Pro CleanA critical component of maintaining an office building, retail services building, or another facility is to keep it in good working order and to ensure it retains its curbside appeal with a clean and beautiful paint job. Both of these jobs can be handled by an experienced and knowledgeable facility maintenance service that performs commercial painting.
However, with so many commercial painting services and facility maintenance companies out there, how can you know which company to select? Here are a few things to consider when choosing between commercial painting companies.
5 Questions to Ask Yourself about Commercial Painting Services
1. Are Their Employees Trained Specifically for Commercial Painting Tasks?
Something that tends to surprise a lot of facility managers is when commercial painters show up to do the work and appear to have no clue what they’re doing. Virtually anyone can pick up a paintbrush and slap some paint on a wall. However, it takes training, skill, and finesse to do it with professional quality and to achieve the look you desire — particularly on a deadline.
This is why it’s essential to hire an experienced commercial painter who trains their employees and holds them to rigorous commercial painting performance and quality standards.
2. Is Hiring Their Company Just Adding Another Vendor to Your List?
As a facility manager, you likely already have so many contracts, contacts, vendors, renters, and other things to keep track of every day. If you hire most commercial painting services, you’re effectively adding another company to your list of vendors to juggle. But, what if you could reach out to one of your existing vendor contacts with whom you already have a working relationship?
A full-service facility maintenance and cleaning company, such as Pro Clean, makes it so that you only have to deal with one vendor and one invoice for your commercial painting, facility services, and commercial cleaning needs. When we handle commercial painting jobs for our clients, we already have their keys for property access, so all they have to do is tell us what they want done and we’ll take care of it. Furthermore, all of our workers are full-time employees who are trained and vetted via a variety of background checks.
Our approach differs significantly from those of most third-party commercial painting services. When finding an outside vendor, you need to do your research, get references, wait for the person to show up to provide a quote or perform the work. When you partner with Pro Clean, we’ll be there when we say we will be and will perform a complete walk-through to provide you with the most accurate commercial painting invoice possible upfront. No hidden fees, no underhanded tactics.
3. Are Their Workers Hired Employees or Subcontractors?
A frequent situation in which facility managers find themselves in is when someone who doesn’t work for the commercial painting company shows up to do the work. This happens when the company they hired hands the work over to unvetted subcontractors. What makes this troublesome or even dangerous for business owners and property managers is that many of the commercial painting services that operate this way frequently don’t run criminal background checks, Social Security verification checks, or any other personnel record analysis.
According to a survey by HR.com, 83% of the survey’s respondents said they screen all full-time employees, and only 67% said they screen all part-time employees. This leaves your business potentially vulnerable if you hire one of the businesses that don’t. Furthermore, 96% of employers who participated in that survey also reported that while they do run a background screening, it doesn’t mean that it was a criminal background check or that it was against a national database.
We wish we could say that these practices were uncommon, but the truth is that this happens more than we’d care to admit. At Pro Clean, every employee undergoes multiple background checks, including a national background search, sexual predator check, and terrorist watch list search. If we wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone being in our building, we aren’t going to hire and send them to yours.
4. Are Their Employees Covered by Insurance & Workers’ Compensation?
Another situation that goes hand-in-hand with commercial painters that subcontract their work is that the workers may not be covered by general liability insurance or Workers’ Compensation. What this means is that if one of those commercial painting company subcontractors falls while on a ladder and painting your building, you may be held liable for their injuries and any costs that may result from them. These costly medical bills, lost wages, and other expenses can occur because they were injured while on your property.
5. How Honest and Easy to Work With Is the Commercial Painting Service?
Many of our clients have reported that during their previous interactions with other companies, they found themselves in frustrating situations and dealing with unresponsive commercial painting professionals.
For example, when working with another vendor, several clients reported receiving invoices showing the low-cost services of a commercial painting company. However, they would then receive revised copies of the invoices later with additional charges and expenses that were not included in the previous documents. These types of surprise fees can range from small amounts to several hundred dollars! To us, this type of unethical business practice is unacceptable.
This is only one of many reasons why it’s critical to hire an experienced, reputable commercial painting expert who communicates and provides thorough cost documentation upfront.
Since 1989, Pro Clean has been serving the greater Orlando and Tampa Bay areas of central Florida with green cleaning and facility maintenance services, including commercial painting. We are always upfront with our clients about our services and fees and are highly responsive to their questions.
To discuss your commercial painting and other facility maintenance needs, contact us now by clicking on the link below.
