CBL Episode #125 The Air Conditioning Debate: Client Comfort vs. Cleaner Safety

Ever had sweat dripping into your eyes while cleaning a client's home who insists "it's not that hot"? Shannon and Jamie tackle the critical but often overlooked issue of maintaining proper air conditioning during cleaning services - not just for comfort, but as a matter of safety and professional standards.

Heat stroke presents a serious health risk for cleaning professionals, making workers permanently more susceptible to recurrence after the first incident. Shannon shares her systematic approach to client communication, beginning with friendly reminders in April before gradually establishing clear expectations that thermostats should be set between 70-73 degrees during service. The hosts explore practical solutions for handling resistant clients, from early morning scheduling to implementing cancellation fees equal to the full cleaning cost for non-compliance.

The conversation delves into smart strategies for protecting both cleaners and clients, including taking time-stamped photos of thermostats upon arrival and departure to prevent disputes about energy usage. Jamie and Shannon also discuss parallel issues like client expectations around tidying before cleaning and maintaining reasonable rates that reflect market value, revealing how these boundaries directly impact business profitability.

What emerges is a masterclass in professional boundary-setting that benefits everyone. By approaching temperature requirements as non-negotiable safety standards rather than personal preferences, cleaning business owners can maintain team welfare while building healthier client relationships. Ready to stop paying for the privilege of cleaning someone's home? This episode provides the practical tools and confidence to implement policies that protect your team and your bottom line.

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Chapters

• 1:44 Air Conditioning and Changing Seasons
• 4:14 Email Communication with Clients
• 8:20 Health Risks and Safety Concerns
• 12:25 Setting Temperature Requirements
• 18:27 Handling Empty Homes and Thermostats
• 24:10 Training Clients and Setting Boundaries
• 26:52 Cost-Benefit Analysis of Difficult Clients
• 29:55 Final Thoughts on Team Welfare

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:52

Reporting in progress. Welcome back, jamie. Hi, we're going to talk about the weather and the season is changing, but, most importantly, we're going to talk about all about how to get your clients to cooperate with that summertime like, oh, you want me to do what, as you're dripping sweat into your eyes. It's air conditioning, so you know if you don't have air conditioning which is a relatively new invention, by the way.

Speaker 1: 1:25

It really didn't take off until about the seventies. Like we didn't have air conditioning when I was a kid. You had the windows and you had a fan.

Speaker 2: 1:34

What about my mom? Yeah, my mom would. Would call it the. We're the house of many fans. We have a fan out everywhere, so that was our air conditioning. But um, yeah, we're talking about air conditioning. Before we came on, I was like, look, look what I'm in and we right now, as of the recording on this, it's the middle of June and I am freezing and I do not disturb. There's only one person can can get through.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Right, I have to put my phone on. Do not disturb as well. The, the air conditioning piece where jamie's at she's in northern california, in case you guys don't know up next to the redwoods, so she gets more weather. I'm pretty lucky it's sunny here. Most of the time when it isn't sunny I'm like where, where, where, where where for those?

Speaker 2: 2:30

who are listening.

Speaker 1: 2:31

I'm putting my hands up like I'm crying, right.

Speaker 2: 2:34

I've lived in. I've lived all over in Arizona. I mean, of all you know, phoenix, mesa, tempe, uh, all those places. So I knew the weather down there and it can get hot and I could not imagine putting my cleaning techs into a situation like that, right it becomes a safety thing.

Speaker 1: 3:03

So every year at roughly April, april gets the first email from Shannon hey, super excited, spring is finally here. We have summer right around the corner. Just a friendly reminder that we will require air conditioning on when we arrive. That's all that's mentioned. And then there's a series of emails that go out. Usually, I have found, most of the time, everyone is cooperative. Every once in a while, I don't know why there's always one or two sticklers who are like know why? There's always one or two sticklers who are like it's not that hot. Or you know it's, it's only 86 degrees. It's 110 down in phoenix.

Speaker 2: 3:43

this is our second home, so we shouldn't have to turn on the air conditioning like, yes, you should well, yeah, but those people are not moving around and literally sometimes they'll be looking at you while your sweat is dripping in your eyes and they can't even take the hint. And um, you have to be verbally, say something, I I have to have this turned down, and nowadays there's a lot of smart devices out there sometimes I couldn't figure out how to use some of them.

Speaker 2: 4:15

I'm like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, or they have a, they do. I seen a house the other day because I went and wanted to check to make sure that they nailed this job and I was there oh, it's so hot. And I was like, oh, and I went to turn it down and it says we'll turn down for one hour or something like that. And the client actually got a ding. They're on vacation. She got a ding, said oh, I forgot you can turn it down. I just seen that you turned that down. Oh, I forgot you can turn it down. I just seen that you turn that down. Um, it'll go automatically, go set at I don't know, 78 or something like that. Whenever she gets back. So it's like at a constant, I'm like, wow, so there, those are out there too. Um, there are people that do respect it and do they don't know. Sometimes people honestly don't know. You know, but there should be a clause.

Speaker 1: 5:25

There is a clause in the contract bundle and it says we require air conditioning to be on and present If it's present in the house. Sometimes the older houses Jamie and I were just talking about how some of the older houses here don't have air conditioning and the work around is that you tell the cleaning tech, by the way, you're starting this house at 7 am. It's just it's for safety reasons. Once you get heat stroke. It's really hard to recover from heat stroke. Should you get it again, you could actually die or be hospitalized from heat stroke. So the protocol is in.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Around May we sent a second email out and says hey, we're getting close to summer, super excited to you know, go through that process with you. We require just a reminder that we require air conditioning to be on when the cleaning tech arrives and what we mean. And if you just say on, people will go 86 degrees is great. Well, because it's 97 out, so we'll just kick it down 10 degrees. Well, that's not going to be cool enough to prevent someone from getting heat stroke, especially if they haven't drank enough water and they've been moving around exerting themselves.

Speaker 1: 6:28

What you have to say in your air conditioning policy is that we require it to be at 70 to 73 degrees. If you't specifically state, you will have clients who will control it while they're there or not there. Put a I don't want to say a buffer, a bumper on it so it can only go to a certain temperature, and I get that too. We've seen that in the restaurant industry, where you know they have to put lock boxes on the air conditioning because the people who are dining are cold and the people who are serving tables are hot, right. So it becomes this weird dynamic of give and take, so get. Then June, june 1st, for like the first 10 days of June, you get an email from us every day.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Hey, just a friendly reminder. You're on the schedule today to have your air conditioning on and in working order and then every once in a while, as I mentioned, I always get one or two people who want to fight me on it, and that's when Shannon has to become the alpha. And I don't enjoy being the alpha, but it's sometimes, it's necessary. And you'll find, as you become more and more seasoned in this business, your threshold for people's bullshit Just becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And you're just like you're either going to comply or you're not going to comply and there's going to be a consequence. So we only pull off. I recall only one time there might have been two times where we pulled off the job and we just build them.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Um, if you're going to arm, wrestle me or elbow me as a cleaning tech to turn off the air conditioning because you're freezing, because you're being inconvenienced, my cleaning tech deserves to be in comfortable atmosphere. They're exerting themselves and if they get heat stroke at the client's house, I'm going to make that client pay that bill, not even health insurance. And if they require an ER visit because you refused to turn it down, because you didn't feel that it was necessary. You don't get to tell someone how they feel ever and, second of all, you can't regulate their temperatures for them. Right? It's just, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 8:33

Right, no, I agree, um, and you can put that um in your terms and conditions. I use jobber and um. You can update that little portion right there and your term and they have to sign that. They can't, they gotta read it. Um, you know, sometimes there's things that you click, you have to click the box and but they have to make their signature on that. Um, and you can also uh on your line item whenever they're going through. Uh, you know, I don't know if zin made and all that other, but on your line item you can put in, say, a quote, that you require you to have your air conditioner turned on for a comfortable atmosphere for your cleaning tech.

Speaker 1: 9:35

It's just like we need water and electricity to clean. Doesn't have to be hot water, but you do need liquid or else you're going to get.

Speaker 2: 9:46

I know that's something that I do, but I do I if I'm bringing uh pickle barrels of water up to a from a Creek, which I've done.

Speaker 1: 10:00

I think that was last year. I'm like recollecting back to that story.

Speaker 2: 10:03

If I'm doing that, I'm charging you and that's like $500 charge minimum. But yeah, I never thought about you know, because the heat stroke once you if you've ever had heat stroke you get it so easy afterwards it's so it's almost like a disease, almost as easy to get as a cold.

Speaker 1: 10:33

Right, it's the gift that keeps on giving. It never goes away and you're really susceptible to the heat going forward after that, right? So to help prevent some of the chaos that comes along, it's the dynamic is make sure you're drinking plenty of liquids. During the summer here in Arizona, I personally drink a gallon of water. We probably go through between the animals myself, the kids, my husband, we probably go through a good 20 to 25 gallons of water just ourselves, between the birds and everybody else. Make sure that you're hydrated.

Speaker 1: 11:09

And there's this whole like well, they wouldn't turn down the thermostat. So for those who have the old school thermostats, walk on over, because it's in the policies You've already addressed it. Walk on over and kick on the air conditioning if they see you're over there. If they have a high-tech thermostat and they don't know if you know how to do it, you can just start pressing stuff and they'll be like like, oh, my god, I'm gonna mess it up, I better go over there. And they'll come over there and go and then they'll say stuff like these are rhetorical questions. Oh, you're hot. Yeah, lady, I am totally hot. I got sweat running down my down my chest, down my back.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Yeah, I'm hot, yeah yeah, my shirt's soaked over here right and it's just then.

Speaker 1: 11:53

It just makes it unpleasant and it makes you when you are makes it unpleasant and it makes you when you are, when you're overheated. It makes you move slower and it requires more focus and more effort to have to clean when. If they just kept on the air conditioning for the two and a half hours that you're there, it would. It's easy peasy you get in your car, you leave and you go to the next one, but you can look it down Now. If the homeowner is not home, it's not an occupied home. Here is the caveat for taking liberties is that you have to make sure that you turn it back to where it was. So if the air conditioning was off when you arrived and it's an empty home, not occupied all the time, you have to make sure that you turn it off, or they'll say my electric bill is 800 because you kept the air conditioning at 60 degrees for 30 days pay up, right?

Speaker 1: 12:43

yeah, the same thing with heat in the winter. Right, I have to tell people up here we freeze, and they are from either southern california or down south. And I'm like, hey, you have to keep the heat on, even even to 50, because your pipes will freeze, and I go, and that's a whole can of worms. And I'm like, hey, you have to keep the heat on, even even to 50, because your pipes will freeze, and I go, and that's a whole can of worms and they're like oh, I didn't know we had five of them this last winter no, really, oh my goodness yeah like hey, just let you know.

Speaker 1: 13:06

we turned on your heat and it's at 50 degrees. You have to have heat on here. You cannot leave house without heat. Your pipes will freeze and then they'll break and then you'll have a flood. Oh right, yeah, no, it's in both ways. You have to be able to remember to turn it off, so a lot of people will leave their keys on the thermostat.

Speaker 1: 13:24

A lot of people will leave a post-it note on the thermostat. A lot of people will leave their water over by the thermostat, whatever trigger point it is for you, so that you remember to go and turn the thermostat back to where it was. If it was at 90 degrees, turn the air conditioner on at 90 degrees. If it was at you know 60 degrees, leave it at 60, because that's what they had it on. And a good way to protect yourself unfortunately, we have to do this now is to snap a photo with a date, time and stamp on it so that you can say well, they did turn it off or this is the temperature that we found it. So when you arrive, snap one, and when you leave, snap one.

Speaker 2: 14:01

Yeah, you know, those pictures really save us a lot of times, so that I'm not taking all of my um, employees, uh memory all up. We put it into jobber.

Speaker 1: 14:47

So and that's, that's the workaround for getting air conditioning. If you flat out just have someone who's going to fight you, then even I've had people fight me all the way and I'm like, okay, fine, then the cleaning tech will be there at 5 am. Yeah, whatever works for you and your cleaning tech and it's not to punish, it's to get them to be aware that we require air conditioning. It's hot in Arizona.

Speaker 2: 15:17

We get some good days. I sure do miss summer, though sometimes I'm in a sweater. Today it's the middle of June. I don't know what's going on. Yesterday we were in short sleeves and shorts. Today I had to go and close all my windows. Not a lot of people here have those new smart thermostats so you can do everything from your phone, which is crazy to me. That's just so crazy to me.

Speaker 2: 16:07

A line item on on your um, on your uh quote during the, the summer months, um, so that that client can see oh, okay, I have to. You know, sometimes they'll just sign off on those terms and conditions and but if they see it whenever with your quote or with your, what am I getting charged here for? They're looking through it, they see it. Oh, you know, sometimes they don't know what they don't know. Right, you have to train them. You've got to train a client, and that's what we talk about whenever we're saying training a client is not.

Speaker 2: 16:53

Everybody's always had a housekeeper and knows all the rules and the ins and the outs. And you know, I know that a lot of us business owners can sit there and do a lot of eye rolling because there are some, some bad apples, but not everybody knows. If they don't know, they don't know, let them know and you know, take it from there. But if they continue to not allow you to or bring the air conditioning on for you, it might be time to find a a different client for that person.

Speaker 1: 17:38

Or go early. It just depends on what works for your schedule.

Speaker 1: 17:42

A lot of moms that have kids at home, so maybe that's not feasible either, going early because of the daycare situation. But having them acknowledge, just like training your clients to pick up before we clean up right, make sure that you pick up your stuff, cause how many times have we walked into a house and they're not even ready for cleaning? There's piles of clothes everywhere, there's dishes in the sink. Oh, you mean you're not going to be my mommy? No, I'm not going to be your mommy.

Speaker 1: 18:07

I can't be your mommy, but I'm going to charge you for it.

Speaker 2: 18:13

Cause tidying and cleaning are two different services. You two very. And you get that a lot in children's bedrooms. You get that a lot in children's bedrooms. Right, and I thought we had trained a particular employee to not tidy. There is a little bit of a language barrier. But come to find out, they put you know, made the bed, put all the toys away. No, no, no, you take it and move it from one side to the other, vacuum. There you go.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Sorry, we didn't clean the kid's room. No one cleaned it up. That happens to teenagers.

Speaker 2: 18:52

Oh, that's great, that's even better. Yeah, yeah, that's even better. It can be even more like it's the whole smell issue and they don't smell it at all. I don't know what happens if you're your frontal lobe is growing and all the hormones, so you just don't smell and you're like, oh no, I walked in there and it's always that just that tinge of it's it's, it smells like a teenager right, like we're going to crack this window right here.

Speaker 1: 19:21

But yeah, so it's important and you can always pitch it as a safety thing, not a convenience thing, or I deserve this versus I don't. It's a safety thing. So when you pitch air conditioning to your clients, it's you know. We are good employers, right, we want to provide a good work environment for our tax, and part of doing that is by having them have air conditioning. If you do not have air conditioning, please notify the office so we can get you on at the right, appropriate time.

Speaker 1: 19:55

Um that's you can't, have a cleaning at 4 30 in in the afternoon down in Phoenix with no air conditioning, it's just not going to happen. Yeah, that's the hottest part of the day, right? So it's too hot, it's too dangerous. Heat stroke's not worth it. And then you know, especially if you have W-2s, then it's a whole workman's comp thing. Well, I was out and I was cleaning and I ended up passing out. I got an ambulance ride.

Speaker 1: 20:19

Prevent all that, just have the air conditioning policy. I believe our say we require. I'm trying to remember, it's something pretty simple we require the air conditioning to be on, in working order upon the arrival of our cleaning techs and we also require that you set the air conditioning at 70 to 73 degrees, because people will stretch, they won't. They'll put it at 86 and go and say, oh, it's on. And then you know they'll say something. I'll have someone call me and go oh, I'm over at Mrs Smith's house and the air conditioning isn't on. I don't know how to work that new thermostat and I'm like, hey, can you? Then I have to stop what I'm doing. Text the customer like, hey, sorry to reach out, I know you're super busy, your nail appointment, whatever. The air conditioning isn't on there, so they have to do it from their phone. I'm like this is just, but it is what it is, but they're complying, that's all that matters. Do you still want your house clean? Do you not want your house clean?

Speaker 2: 21:16

Yeah, no, very true, that's very true. So, yeah, that's another policy that you can put in place, and it's a seasonal policy too.

Speaker 1: 21:28

So if they don't want to comply, you can charge them a show up fee, and for us that is the entire cleaning bill entire cleaning bill.

Speaker 2: 21:43

It is for us as well. Right, it is that for us as well. Not everybody does it, but that's your business, that's how you run it, I that's how we run it.

Speaker 1: 21:51

So I remember the name of the video. What is it called? Um? I think maybe it even might be a podcast as well. I think I've had it. I've talked about it there.

Speaker 2: 21:59

You're your cheapest clients or your most expensive ones to keep no, yes, and I, I always wondered what you meant whenever you said that and I'm like, what it's making some kind of money? And then it just, uh, one of my lead technicians she was like hey, man, I am snapping you a picture, I'm going to show you where I'm starting off at with the gas and then I'm going to show you what it takes. She, she goes, either raise the rate. My employee, she goes, either raise the rate. I like it because they understand that in order for them to make good money, that the business has to make good money.

Speaker 2: 22:47

So there's, um, only one person that really can see stuff like that and um, she'll tell me like it is. She told me she either raised the rate or we're not doing it. I said okay, and then then that's whenever I started, ah, I, just that's what she meant. It's your most expensive client. We're, not me. I'm. All I'm doing is paying a client or an employee to do that, and then somewhere down the road I'm going to be in the red because my work comp is going to go up, for the hour is just yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:31

So it's, it's. I find it happens a lot. So, and this is off topic- yes.

Speaker 1: 23:39

It's paying for the privilege of cleaning someone's home I spoke to I'm not going to name names, but I, as you guys all know, I talked to 50 to 100 of you, most of the time every week. The cleaning business owner wasn't making a lot of money, had never made a lot of money, had been in business eight years. A lot of money had been in business eight years. She had clients from eight years ago who were still at the same price and she refused to raise the rates on them. And I go, so you're paying. You have a job that you are using to supplement your cleaning business.

Speaker 1: 24:12

That is paying for the privilege of cleaning this woman's home. She goes yeah, they're like 4 000 square feet. I'm like they can afford to have a price increase. I go. They'll never be a current market value, but they should at least get something. I go. You're not making any money off the deal if there is. I go. You're bleeding out money on the schedule. You're bleeding out chemicals. You're bleeding out you know reimbursement and mileage, all of the stuff that you know marketing. It all adds in there, and all for what? Because you think that this person isn't gonna pay.

Speaker 2: 24:41

They're gonna either drop you or they're gonna pay now and I promise you there are people out there that will fill that spot immediately it happens. I remember whenever I first started I would be like whatever I lost a client, like oh my gosh, I don't. It happens Little by little. You build this business, and especially once you start getting employees and then you fill their schedule and then you know they do come. People ebbs and flows it. People drop off, they come, they come back around. I'm just now getting to where I'm seeing people that I had three years ago coming back around, so I they do drop off and then they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry it just uh, you will fill that spot, don't panic, it'll be okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:46

That's all we have to say about air conditioning. It's important that you are looking out for your cleaning techs and their welfare. It's important for your business and it's important for everyone's safety that they are not. And occasionally you'll have an air conditioning that has an air conditioning tech guy. It's not coming till the following day so you can say, hey, I want to let you know. Mrs Smith's house has no air conditioning. I'm either going to have to reschedule it or you can go in there and they can, you know, wear wet clothes. That within reason. I mean. Obviously that can't happen down in phoenix, it's just too hot. But um that, so giving them the option. In some of the houses on the hotter days, if there is no air conditioning because it's broken or whatever, I'm like you can get yourself wet and just work like it's your own swamp cooler, but you cannot make someone do that.

Speaker 1: 26:40

They have to agree to it right, so you don't force anyone to work in conditions that are not safe.

Speaker 2: 26:47

Don't make a miserable right. Don't make a miserable. Don't make your company the miserable company to work for right we used to have.

Speaker 1: 26:55

Um, in the summertime we carried two canteens or two water bottles, if you do just water bottles, the big ones. One would be frozen, the other one wouldn't, so that we could constantly have. I'm one of the weirdos that likes lots of ice in their water. Yeah, so do I two canteens, one filled all the way with ice, a little bit of water, and the other one for extra water because you're all for that and it's constantly cold, right?

Speaker 2: 27:19

So, yummy, it's so yummy.

Speaker 1: 27:21

Tips and tricks from the pros Anyway we'll let you guys go. Jamie, thank you, it was so good seeing you. Oh, yeah, yay.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Can't wait for next week. Bye.