Pillow washing is an excellent additional task you can provide with your house cleaning business. It’s one of those little things that can make a huge difference to your residential customers. But, there are a couple of guidelines you’ll want to follow. From one professional house cleaner to another, here’s best practices for washing pillows.
Since we change the bed linen as a basic service, wouldn’t it provide better customer care to wash the bed pillows too? Seems so. Have you ever asked any of your customers if you could wash their dirty bed pillows, or decorative couch pillows, or throw pillows?
Personally, I can admit that it has only been a few times in my 25+ years in business that I have offered to clean pillows for our customers. Because it’s not a usual request nor an offer from a professional cleaning company.
Am I right?
But it can be offered as a deep cleaning task.
I mean think about it. Pillows can carry, all types of germs, bacteria, odor, mold and mildew. And, we, well, we simply tuck and fluff as we clean each home – never really thinking about the germs. Especially décor covered pillows like some kids’ and couch pillows whose cover can’t be removed.
That can all change with one question to each of your residential cleaning customers, “Would you like me to sanitize your pillows within the next few cleanings?”. Simple, right?
It really is 😊!
Additionally, make sure you mention the extra fee you’ll be charging. Remember the BIGGEST RULE OF PROFESSIONAL CLEANING… If you add additional time for cleaning, you must add an additional fee for cleaning. Everything has a price, especially your time.
Ok, so let’s get to it…
Enter the FREE DEEP CLEANING CHALLENGE. You’ll learn how to upsell this detail cleaning task to make more money and encourage good customer service starting TODAY!
Best practices for washing pillows, like a pro
Seems like a no-brainer but I need to mention these 5 best practices to follow because you want to keep a happy customer happy, and you don’t want to risk ruining their pillows.
- Ask the customer and come to an agreement of an additional fee for you to clean all of their pillows.
- Research the material of the pillow – the inside stuffing and outside fabric. NOT ALL PILLOWS CAN BE MACHINE WASHED and it’s very important to know that. Check the labels first or ask your customer.
- Depending on how many pillows, inform your customer that all pillows may not be machine washed on the same day due to time constraints.
- Be sure to find out what cleaning solvent your customer prefers. Use that. After all, their pillows come in direct contact with their skin and you want to be sensitive to allergies.
- Be sure you keep track of who’s pillow belongs on which bed. This is pretty important. It’s a best practice of, “just simply being in tune with your customer”.
Instructions for cleaning pillows
- Put two to three pillows inside the machine depending on size of machine and size of pillow, per load in washer. Add cleaning solution.
- Dry the pillows, if appropriate. Remember to check the labels.
- Replace the pillows on the correct beds with clean sheets and pillow cases.
That’s it, nice and simple. Just don’t forget to invoice your customers for the additional task! 😉.
FYI: I’ve contributed these short a simple cleaning tips to Porch.com. Check it out when you can!
I grew my office cleaning side hustle into a ½ million-dollar corporation with the partnership of my husband and our amazing staff. In 2020, I retired my service-based business to shift my focus and passion from serving cleaning clientele to serving cleaning business owners.
Utilizing my 27+ years’ experience, I offer free and paid products exclusively for cleaning business owners and cleaning side hustlers at A Janitor’s Story® Website and my VIP Group Coaching Membership App.
I’ve served other cleaning pros by helping them to turn one time cleaning jobs into high paying recurring customers, create excellent client retention practices, develop hiring systems that really work, build marketing techniques that convert and so much more.
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