Choosing an office cleaner in Townsville: 9 questions

Choosing a commercial cleaner is a decision most business owners make once and then live with for years. It’s also one of the few supplier decisions where the work happens when nobody is watching, which makes the selection process do a lot of heavy lifting.

Here are the questions that actually separate providers — and what a good answer sounds like.

1. Can I see your certificates of currency?

Ask for: public liability (at least $10 million) and workers’ compensation.

Good answer: they’re emailed to you within the hour, current, and in the name of the entity that will invoice you.

Bad answer: “we’re fully insured” with nothing attached, or a certificate that expired four months ago, or one issued to a different business name.

Check the expiry date and the insured entity name. If the cleaner is a subcontractor working under someone else’s ABN, you need to know that now, not after an incident.

2. Are your cleaners employees or subcontractors?

Neither is automatically wrong, but the answer changes your risk.

Employees mean the provider carries the payroll, superannuation, award compliance and workers’ comp obligations. Turnover is generally lower and training is more consistent.

Subcontractors can work well, but you should ask how they’re vetted, whether they’re covered by the provider’s insurance, and who is responsible if one of them is underpaid. The Fair Work Act’s accessorial liability provisions mean businesses that knowingly benefit from underpayment can be pulled into it.

What you want to hear: a clear, unhesitant answer either way, with the compliance story attached.

3. Who will actually be in my building, and will it be the same people?

Consistency is the difference between a cleaner who knows the third-floor boardroom needs the blinds down and one who doesn’t.

Ask about staff turnover, whether you’ll have a regular team, and whether you’re told in advance about changes. Ask how cleaners are screened, trained and supervised — they’ll have after-hours access to your premises, your desks and often your keys.

4. What is the scope of work, room by room?

This is the most important document in the relationship and the one most often missing.

Bad scope: “Clean offices, kitchen and bathrooms weekly.”

Good scope: a schedule listing each area, each task, and the frequency — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. It should specify things like whether bins get liners replaced every visit or only when soiled, whether desks are wiped or only clear surfaces, and what “kitchen” includes.

Ambiguity in the scope always resolves in the cleaner’s favour later. Get it attached to the contract.

5. What’s on the periodic schedule, and is it included?

General cleaning is only part of keeping a building presentable. Ask specifically about:

Carpet steam cleaning
Hard floor stripping, sealing or buffing
Internal and external window cleaning
High dusting — vents, light fittings, tops of partitions
Upholstery
Bathroom deep cleans and descaling

For each: how often, and is it in the monthly fee or billed separately? A quote that excludes all periodic work will look cheaper and cost more.

6. Are consumables included?

Toilet paper, hand towel, soap, sanitiser, bin liners. On a 40-person office this is easily $120 – $250 a month. Both models are legitimate — just make sure you’re comparing quotes on the same basis, and if consumables are included, check whether there’s a usage cap.

7. What happens when something isn’t done properly?

Every cleaning relationship has a bad week. What matters is the mechanism.

Ask about:

How to report an issue — a named contact, an email address, an app?
Response time — what’s the commitment?
Rectification — will they return to fix it, and at whose cost?
Reviews — is there a scheduled quality audit, or does it only get looked at when you complain?

A provider with a defined rectification clause has thought about this. One that says “just give us a call” hasn’t.

8. What are the contract terms?

Reasonable: 12 months, 30 days’ notice either way, price reviewed annually with notice.

Worth pushing back on: three-year terms, automatic rollover unless you cancel in a narrow window, exit fees, or price increases at the provider’s discretion without notice.

Also ask what happens if you need to pause — a lot of Townsville businesses have seasonal patterns, and a provider who can flex is worth keeping.

9. Can you handle my compliance requirements?

If you’re in medical, dental, childcare, aged care or food service, general commercial cleaning is not enough. You need documented procedures, colour-coded equipment to prevent cross-contamination, appropriate chemicals with SDS records, and often a signed cleaning log for audit purposes.

Ask whether they’ve worked in your sector, and ask to see the documentation they’d provide. If they seem surprised by the question, they haven’t.

Two things that aren’t worth much

A long client list. Names on a website tell you nothing about whether those clients are happy or how recently they signed. Ask instead for a reference you can actually call — ideally a business of similar size and type to yours.

The lowest price. Covered at length in our guide to commercial cleaning costs, but briefly: a quote well below the field means underpaid staff, no insurance, or hours that will quietly shrink after month three.

A practical way to compare

Send every provider the same written brief — floor plan or area, occupancy, floor types, bathroom count, access hours, and any compliance requirements — and ask them all to quote against it.

Then compare on:

Scope detail (is it specific?)
Total cost including consumables and periodic work
Insurance and staffing model
Contract flexibility
How they handled the quoting process — responsiveness now is a reasonable proxy for responsiveness later

The provider who asks you the most questions before quoting is usually the one who will scope the job correctly.

We’re happy to be compared. Request a callback and we’ll arrange a free walkthrough of your site, then send a written scope, a fixed monthly price and our certificates of currency — everything you need to compare us properly. Request a quote.