Hiring A Maid Service South Shore MA

Essential Tips on Hiring a Maid Service on the South Shore, Boston MA Area

Your hectic lifestyle and schedule may leave you lacking enough time to look after your house’ cleaning needs. Why not hire a maid service to handle all your critical house cleaning chores? But before calling, make sure you know more about the maid service company and the people you’re letting in to your home. Here are some essential tips to safeguard your home’s privacy and getting the best quality maid service on the South Shore, Boston MA area.

Bonding: Protect your home and personal things by making sure the maid service you’re hiring is bonded. Should a theft or loss occur, you can be recompensed by the company.

Insurance: Insurance is important. It covers a house cleaner from work-related accidents like slipping and falling, and other accidents that may occur. The maid service should have liability and employee accident coverage.

References: A trustworthy maid service is one that has long work experience, reliability and positive recommendation. Ask for their references and work history. Call their past and current customers and, and make sure to ask these questions:

• Would you enthusiastically recommend the maid service company?
• How long have you been using the maid service? 
• Have you ever had any problems? If so, how did they handle and resolve the issue?

Employee screening and hiring: Find out from the maid service company if their employees' references and residence status have been checked and confirmed. Ask if criminal background checks are made. Find out if their cleaning staff is comprised of employees or subcontractors. This is important to know because maid services that use subcontractors may not provide staff training. They may not have established standards and procedures for quality assurance and complaint resolution, and liability insurance.

Cleaning products: Find out what cleaning products the maid service company uses and be sure that they are safe for your kids and pets. Beware of cleanings that contain a high ratio of harsh chemicals like bleach or ammonia.

For South Shore maid services that say they use "green" or environmentally friendly products, always ask if their cleaning products are effective at sanitizing against pathogens like Staphylococcus (Staph.), Salmonella and E.Coli. Establish which industry group has given them and their cleaning products the recognition of being “Green-Certified” and the certification process.

But beware: While some cleaning products may be certified as environmentally safe to use for home cleaning, they may actually contain harsh chemicals – in lesser proportions. These cleaning products are essentially watered down versions in order to pass the “green” certification and may still be unsafe when you have kids and pets.

Equipment: Find out if the maid service brings in their own the equipment and the efficiency of their vacuums and the filtration system. Ask if their filters are HEPA-certified and ask to see the condition of their equipment to see if it’s well-maintained or not.

Satisfaction: Ask if the maid service measures customer satisfaction. If they don’t, think twice about using them. If they do, ask them how the responses are gathered – the steps they take to ensure total customer satisfaction says a lot about how much they value their clients. Ask key questions like:

• Do you ask your clients to fill out a survey online or on paper?
• Does the cleaning service manager contact you following the service to ask about your satisfaction and if your expectations were fulfilled (or exceeded)? If so, was the manager courteous and professional?
• Would you like to get them again the next time your house needs cleaning? If not, why not?

Quality assurance: Find out how the maid service measures and guarantees the quality of their work and the assurance of consistent delivery on every visit. A maid service should have quality assurance procedures in place to meet quality standards at every visit. Ask if the maid service has supervisors or team managers who do quality checks to ensure the quality of their work.

Guarantee: How does the maid service company handle client complaints? Do they have a written service satisfaction guarantee? Get to know prior to the house cleaning, the limitations of that guarantee and what steps consumers should take to execute the guarantee.

Taxes: If hiring a housekeeper be sure to know more about the federal and state tax laws. You may have to pay social security and other taxes. Or better yet, call the Internal Revenue Service for more information on household employee taxes.

Learning more about the maid service you’re planning to hire will give you the assurance that you will be getting the highest quality service available from a highly recommended and trustworthy house cleaning company.