The Maids Home Services

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THE MAIDS FALL 2005 NEWSLETTER

It appears that 2005 is quickly zipping by and I hope everyone is doing well. Here at The Maids, as we prepare for the holidays, it is appropriate to take some time to thank you, all our clients, who are the mainstay of our business. Speaking for myself, my husband Kevin, our office staff and all our crews we appreciate the opportunity of cleaning your homes. As we continue to grow, our focus remains on offering and delivering a quality product so that your experience is positive, stress-free and can reduce your workload.

We have just celebrated our 7^th year of operation and several employees have celebrated their 6 year and 5 year anniversaries. I am very proud of their work ethic and dedication to growing this business. I have stubbornly been holding on to our base rate of $125.00 per hour for our four person teams, but controlling expenses is challenging. With so many cars on the road every day, the cost of gasoline is a killer. And while the rise in the minimum wage does not really affect us directly, my long term employees do deserve raises from time to time.

"FYI": While some of you may have thought that I would pay minimum wage, please rest assured that you can not get quality, reliability and professionalism for $6.00!!!! I would not have a business and most clients would be horrified at the low level of work. It never ceases to amaze me the manners in which people come to my office looking for a job! I turn away countless applicants, (and yes some of them are quite scary), until I find the gems who become my superstars.

Speaking of quality, you may recall that in each newsletter I introduce the business of one of my associates/clients, whom I believe would be beneficial for you to know. This time I am pleased to present Babette Deering, a licensed massage therapist and an all around delightful person! A massage is a well earned stress buster. You will appreciate the results whether you opt for the Swedish, pregnancy, deep tissue, sports massage and/or a reflexology session. And, depending on your situation she can come to your home or office (with her portable table) or you can go to her office. Perhaps you would be interested in gift certificates, which she can easily arrange for you as well. She has been a client for several years now and I can vouch for her professionalism and can practically guarantee your rave reviews. She can be reached at 732-936-9336 or email: BDeering@aol.com

I don’t know what business everyone is in but I do love to barter. So give me a call if we can set up a mutually beneficial trade of services. It can be for my business, my building or my home (Edison). So let’s talk!

Many thanks again to all our generous clients who have donated clothing, furniture etc to my employees. Your thoughtfulness is truly appreciated.

Especially around the holidays I am asked about tipping. My standard response is that I never want anyone to feel obligated to do so. But for those looking to acknowledge their team you can leave a separate card and check or gift with your regular payment, you could add it to your credit card (please advise the office directly with whatever amount you wish; or you could mail a check to my attention and I will ensure that the correct people receive it. In any event the teams understand that there is no business without happy clients. So thank you for your business and thank you for thinking of your team.

Here’s a quick review of our policies on any additional fees that could be incurred. All new clients receive a policy sheet at or before their first time clean that needs to be signed. In every newsletter I review these fees. If anyone needs a copy of the original policy sheet, please call and we will get one to you. The point is to keep our costs down, which obviously determine our client’s fees, and thus, I need to be fanatical about these situations.

Drive time. This is critical; each teams’ schedule must be the most efficient route.

Lost time. Please have payment ready for the team when they arrive. If the team is allotted, for example, one hour 15 minutes to clean your home, they can not stay another 10 minutes in the house waiting to get paid. Ten minutes extra equals another $21.00 that needs to be covered. And the teams need to get to their next house. There is no advantage to either you or me with lost time.

Friendly time. I always stress to the teams to show their personalities when they enter your home, but to do so quickly and then get to work!!! I want you to feel comfortable with your team and I don’t want them to appear to be like robots but again time is money. So the guidelines are to be "super-friendly" but "super-fast" about it.

Lock out fees. Our policy is $40.00 for lock outs. Please remember I am paying four people to drive to your home. I can’t do that for free! Many clients give us keys. By far that is the most efficient way to go and is less hassle.

Same day cancellations: our policy is $25.00. It is a little lower because I at least saved the gas and drive time, but when we reserve a time slot for you and have confirmed everything, I cannot automatically rearrange the schedule of all our other clients that day that are expecting us during the time frame we quoted them. We love our very flexible clients, but not everyone has that luxury. Added to that my employees come to work expecting to work a full day. I can’t keep quality people with irregular hours. So here at The Maids cancellations are considered disastrous.

Bounced checks. There is a $30.00 fee for bounced checks.

Change of frequency. There’s a $15.00 difference between weekly and every other week pricing and a $30.00 difference between every two weeks and every four weeks. If you need to cancel a clean the time is adjusted on your next clean to reflect the additional time that will be needed to do the job properly. If the time between cleans is more than four weeks the next clean reverts to the $125.00 hourly rate until you are back on a regular schedule.

The reason I have Patrick make all the confirmation calls/or via email, and the follow-up feedback calls, is to make sure there are no surprises, mistakes and/or misunderstandings with either our scheduling or the quality of our work. Please remember we give the same sales pitch a million times a day. People hear different things, want different things etc. and we do try to work with everyone’s requests. But we need your information in our computer. So please tell Patrick and do not rely on the teams’ remembering at the end of the day that one of their clients wants to make some kind of change. They are not going to remember. Please tell us at the office!!! Either Patrick or Amy can help you when you do call the office. Amy was hired with the intention of cleaning but was quickly transferred over to an office position helping with the phones and sales. So all in all, operations are running smoothly. Our goal is to keep growing and be "The Name" in house cleaning here in Monmouth County. Your business and your referrals is what it’s all about.

Thank you and have a perfectly delightful holiday season!!!!!

Gerry Elwood

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The Maids Home Services
Phone: (732)224-1105 Red Bank
Phone: (732)333-2990 Freehold
Email: pkocenthemaids@aol.com
157 Maple Avenue • Red Bank, NJ 07701
11 Marcy Street #3 • Freehold, NJ 07728

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