Most commercial cleaning disputes are not about quality. They are about a scope nobody wrote down, an insurance certificate nobody checked, and an escalation path nobody agreed. All three are solvable before signing and painful afterwards.
You are buying a recurring service that happens when nobody is watching. The contract is the only mechanism that makes that verifiable.
Scope, in a schedule not a sentence
"General office cleaning" means nothing. What you want is a task list with a frequency against each line: restrooms daily, interior glass weekly, high dusting monthly. If a company cannot produce that document, they are keeping scope vague on purpose and you will meet that vagueness later.
Insurance you have actually seen
- A certificate of insurance naming your entity or landlord as required by the lease
- General liability plus workers' compensation, not one or the other
- Bonding, which covers theft where liability does not
- Confirmation it is current, because a certificate from two years ago proves nothing
Access and security
- 1How keys, fobs or codes are held, and who is accountable for them.
- 2Whether cleaners are employees or subcontractors — it changes who has been vetted and by whom.
- 3Background-check policy, stated rather than implied.
- 4What happens when a regular crew member is replaced.
Staffing consistency
A crew that knows your floor works faster and misses less. A contract that rotates staff every week never builds that, and you pay for the learning curve repeatedly. Ask whether the same team is assigned, and what happens when they are unavailable.
Getting problems fixed
One named point of contact, a stated response window, and a remedy. Ours is a return visit within 24 hours at no charge. Without a written remedy, a complaint is just a complaint.
Term and exit
Be wary of long lock-ins with automatic renewal. A service that performs does not need a twelve-month cliff to keep you, and a month-to-month arrangement is the strongest signal a company is confident in the work.
