In addition to being vacation rental cleaners, we also manage and own our own vacation rentals in Charleston and beyond. Just since Purple Dot Cleaning’s launch in January 2019, we have been part of 4,500 guest stays.
We know every aspect of the vacation rental game, and can confidently say that your cleaners are by far the most important part of your vacation rental’s success.
1. Cleanliness is more important to your guests than anything else
Cleanliness is the most important aspect of your guests’ experience. Greeting guests with a sparkling clean, nice smelling home tells them you know what you're doing.
Your home can be the Taj Mahal, but if a guest find hairs in the sheets or poop streaks in the toilet, you have no chance.
Plus, in a COVID world of dangerous germs, cleanliness now overlaps with safety. A poorly cleaned toilet or unwashed towel is no longer just a cleaning issue; it’s also a safety one.
2. Nobody, not even you, knows your vacation rental better than your cleaners
Unlike a property manager, or even you, who may quickly walk through your home prior to a check-in, your cleaners spend hours in your home. They scrub the bathtubs, check under the beds, sweep the baseboards, wipe inside the drawers…
We have cleaners who know our vacation rentals so well they can tell you how many tiles go across a particular bathroom's floor or which door hinges squeak. Weird, huh?
Excellent cleaners are your eyes and ears. They’re your first line of defense. If anything comes up it's most likely your cleaners who will notice it first.
Good cleaners report minor items like a burnt out bulb or dirty air filter. They also report more severe ones. Purple Dot cleaners have saved our clients hundreds if not thousands of dollars by quickly noticing and reporting problems.
For example, we have noticed brown spots in ceilings that indicated a leaking pipe at risk of bursting. We have also alerted our clients to faulty light switches, broken windows, leaking dishwashers… We have even found guns left behind by guests and let our clients know so they could have the guns safely removed.
3. It better be ready
Little else is more dreadful for an owner or property manager than an angry message from a guest that they’ve checked-in but the home has not been cleaned.
If a cleaner fails to show up for a residential or office clean it’s probably not the end of the world. They can go tomorrow.
But it’s not like that for a vacation rental. As a host you’re being paid to offer a CLEAN vacation rental. If your cleaners don’t show up then you just failed to deliver what the client paid for.
Best case is your guests stick around because you profusely apologize and manage to find new cleaners to clean your vacation rental after-hours.
Worst case is a terrible review or, as we’ve seen many times with vacation rental owners who go cheap on hiring cleaners, the guests leave, get a refund and you just blasted a thousand dollar hole in your calendar.
Especially when we get into the busy Charleston spring and summer months when vacation rentals are turning on tight half-day windows, you better believe that having a solid, reliable cleaning team is critical - for your business and your blood pressure.
4. Stocking supplies… and all those “little” details
Your vacation rental cleaners clean, but also perform many more tasks than regular cleaners.
One critical task is stocking supplies for your guests, for example toilet paper, paper towels, makeup wipes and dish soap.
Or, if you offer guests welcome goodies like chocolate or wine, your trusty cleaners are the ones to lay those out.
Your cleaners may also be the ones to put out pool passes, parking permits or master front door keys. This all sounds like small peas until you receive that midnight call from your guest that your front door keypad went out and your guest is locked out because they can’t find the master key that was supposed to be in the backup lockbox. Fun.
5. Cleaning and putting out linens
After general dirtiness, the most common guest complaint we come across regards linens, usually because they’re stained, smelly or raggedy.
Once again, it’s your cleaners who are going to make sure you’re covered. You want solid cleaners because linens is the one area where bad cleaners can coast undetected for a long time.
You want cleaners who actually wash your linens between stays. We have seen it all to often – cleaners bid low and make up for it by not washing linens.
They stuff used linens in the dryer with scented dryer sheets and voila, “clean” and back in operation for the next guests. They may get away with it a couple turns, but eventually the bad reviews come – or worst, the bed bugs.
Good cleaners also notice and tell you when your sheets are stained or your towels are getting raggedy. They’ll also let you know when guests have taken your linens so you can charge them. Especially on Folly, we cannot tell you the number of beach towels that guests have “accidentally” taken home.
And finally, good cleaners put out your linens in an appealing way. A tight, well-made bed conveys professionalism. Same for towels – your cleaners don’t need to make towel swans, but if the towels are crisply presented it shows your guests that you’re a 5-star host.
Want to see what 5-star vacation rentals in Folly and Charleston look like? Check out our Instagram.
Ready to hire 5-star cleaners? Contact us and get a quote.