3 Reasons You Should Separate Floor Care From Janitorial Services

Your facility’s floors are an investment, and like any other investment, you want to protect them. But protecting your floors goes beyond vacuuming the carpet each night and mopping up spills as they occur. 

Too often, facility managers trust their janitorial staff with their floor care. To truly maintain the look—and value—of your floors, however, you need a trusted, reliable partner who can develop an ongoing, regular maintenance plan designed to keep your floors looking new for as long as possible.

Simply put, it’s better to separate floor care from janitorial services. You get better quality, better service and better results when you bring in a floor care expert like APEX. Here’s what three facility professionals had to say about why they partner with a separate surface care provider and how it benefits their floors and their budgets.

Better Quality

Commercial buildings receive a lot of foot traffic, and keeping them in tip-top shape isn’t easy—or cheap. In addition to ensuring the building is clean and presentable, facility managers have to keep HVAC systems running smoothly, ensure the safety and security of tenants, repair or replace furniture or other assets, manage pest control, and so much more. The costs can add up quickly, and facility managers are tasked with controlling or even lowering expenses.

One workplace operations manager was asked to reduce cleaning and maintenance costs while working at the headquarters of a national department store chain. The company had three separate vendors at the time: one for janitorial services, one for carpet care, and one for tile and grout maintenance.

“The janitorial provider said, ‘We can do it all!’ so we let them,” the manager said. “In the end, it wasn’t worth it.”

After a year, the company hired back one of the specialty care providers to maintain all the flooring separately.

“You want someone who knows their product. If I have a scratch on my floor, they’re going to figure out how to get it out,” he said. “Cost-wise, it definitely makes sense.”

Consistency is key when it comes to floor care. Deep-cleaning a carpet regularly can extend its life by years, ultimately reducing costs. In fact, over 80% of all carpet manufacturer claims are related to improper maintenance. By partnering with an experienced specialty care provider, facility managers can feel confident that they are receiving true expertise.

“Dedicated service providers like APEX follow up,” the manager said. “They make sure that what they promised is what is actually happening.”

Better Service

When you have multiple locations, working with one trusted floor care partner is nice. When you have more than 100 locations across the United States alone, it becomes a necessity.

“APEX is our go-to partner for our flooring needs,” said a regional sourcing manager for a global integrated facility management company. “The fact that they can work at any location throughout the country is great. We don’t have to maintain five contracts with five different regional providers. It’s one contract with one provider.”

While local janitorial companies can keep a building looking clean on a day-to-day basis, surface care companies help a company maintain its brand. Janitorial companies remove the visible dirt that sits on top of the carpet, for example, while surface care companies know how to extract the grime and debris buried deep within the carpet fibers. In the end, your building is both cleaner and healthier.

“From my perspective, it’s less expensive than if you’re subcontracting through a janitorial company,” the manager said. “You have a direct line to the experts. It’s their core focus and what they’re dedicated to doing.”

APEX goes above and beyond when it comes to serving their customers, he noted. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, APEX even helped his company source hard-to-find supplies like thermometers and masks. 

“We liked them so much that we decided to extend their contract early,” the manager said. “Plus, they’re just nice people.”

Better Results

One way to think of surface care providers is to consider them the next level of service.

“I look at janitors the same way I look at my own cleaning,” said a workplace strategy manager with a global employment website. “When I clean my house, I’m touching everything without focusing on anything specific. APEX is the paid professional who really gets your house clean.”

In other words, APEX knows the product, knows the warranties, and knows how to get the job done. This know-how is exactly what sets them apart from janitorial companies.

“APEX provides the education and knowledge piece,” the manager said. “They don’t just ask what we need and tell us how much it will cost. They sit down with us and discuss the full scope of the project. They identify multiple solutions and explain the benefits of each.”

More importantly, their solutions provide visible, tangible results.

“I brought them in once to test-clean a patch of carpet. The gunk they pulled up was just amazing,” said the manager. “I showed it to my VP and said, ‘This is why we need to schedule quarterly deep cleans.’ He took one look and said, ‘Sold.’”

As experts, surface care providers don’t need guidance when completing a project. They work alongside facility managers to keep buildings looking their best and extend the life of their assets.

“I think of APEX as a strategic partner rather than a vendor,” she said. “They truly want to help you achieve your goals.”