks for our cleaners. If I could clean a non smoked in house or a smoked in house, we’re going to choose the non smoked in and we luckily have enough leads to and current customers where we don’t need to say yes to every single job that comes our way. And yeah, I’ve just had, I’ve gotten chewed out by people who smoked in their house before, and we did the best we possibly could in their budget, and they still couldn’t be pleased. So it’s just like, Nope, we’re not doing this anymore, and it feels really good. We just suggest them to ServPro in our area who does do smoke remediation.

Biohazard Situations

Stephanie: Okay? Next section is about biohazards. Our cleaning technician safety and health is of the utmost importance to us, so we ask for you to let us know if there are any potential biohazard situations. These can include mold, rodent or bug infestations of any kind or human or pet, urination or feces, if a biohazard situation is evident, our technicians will not be able to service your home, and you will be charged the full rate of cleaning. Follow up service cannot be performed until documentation is presented showing the situation has been resolved. So we need proof that they’ve cleaned it up. We’re not just going to go back in there and again. It’s like, okay, they got a new puppy and it peed on the carpet. We can use our discretion. The point is the thing with this whole client documentation thing, you want a hard and fast rule that you can personally make a decision on in the future on a case by case basis of what that looks like. But we need to have the hard and fast rule that we can then adjust as a situation arises and say, Okay, well, no big deal. We’re comfortable with it. They got a new puppy. It had a little accident, whatever, versus, okay, there’s just cat shit everywhere, right? Or whatever the situation is. So we really play it by ear. Or, you know, okay, they have little mold in their grout in the showers. Don’t we all have a little mold in the grout of our showers. It’s just invisible right now. Even if you scrubbed it yesterday, it’s just coming back. I just, I hate grout and showers, my house here has grout, shower grout and tile. And I just if I ever remodeled the bathroom, that’s the first thing that’s going, going, I just hate tiled showers. Can’t stand it. Besides, you know, have you ever seen those threads in the cleaning groups where, what would you never put in your house now that you’ve been a cleaner, 100% just tile in general. I just hate grout. I don’t like to deal with it. I just got a new scrubby brush from RYOBI, like an automated scrub brush so I can scrub my grout. It’s like a little detail brush, which is admittedly very fun. I literally just got that yesterday from Home Depot, and I am having a blast cleaning my grout now. So there is that. But when it comes to at clients houses, we just, you know, it just, it’s always going to be a battle of orange gunk or mold in the grout just continually coming back, it seems because they don’t have proper ventilation.

Parking and Access Policies

Stephanie: Okay. Parking availability, you can tell it is in the afternoon, because I get loopy and it’s a Monday parking availability. Please ensure there is adequate parking available for our cleaning technicians upon their arrival, if possible, reserve a spot close to your entrance to allow for easy access. If your property is located in an area with limited street or lot parking or if you have specific parking regulations or permits for your area, please inform us prior to your service date to avoid any inconveniences.

Obviously, you guys can dictate if your cleaners have to pay for parking, what does that look like? And establish that that’s really something we six years we’ve had that happen once where a cleaner had gotten a ticket because the client had told them they could park somewhere that they couldn’t, meaning, a spot, yes, park right there, and they got a ticket. We charged a client for that because they told us we can do it. So, you know, if you have very specific things, because you guys are maybe in a more populated city with harder to find parking you can establish what that looks like.

Service Scheduling and Entry Options

Stephanie: Okay, next section is going to be time of service. It is very difficult to commit to an exact arrival time apart from the first thing in the morning, because of our ever changing schedule and the fact that we don’t finish cleaning each home at an exact time. We service homes between the hours of 8:30am and 5pm and will strive to be at your home within a two hour window of the estimated start time given to you. And then the next part is talking about entry to your home. We offer three entry options to choose from. One the client may opt to be home to allow access to their home the day of the service. Please prepare for your cleaner to arrive. No one is home, or our cleaners are turned away for any reason, you will be charged half the service price for that day. Number two, the client provides a code to gain access to the home. The code will be included in your client profile for the tech to gain access to the home, please provide the step by step process to use the code to unlock and lock the door being accessed in the event the code given is not correct, or the access pad is not working and the cleaning technicians cannot gain access to the home, the client is responsible for the lockout and a cancelation fee of half the price of that day’s service will be assessed. Are we seeing a pattern? And number three, the client can purchase a lockbox to place a key or garage door opener inside and provide serene clean with the passcode to the lockbox if for any reason, the key slash opener is not in the lockbox or the code does not work. When the cleaning tech arrives to clean the home, let’s say it again, the client is responsible for the lockout and a cancelation fee of half the price of that day’s service will be assessed. Note, serene clean is not liable for any tampering with or use of the lock box and or its contents when our technicians are not on site. Serene clean will not retain any residential keys, slash openers, etc.

In the event the client chooses to leave a door unlock or place a key under a mat or any other unsecured place for the cleaners to gain entry into the home, serene clean will not be held liable for any damages or theft to the client’s home. This is all very protective languages. And number three is actually something that we changed in the last year. And it was one of those, OMG, are we dumb moments? We were holding, you know, we were getting keys from clients, and just, it was such a hullabaloo dealing with keys, because if somebody called out and we all of a sudden had to be running keys, or a schedule needed to change, it just was an absolute nightmare, or, heaven forbid, we lose a key. So just managing keys is very stressful and difficult, especially if you have multiple locations like we do, and even if you don’t have multiple locations that service overlapping areas where it could you could be pulling a cleaner from one of two offices or one of three offices. It’s still nonsense you don’t have to deal with, where they could just get a cheap little lock box from Amazon and deal with it that way. So that is something that we’ve started doing, and it’s been so much better, and obviously commercial accounts, we still have keys and things, but for residential no reason that we should be dealing with keys as much as possible. Highly recommend having some type of policy in place for that.

Okay, Home Alarm Systems, serene clean will not be liable for any false alarm charges due to code changes not brought to their attention before service in the home.

Scheduling Changes and Payment Policies

Stephanie: Next section, schedule changes, cancelations of services. In the event that you reschedule, skip or cancel your service, we ask that you give a 48 hour notice. Without a 48 hour notice, you will be charged 25% of the scheduled cleaning time cancelations on the same day of service for any reason, will be charged half the rate of the scheduled service. All scheduled changes and cancelations must be made through our office. So you’ll notice that we have this 48 hour notice window we used to have, where we send our reminder emails only two days in advance, but that meant that if they wanted to cancel or reschedule, they were already within that, you know, 48 hour notice. So we bumped it back to three day notice, so that they have time to not get that cancelation fee and we have more time to fill that spot if necessary, or do the schedule changes as necessary.

Next section is going to be about payment all initial cleans and move in, slash move out. Cleans will require 50% of the estimated hours to be paid prior to booking the appointment as a down payment. The down payment is fully refundable if the appointment is canceled 48 hours prior to the scheduled cleaning. If the appointment is canceled with less than 48 hours notice, 25% of the down payment will be refundable. If the appointment is canceled the same day as it is scheduled, the down payment is non refundable because that down payment is what covers our cleaners lost wages, and that’s exactly how we explain it. No cash is accepted for service payment by the cleaning technicians. We do not want our cleaners handling any payment. Tips may be left for your cleaning tech. Please clearly mark cash as such, so the technician knows it is for them. Alternatively, you may add a tip to your invoice payment and will be included on the technician’s next paycheck. All services will be invoiced by email with payment due upon receipt. Payment may be made by debit or credit card, check, bank transfer and other electronic payment options noted on the invoice. Cash Payments may be made in our office during posted open hours. Auto pay can be set up by contacting our office directly. Note that lack of payment of previous cleanings mean we will be unable to service your home until all bills are paid. Very important, guys, I see this question all the time in the groups, if they haven’t paid their bill previous, don’t go again. What if a history of late payment has been established? Payment prior to cleaning will be required. A credit or debit card is required on file as a backup form of payment. Also very important. Signing of these guidelines is given authorization for the card on file to be charged. Should payment of in full and payment in full for agreed upon services rendered by serene clean not be received within five days. So we have a policy, basically, payment is due on receipt, but we give them a grace of five days. I know a lot of folks are like, do not leave that house without payment. Blah, blah, blah, because we have the card on file. That’s why we have this. And a lot of people, you know, they’re busy, right? And if we’re saying that they are going over often, or need to be reminded often, we’ll ask them if they want to go on auto pay, and we can auto charge them, and then tipping the cleaning techs is never required, but always appreciated. Thank you in advance if you choose to do so. And side note, the new tipping feature in ZenMaid is absolutely amazing and is going to increase your cleaners tips. So if you have not turned on the tip request feature, go do that right now, because I know it’s going to make our cleaners have more tips.

Price Increases and Quality Control

Stephanie: The next section is going to be price increases. Clients are given advance notice of any price increase. Serene clean reserves the right to raise prices at any time. Though, we do give notice for our price increases, so don’t get your panties in a wad here. We’re going to give them ample notice if we do this. Sometimes, if say, we want to, we realize, we lost our ass on a cleaning or something. But again, we always know that because we charge hourly. So for you guys, if you charge flat rate, this could be a thing of, hey, next cleaning. We lost so much on that we need to do a price increase before the next cleaning. For us, we’re charging hourly, so that’s probably not going to happen like that.

Now, moving on to quality control, serene clean needs your feedback. Please expect random quality checks to happen on your home by a quality control technician to make sure you are receiving consistently fantastic service. If you have any special requests for additional tasks to be included or tasks to be skipped, please contact our office. We do not want our clients to be asking the cleaner directly to be doing things that we’re not aware of.

Laundry Services and Bedding Changes

Stephanie: Laundry services and bedding. Our cleaning services do not include laundry services. This means that while we will thoroughly clean your space, we do not wash or launder any items as part of a regular service, something we changed in the past six months. We used to do this. If you would like us to change the sheets and pillow cases, please provide fresh sheets and pillow cases on the beds to be changed before our arrival. Our cleaning technician will change the bedding using the fresh items you provided. The used sheets and pillow cases will be placed in an area specified by you in advance, or left near your washer or dryer. We do not remove or replace duvet covers. I know that’s a hot take. I know we were just having a lot of cleaning techs with trouble with duvet covers and or we destroyed duvet cover horrifically one time, and that just scarred us. So it hasn’t been an issue since, since implementing this rule of no duvet cover changing. Our technicians will make beds as part of our service, ensuring that everything looks neat and tidy. However, for safety reasons, we will not climb on or into bunk beds or lofted beds. Obviously, vacation rentals, sometimes you have bunk beds, and the only way to do that is to climb into them. One of the reasons we don’t like Airbnbs, we don’t do them anymore.

Vacuum Systems and Toilet Brushes

Stephanie: Central vacuum systems. We do not use central vacuum systems. Another thing that we have changed. We got sick of using them, and they were more fuss than they were worth. Not saying that they aren’t cool and useful, but just for our cleaners to attach all the hoses and deal with it and get used to it if they’ve never used it before, because it’s very rare that we have a client that has it. So we don’t really want to make that exception and expect our cleaners to know how to use something that they’ll run into once every six months, our technicians will use vacuums provided by serene clean during service visits. If you prefer, you are welcome to provide an upright vacuum for us to use in your home instead. This will ensure that we maintain the highest cleaning standards while accommodating your preferences toilet brushes, we require that a toilet brush or disposable wand with heads be present in each bathroom to be cleaned. Change that this year. So again, we’re six years in, these are recent changes that we’ve made of we’re tired of carrying a toilet brush from bathroom to bathroom and splashing icky toilet brush water all over the house and being near it in general, if they can’t afford a $5 additional toilet brush for every bathroom, then what are they doing with a cleaner? Frankly, they can afford it, guys, it’s not a big ask, not a big ask. And again, I might sound like a diva right now, we just don’t want to risk icky toilet water splashing everywhere, and it’s just not necessary, and also it creates a lot of unnecessary back and forth, of searching for the toilet brush, which bathroom is it? And it’s wasting time, and clients are paying for time, so it’s an easy sell.

Breakage and Damage Policies

Stephanie: Breakage. Okay? We believe in shining a spotlight on an issue, rather than sweeping it under the rug. If something gets broken or damaged, our staff are trained to photograph it and report it immediately, without reprimand. They are careful and considerate of each space they attend. But every now and then something can happen. We are human. After all, once reported to the office, we contact you to discuss a fair and quick resolution. If something happens to break during our routine service, we’ll do our best to repair or replace the item. Our technicians are fully insured so claims can be filed when appropriate. We’ve actually only filed one claim ever in the history of Serene Clean, which I’ve told you guys about, where we shattered a glass stove top, an expensive glass stove top in a very nice house. We do ask that any irreplaceable items be put away, and anything you are concerned about is noted at the time of booking. Please note we don’t repair or replace existing damage or improperly installed items. Serene clean can assume no liability for damage due to pictures not hung securely, items with unstable bases floating shelves, items not secured properly, etc. Because I swear, sometimes people are hanging up pictures with spit and a prayer, perhaps a little pin in the wall, and they fall and shatter. So it’s really annoying. So just really spelling out, hey, if something’s improperly hung and it gets knocked off, that’s on you guys. But again, you know, we’ve replaced, I don’t know how many, 50 items in the past six years, just little things are often, typically what we’re breaking. Honestly, most people are like me. It’s fine. It’s such a small thing that we broke.

Pre-Existing Damage Documentation

Stephanie: Okay, and then on to damage. So clients should point out any damage to surfaces before service begins. Our cleaning techs are trained to survey a home when they arrive and note slash, record any damage prior to starting cleaning. Actually, one of my cleaners, Ashley, as she just had a really good one where, I think it was a toilet seat was cracked. This was a regular client she’d been going to for a long time, and she noticed that a toilet seat was cracked where it wasn’t before took a photo of it. Boom, that’s that. It really was a perfect attention to detail situation of she’d been there a million times, but we still want to do a walk through and check for damage every single time. Serene clean is sometimes called into correct damage that was already there and that another cleaning company was responsible for. In this case, we may require that the client sign off on a pre existing surface damage waiver in areas of the home with extreme clutter. Serene clean reserves the right to skip those areas in order to avoid damaging items or injuring the cleaning techs surfaces, such as hardwood floors and natural stones, should be in good condition and ready to clean without causing harm to the surface when using a neutral pH cleaner.

Alternative Products and OSHA Compliance

Stephanie: Alternative cleaning solutions, products and tools. Serene clean used as non toxic, eco friendly products that do not stain or warp any surfaces. If you would like us to use your products or tools instead, please understand serene clean will not be held liable for any damage caused by your products or tools. To remain OSHA compliant, any products supplied by a client for a technician to use must be approved and documented by our office prior to use send a clear photo the front and back, or the product to Office at serene clean.com to request its use. And this is actually probably our most common thing that we see in all of these client guidelines is people wanting us to use something that we don’t have in our kits, and we require that they submit that to us for approval, or our cleaning tech does, and we need to get that OSHA document or the SDS sheet basically on file if we’re approving at all, if there’s bleach in it whatsoever, we’re not going to use it to prevent damage and for the safety of our cleaning techs, bleach will not be used even if requested. So we literally note that in the guidelines.

Okay, keep going, guys. We’re almost done. I promise this is a lengthy one, but I really want to go through every section and give you guys some food for thought.

Photography and Video Use Policies

Stephanie: Okay, two sections left, photography and video use. I see this one often asked of how do we handle using, you know, photos for marketing and documentation purposes in houses, etc. So photographs and videos may be taken in your home that was loud thunder. These can be used for employee learning purposes and marketing and promotional purposes. Photographs slash videos that are taken for employee learning purposes will never be shared or released to the public. Photographs slash VIDEOS that would be taken and utilized as marketing or promotional purposes would be before and after pictures videos. Serene clean will never capture any identifying information within these pictures or indicate where these photos were taken. Confidentiality will be upheld in all marketing and promotional pictures. Serene clean reserves the right to edit and use before and after pictures and utilize the photos on social media. Serene clean will never give these photos to a third party for use and serene clean reserves the right to use photography and video unless the client specifically requests us not to. And then we’ll just add that to their notes. So if they read through this and they’re like, no photos or videos, no problem, we’ll just add that to the notes. But this is spelling it out, that the expectation is we can use those, and if they don’t want that, no worries. But they need to call that out. We’re telling them here.

Non-Solicitation and Employee Protection

Stephanie: And then finally, non-solicitation of employees. And then our guarantee when a client enters into an agreement for services with serene clean, the client understands that they will pay a $1,500 training fee to serene clean if they engage in a working relationship directly with any employee of serene clean during the course of service other than through serene clean so if they are trying to go around you, this is what we call out. And luckily, every time that this has happened that I’m aware of, at least our cleaner has came to us and said, Hey, Sally was like, I can pay you this. Okay, you want to do this. You want to work around and we have either canceled on them fully or gave them a firm slap on the wrist, depending on the severity of were they being innuendo towards it, or blatant? But we’ll just pull this out and send it and being like, Hey, don’t do that. They told us. And, and it’s really funny to reprimand an adult like that to me. And we’ve actually never done this and forced it, but it being there is very important to make them aware, that’s not okay. You can’t do that.

Satisfaction Guarantee and Updated Terms

Stephanie: And then finally, our satisfaction guarantee, we want you to be absolutely delighted with the cleaning service. Report any concerns to our office, at our phone number or at our email address within 24 hours after the service. Important, 24 hours after the service, again, things I see in the cleaning groups of oh, they complained seven weeks later or whatever. No, 24 hours, we will return and re clean the areas of concern at no cost to you again. We want to re-clean we do not want to give away money as much as possible, and kind of enforce the if you complain, you get money off. We want to fix it and make it right as much as possible. Sometimes we have to give a discount because of a situation, but this is the first line of defense. Is re cleaning.

And then the last little part here is consent to updated terms through continued use. Please be advised that any modifications, additions or amendments to these customer guidelines made after the initial signing shall be considered binding and enforceable upon written notification from serene clean so we can just send out an email and say, Hey, this is a new section, and we don’t need to get them all assign it again, basically because it was just a lot to continually resend and have them re sign it. Customers acknowledge that no new signature will be required for these changes to take effect. Furthermore, clients continued use of our services following such notification will constitute acceptance of the updated terms and guidelines. If a client does not agree with the changes, they must discontinue the use of services and notify us in writing within a reasonable time frame, and then we ask for their signature and the date, and then the last two pages is the acknowledgement of our checklist tasks, whether that be standard or deep clean, and we have so we have client guidelines for both. And so it literally is imagery of our cleaning checklist of exactly what we’re going to perform, and we just ask them please review the checklist below that will be used by your cleaning tech. If there are tasks you would like completed that are not listed or have questions on any of the tasks, please let us know prior to your cleaning this may result in additional time being needed to complete all tasks. Cleaning under furniture and beds is not performed unless requested in bold so and then, is the pictures and then section for them to sign again. So we’re having them sign both the guidelines and then secondarily, that they acknowledge and understand what tasks will be completed, and they sign at the bottom there.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Stephanie: So, oh my lord, I need a honey Sprite, perhaps a glass of wine. That would be nice, right? This was a super painfully long one, guys. I’m sorry if this bored you to death, but I thought for any of you that are totally confused or overwhelmed at the thought of client guidelines. Or how do I go about this if I haven’t done this again, ChatGPT is going to be your best friend. I literally just read you 10 pages of client guidelines, including the two that are client that blah, blah, our cleaning checklist that they sign. So technically, eight pages of writing and sections and all of that stuff, and it covers everything, and we just keep adding to it as dumb stuff keeps coming up. But this really covers the gamut for us and protects us in so many ways. If you ever had to take somebody to court, or, you know, they’re not paying their bills or whatever, this makes it a lot easier, as well as just in general, if you had to leave a cleaning, maybe a dog’s being aggressive or what have you, just so many different things, and a lot of them are a bit broad, like safety, biohazard, that type of stuff, just to cover whatever situation might come at us. So hopefully this has been informative to you, and don’t critique my reading skills, please. My ego is fragile, so, you know, I did my best, and that’s what counts, right?

And if you yourself are interested in getting a copy of these client guidelines for you to implement, I do have them available. We’ll link it below in the description of this episode. Otherwise, you can always go to serene-clean.com/consulting services. If you ever want to check out all of the different templates that I have available for you to check out and use in your business and make it a lot faster and easier for you to just wham bam, get them all in place very quickly. So let me know what you guys think. Let me know anything that I do not have in my customer guidelines, that you have and that we are missing, because I’m sure there’s something. I’m sure there’s something. And thank you for watching this long, painful video, and I’ll see you on the next episode of filthy rich cleaners Bye, guys.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Serene Clean consulting services
• SignRequest
• ZenMaid
• The Maid Summit 2025
• ChatGPT
• ServPro

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