Letter from Our President
Happy Fall!
We had an amazing Summer. Our highlight was our first ever WellNest Impact Day! We took a half-day and our Residential Division were all paid to volunteer at the local food bank. Check out our pictures below!
School is back!
Kiddos are back in school, work deadlines are in full force, activities are kicking back up, it must be September / October! The back-to-school season tends to be a challenge for us and for all service businesses. Typically about 20% of our cleanings cancel each week as families cancel individual cleanings for various reasons. We track this and call it our “skip rate.”
During the back-to-school season, the skip rate is only 1-2% from the end of August until late September as families do a reset into the school year.
THANK YOU to everyone who has been patient with us as we’ve rescheduled jobs in an effort to reduce drive time or simply because we do not have the staffing to complete all scheduled jobs. It’s a short-term struggle but then smooths back out.
What’s on tap for the remainder of 2022? Improving consistency during chaotic periods
Our service is widely known as the most consistent and reliable service many of our clients have ever engaged.
Our current challenge is actually what I mention above. How to maintain consistency during chaotic periods, e.g. Back-to-School, Holidays, and Spring Cleaning.
These periods are when our steady routine schedule turns into “madness” with lower skip rates, irregular schedulings, and necessary time off for our crews. Every residential service company in the nation must manage this challenge.
There are two standard industry solutions to this:
1 — Engage subcontractors, temporary staff, and day laborers. For many reasons, we do not and will not use temporary staff in your homes. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night taking this approach!
2 — Hire then lay off. This is also not a viable approach for many reasons.
Our first and foremost priority with this is continuing to keep Communication as one of our Core Values. Communication really can solve 90% of problems. Our Core Values of Respect, Quality, and Communication are posted in big letters on our office walls for that reason!
We have 3-4 other great ideas that we’ll be testing over the next several months. We always strive to be as reliable as possible for our clients. In many cases, there is only so much we can do, but a focus on improvement on all fronts is the key to client happiness.
What did we accomplish in Spring and Summer 2022?
First-Ever WellNest Impact Day
We are very proud of this as this is rare for service businesses. We closed up shop for a half-day and all volunteered at a local food bank. All staff were paid for their volunteer time and were thrilled to make an impact. We donated nearly 75 hours of work! Check out our pictures below.
Improvements within our Cleanings
We did our annual Summer improvement process. This year we dug deep into customer reviews, employee attendance, policies, procedures, supplies, and everything in between. We found:
- Servicing 10+ miles from our office was forcing our crews to feel rushed so we trimmed our service area again. Losing the business hurt but our reliability score increased considerably.
- We developed a “Feedback Loop” to ensure we are aligning customer feedback with the respective crew. This “Feedback Loop” is now a permanent fixture in our management procedures and allows for faster, more responsive crew training and development.
- We replaced our phone system to a much more reliable and organized system. Our office team is thrilled with this change.
I am exceptionally proud of the improvements within our Residential Division. While all the local “Best Of” awards no longer give an award for house cleaning, I firmly believe we would win every single one, especially after the improvements we made this summer.
It’s fun being here every morning to send our teams off knowing that I would personally welcome each of our teams into our personal home. Very few owners of house cleaning companies can say that. I am proud!
Thank you, as always, for your wonderful support of our small business.
I want to say a special THANK YOU for your business and support. We love this community and are super proud to be a small business growing, achieving, building, and giving back to our area.
Please continue supporting local!
As always, please reach out with any questions, feedback, or suggestions. My number is (240) 514-4949 and my email is phil@gowellnest.com. I love any opportunity to connect with a client!
Here’s to a great Fall!
With Gratitude,
Phil Harper
President, WellNest Professional Cleaning
phil@gowellnest.com
(240) 514-4949