Start with what was agreed
A cleaner can only be judged against something. If you have a written scope, it lists the areas, the tasks and how often each is done. Read it before you walk the space. If there is no written scope, that is your first finding: nobody, including you, can say what the service is supposed to deliver.
Keep the scope next to you for the walkthrough. Every task on it is either visible in the result or it is not.
The 10-minute walkthrough
Walk the space the morning after a visit, at about the same time each week, so the results can be compared. Go in this order and make a note on your phone of anything you would not be happy to show a visitor.
- The entrance and reception: glass, floor, mats, anything a visitor sees first.
- Restrooms: fixtures, mirrors, floors, dispensers stocked, and the smell.
- The kitchen or breakroom: counters, sink, appliance fronts, bins emptied and re-lined.
- Floors: look along the edges, under furniture and in corners, where machines and mops miss.
- High-touch points: door handles, light switches, push plates, shared devices.
- Desks and shared surfaces: dust on ledges, partitions and the tops of cabinets.
- Waste and recycling: collected, separated the way the building asks, not overflowing.
- Supplies: paper, soap and liners are present without you having to ask.
Take a dated photo of anything that is wrong. A photo with a date is far harder to argue with than a recollection.
A short scoring sheet
Score each area from 0 to 5, where 5 is exactly what the scope describes and 0 is not done. The point is the trend. One bad week is a conversation; four weeks in a row is a pattern.
| Area | What to look at | Score (0 to 5) |
|---|---|---|
| Entrance and reception | Glass, floor, mats | |
| Restrooms | Fixtures, floors, mirrors, dispensers | |
| Kitchen or breakroom | Counters, sink, bins | |
| Floors | Edges, corners, under furniture | |
| High-touch points | Handles, switches, push plates | |
| Desks and surfaces | Ledges, partitions, tops of cabinets | |
| Waste and recycling | Collected, separated, re-lined | |
| Supplies | Stocked without being asked |
Restrooms and floors matter most to the people who use the space, so weigh them most. The scorecard guide shows a weighted version of the same idea, with a rule for findings serious enough to fail a visit whatever the total.
Signs a service is slipping
- The same task is missed week after week, even after you mention it.
- The people doing the work change without notice, and nobody can tell you who is coming.
- Supplies run out and you find out first.
- Problems are fixed slowly, or only after a second request.
- There is no record of what was done on which visit.
- Your own team has started tidying or wiping things the scope says the cleaner does.
- You cannot say when the scope was last read or updated.
Three outcomes: keep, fix or switch
- Keep. Scores are steady and the issues are small and closed quickly. Do nothing except keep the record.
- Fix. The service is mostly right but the scope is vague, the frequency is wrong or one area keeps failing. Rewrite the scope, change the schedule, and ask for a follow-up inspection in a fixed number of weeks.
- Switch. Problems persist after you raised them in writing, and there is no record that anything changed. Read the notice clause in your contract first, then plan the change.
A review from a cleaning company is not an independent audit