Maid Service Evolution

As 2019 approaches I thought I would write about how our cleaning company, Maids In America, has evolved and where we are
headed with our short and long term projects. Innovating cleaning services is always a challenge in a competitive market that is
full of generic franchises offering low grade cleaning puffed up with marketing fluff.

Maids In America 2007

In 2007 Maids In America was started as a side business while my husband’s main business, EduTech flourished as a nationwide
Internet, Training, and Tech Support Company. My first account – aside from homes of friends/family – was a hospital which,
at the time, I wasn’t ready for.

Maids In America 2007 was more of a part time learning experience and helped me determine that maybe there was a market
that I could offer some improvement and change to while making money and having fun.

Maids In America 2010 – The Evolution Begins

In 2009 my husband’s company started to tank so instead of reviving it I convinced him to hedge his bets and invest in my maid
service to grow it to something much larger. He invested and as his business shrunk Maids In America grew and by 2010 had grown
so much that major changes where either being implemented or where “born” and developed a few years later:

• Engineered Clean – Started a little later this was our answer to separating large scale janitorial, something Maids In America
  was never actually built for, and residential and small business. Engineered Clean separated this as another division and
  a completely different culture that was aimed at what it took to sustain cleaning quality in medical, institutions,
  factories, and government facilities.
• The Visual Clean System – Started at the same time as Engineered Clean, The Visual Clean System was essentially taking all
  the text-based laundry list check-sheets and turning them into a visual chart that could easily be followed with diagrams and
  illustrations to follow.

Maids In America 2010 to Present

The list of innovations beyond The Visual Clean System are too many to list and many are subtle but important tweaks that are more
appreciated by “insiders” to the industry. A few of the more obvious ones:

• Online Education – This began with the Visual Clean System and has evolved ever since with a developing video and book series
  that, like the Visual Clean System, is starting to be licensed to competitors, labs, and educational institutions.
• 24×7 Customer Portals – Our customer portals allow customers to log cleaning problems 24×7 without having to email or call us.
  The big advantage is that if they email – for example – they miss out on being able to track the problem until it’s closed via our
  cleaning service portal.
• Cleaning Quality Control Systems – We have finally began putting together all the components we have developed and are
  beginning to integrate them into customer portals so there are more options then just logging a problem.
• Maid Clean By Design – The current implementation – which is still a “Beta” or in test mode – allows website visitors to customize
  their cleaning and narrow down exact pricing by adding and subtracting cleaning services to create a “hybrid” clean vs the usual
  basic or deep clean package.
• 24×7 availability – With janitorial primarily of course
• The Walk-through – After years of cleaning home after home it became apparent that the only way to reduce complaints
  significantly over the competition was to do something simple but very different. While not rocket science the required
  walk-through with the maids at the end of the cleaning drove our quality ratings to the top of the industry.

  I still stand amazed that with all these generic franchises such as Two Girls & A Dirty Mop from the Dollar Store that claim “innovation”
  we are the only ones doing this..?! Every wonder why we have over 200 reviews and the highest rating by a landslide? This
  is why. We understand stuff WILL get missed but if the customer walks through before the maids leave they will be able to make
  sure that the “stuff” they care about the most was done to their satisfaction.

2019 ON

My fingers and IBM Model M keyboard from 1985 have been typing stuff all day with this article being the last one of the day so I’m going
to shorten this instead of turning a blog post into a mini-novel:

• Rolling out “release version” of our phone app. Our initial phone app we have been testing that is in Beta release 4 will allow
  residential customers to:
  • Get a dynamic up to date time of arrival for their maids therefore reducing frustration being surprised with calls that they
    are running late or even showing up too early.
  • Get instant discounts and credits that can be used for anything related to maid service
  • Log suggestions for improvement or concerns, complaints, requests, etc instantly
  • Chat 24×7 with support
• 24×7 Chat – Chart 24×7 with a live rep on any of our sites and actually get direct questions answered as they are all trained to do more
  then give generic responses and/or take messages
• Better Scheduling – Our biggest complaint in home cleaning services – and mine – is a pattern of being late even if it’s just a few minutes.
  Sometimes it’s not setting expectations correctly on our part which we are now saying allow an hour window for the maids arriving to help
  this and sometimes it’s our dreaded overbooking. This will see a big improvement in 2019!
• Genesis 7 – It’s not surprising we have the best websites in the industry considering my husband has the most advanced website development
  and marketing company in the nation which is now called EngineX Design. As we release new versions of our websites (currently G6r7) we will
  be adding exciting technology such as voice recognition to allow voice based ordering and better animated cleaning check lists to allow
  customers to follow an animated walk-through to make sure their house is clean and up to standards before the maids leave.

One other note. We will probably be offering the first Maids In America Franchises in 2019, most likely making Birmingham and Montgomery
our first maid franchise targets. Stay tuned.