How to Build a Luxury Cleaning Business That Attracts Elite Clientèle

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Do you ever feel frustrated by clients who have high standards but don’t want to pay you what you’re worth?

Have you ever found yourself at the mercy of cleaning service clients who downplay the amount of work needed at their house, resulting in you underquoting and having to work for way less money, or even for free?

If you answered yes, this article is for you!

It’s time to drop the one-size-fits-all approach and learn how to start a luxury cleaning business that only attracts high profile clients willing to pay top dollar for your services.

Cleaning industry expert Katie Pearse gave a presentation at ZenMaid’s 2020 Maid Summit outlining her step-by-step approach to teaching residential cleaning businesses just like yours how to attract elite clientèle.

We’ve highlighted the key points from Katie’s talk in this post. Keep reading to learn how to charge higher prices, grow and scale your small business, create an impeccable client experience and much more.

Invest in luxury branding elements

How you brand your cleaning company can play a massive role in the types of clients you attract. From your website and messaging on social media to the business cards you hand out at networking events, if you want to attract elite clients, you need to brand yourself accordingly.

When looking at your current branding elements, try and find ways to create a cleaner and more minimal aesthetic. Your uniforms, documents, emails, and other branding or marketing materials should also reflect quality and luxury. You can research other luxury brands for inspiration on how luxury branding should look. 

A luxurious aesthetic also means using only high-quality photos to share with potential clients. Images should highlight the types of clients you want to work with and the caliber of homes you clean. Prospective clients with expensive homes will want to see that you’ve worked with other clients like themselves.

Here’s an example of one branding aesthetic that the Glisten Academy put together for a luxury cleaning business. It features the types of images and staging that their portfolio will feature, as well as a clean and chic color palette for their website and social media.

Your clients will decide if they want to use your services in a split second. Presenting them with an aesthetically pleasing brand will capture their attention and earn their respect.

Give personalized quotes

When providing quotes, give clients the ability to customize the services they want. Having different ways clients can receive a quote and the option to create a custom housecleaning plan, will cater to their desire for a more personalized and high-end experience. 

Make it as easy as possible for clients to share information about their homes and get a quote on your website. Most clients want to be able to request a quote from you quickly and easily without friction.

Providing a professionally designed estimate to each client who requests one can elevate their experience and build more trust. On this estimate, you can include the minimum cost to clean their house, your hourly rate and options for other cleaning services they can add on. 

The estimate should be delivered to them digitally as a downloadable PDF. This document can then act as an official record of the estimate that you and the clients can later refer to.

Offer a variety of ways to book appointments

You want to make it as simple as possible for your customers to book appointments while streamlining your process as a cleaning services business owner. One of the best ways is to let potential customers book your cleaning services in different places that are easiest for them, but then route all of the options to a single scheduling tool. 

So, if you’re marketing on Instagram, your website, email, and a chat tool, customers can choose where they want to book. Each form will still direct them to book an appointment through a single calendar. This makes it much easier to track your booked appointments, and when you make changes to that calendar, those changes are reflected in all of the places clients can click to book. 

If you’re using ZenMaid or a CRM software, you can use the native scheduling tool, rather than a separate calendar, to avoid using too many different tools to manage your bookings.

Some elite clientèle will want a more personalized experience and may text or email you to book directly. In this case, you can manually book them, but you should still send them the profile they need to fill out as part of your onboarding process. (More on that in the next section.)

Once they’ve booked, set up an automated email that explains exactly what happens next. In the email, include information about your company, what information you’ll need from the client, as well as policies and procedures that your cleaners will follow.

Develop a thorough onboarding process

When your client has booked their service, give them a top-notch onboarding experience by having them complete a client property profile. This is a critical step in your client experience process because it allows the client to sit down and think about what they want from the experience. In this profile, ask them to tell you all about their home and lifestyle. 

It’s an indulgent part of the experience where they feel cared about, listened to, and emotionally invested in. The profile will include all of their details, including address and parking instructions, pet information, priorities regarding what to clean, scent and product preferences, aromatherapy information, and more.

Having this information will help your cleaner give them exactly what they are expecting. It’s also great information to have on file as a reference.

Be adequately prepared for the appointment

After your client has submitted their completed profile and signed the service agreement, you should send them information on preparing for the appointment. This includes details about their booking, such as their residential cleaning consultant’s name as well as your procedures and policies, so your clients know the general procedure and their questions will be answered before you even set foot in their house. 

This guide should not be overly complicated or require a lot of effort from your clients. It can be as simple as a checklist they can follow to help them get the most out of the experience. It will help set expectations with your client so that they know exactly what will happen during their appointment.

This checklist also gives your cleaners peace of mind knowing that they are on the same page as the client before the appointment. Your cleaners now have the information they need, and your customers have an opportunity to ask any questions before the appointment happens.

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Give them a stellar housecleaning experience

Creating a luxury cleaning brand involves executing every clean flawlessly — something that is only made possible with a consistent and thorough training program for your cleaning staff. This means making sure that your cleaners arrive prepared, on time, and wearing their designated uniform. After every appointment, you can make sure that the client is happy with the result by asking them if they would like to conduct a walkthrough. 

If everything is in order, your cleaner will leave the client with a thank you package and you can follow up with an email containing a quality management survey and information on how to book their next appointment.

Make it easy to collect payments

Your clients have just had the best possible experience with your company. The next step is to handle the payment process with expediency and efficiency. Just like you want to have different ways to book an appointment, it’s important to offer various ways for a client to pay for the service so that it’s easy for them. 

To streamline the payment process as much as possible, collect your customer’s credit card information ahead of time and charge them automatically on the morning of the appointment. ZenMaid lets you charge credit cards in just a few clicks and will save your client’s payment information for the next time they make a booking with you.

If you don’t ask your client to prepay, Glisten Academy recommends sending an email invoice directly after the appointment with links to different ways to pay online. In this invoice, you should suggest that the client join a subscription program or prepay for a certain number of cleanings to avoid making payments every time. This helps you avoid having to chase down invoices if a customer doesn’t pay right away.

Subscription packages and prepayments are a great way to help stabilize your business and finances, and manage cash flow. You can sell these packages on your website with the initial cleaning or offer them to clients as part of the follow-up once they’ve seen how fantastic your service is.

Provide aftercare

After the appointment is over and the payment is successful, it’s time to go above and beyond to prove how much you care about your clients. This is the time to show that you are an elite company that specializes in luxurious experiences.

As the owner of a residential cleaning company, you already know how important it is for your business to have repeat clients, so it’s essential to make the aftercare a fundamental part of your process. Start by sending a follow-up or thank you email to your client that includes the opportunity to leave a review, submit feedback, and book their next appointment. 

You can also offer additional options for their next housecleaning based on your observations and make suggestions on new ways you can add value. You can also give them a referral code so that they can gain benefits from recommending other customers and encourage them to follow along on your social media accounts for information on new offers and services.

Solidify your business as a VIP service provider

Once you secure your clients’ ongoing business, the key to creating a luxury brand is to develop long-lasting relationships and provide clients with consistent proof that they are a VIP client.

This will make your company stand out among the competition because you will be developing a genuine relationship with your client.

Make it your job to know and anticipate their particular needs. Knowing what scents they prefer, how they like the bed made, and the trick to unlocking their fancy washing machine are the cherry on top of excellent service.

The intimate relationship you and your staff develop with your clients happens naturally due to the type of personal work you do as a housecleaning company. With a little care and effort, you can keep a client for life. Most businesses can only dream of having these kinds of close relationships with their customers.

How to build a luxury cleaning business: Final thoughts

With so many cleaning companies out there, starting a luxury cleaning business will set you apart from the competition. Whether you’re transitioning to this type of cleaning or starting your business from scratch, it’s definitely a sound financial move.

You’ll end up doing the same amount of cleaning jobs (or less) for a lot more money. There are however some things to keep in mind when considering this line of work.

Your startup costs will be higher, since you’ll need to invest in luxury branding elements and top quality cleaning supplies and equipment. Working with elite clientèle also requires higher liability insurance.

That said, there are always going to be costs involved with starting a cleaning business, so why not start something that offers a much higher profit margin? With everything we’ve covered in this post, you have all the tools and information you need to start your luxury cleaning business.

Find out more about Katie Pearse

This article is based on a talk by Katie Pearse at ZenMaid’s 2020 Maid Summit. Katie is the founder of Glisten Academy, where she provides online training and courses showing maid service owners how to become elite cleaning professionals.

Katie took everything she learned from generating $1.5m in sales in her own residential cleaning business and now she shows other cleaning business owners how to attract high-profile, high-paying clients, too.

For a more in-depth look at how Glisten Academy can help brand you as a luxury cleaning business, take a look at Katie’s full presentation below. You’ll also learn how to get access to the academy’s exclusive free workbook, which features templates and other resources to help you deliver couture cleaning services to an elite clientèle.

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