Here at Well Polished, we’ve always positioned ourself as the ‘modern’ choice when it comes to a cleaning franchise. The cleaning industry is notoriously old fashioned, with many of our competitors referring to their cleaning staff as ‘maids’ and using photos of women scrubbing toilets to advertise their services.
We like to do things a little differently… a little more in line with the century we’re living in!
Alongside our overall branding and image reflecting a more aspirational tone, we’re also constantly brainstorming ways in which we can modernise our offering even more so.
Here’s some initiatives we’ve introduced over the past couple of years as a continuation of our fight against the dreary, old fashioned industry of domestic cleaning:
Scrap The Standing Order
Can you believe that some of our competitors still expect their franchisees to visit every potential client, and have them sign a paper standing order which is posted to their bank in order to set up their monthly payment?!
Back in 2019, we decided that technology had well and truly moved on from standing orders (we scrapped paper standing orders YEARS AGO) and that it was time to embrace online card payments. All our clients pay their booking fee via an online payment processing system called Stripe. Stripe allows us to securely process client’s card details and then set up monthly subscriptions for their agency fees.
Not only has the company conversion rate from enquiry to client improved since introducing this payment option, but our franchisees have also improved their bank reconciliation with less payment chasing than ever before!
A simple solution… but we guarantee that this is one of those ‘modern’ things that our competitors fail to embrace.
Video Broadcasting for Business Updates
First of all, it’s worth pointing out that many of our competitors won’t give their franchisees business updates full stop. Here at Well Polished, our full time focus is helping our franchisees grow their income, so we believe its essential we keep them updated on new initiatives and system improvements etc. Previously, we’ve always sent these updates via email for franchisees to read and digest in their own time. But recently, we’ve embraced the benefits of video broadcasts.
Our first update was titled ‘Ask The MD’ in which we invited franchisees to submit any and all questions they had to our MD Mike. We were bowled away by how many questions flooded in, and set aside a day to film our responses. This video was then broadcast via our Franchisee Facebook Group and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive! Our franchisees have expressed how much they appreciated the more personal touch of a video, but also how helpful the questions and answers were.
This is something we will be continuing with for all our business updates!
Ever Improving System
Our bespoke management system, WPManager, is the backbone of our brand, allowing franchisees to manage their business both efficiently and effectively. Not only is this their one stop shop for dealing with cleaner applications, client enquiries, existing team members and current customers – but we’re constantly improving this system to make the running of a Well Polished franchise easier and slicker.
For example, we’ve recently integrated our system with Stripe (the online card processing system we use) which means as a franchisee, you never have to leave the WPM interface in order to amend customer’s subscriptions or send over an initial booking invoice to a new enquiry!
Furthermore, we’re always trying to make our processes more efficient and with that in mind, we’ve now introduced a ‘client allocation document’ that’s downloadable from WPM. This document is password protected (for client security) and can be sent to the assigned cleaner in order to ensure that cleaner has all the relevant information for their new job allocation.
Simple system improvements such as these not only make our service look better to prospective clients, but they also mean our franchisees have all the tools possible to grow their business month in, month out.
RightCheck
Running your own business comes with enough stress, without the concern of whether or not the cleaners you’re sending into people’s homes have been properly vetted. Whilst the majority of our competitors still risk false documentation, no definite right to work in the UK and not to mention a severe GDPR breach by simply ‘photographing‘ cleaner’s passports and keeping copies – we have once again embraced technology!
The RightCheck app that all our franchisees use not only means that all Well Polished cleaners are accurately checked for right to work in the UK alongside facial recognition, but it also means all cleaner documents are stored securely in the cloud based app so is completely compliant with GDPR.
Initiatives like this one allow our franchisees peace of mind, but also set us aside from our competitors.
So, why would you choose another cleaning franchise?
Well, we can’t answer that one! We believe every prospective franchisee should always conduct thorough research into other cleaning franchises before making a decision… but we’re pretty confident that if you’re looking for a forward thinking, modern and innovative company to join – we’re the obvious choice in the cleaning industry!