THE CLEANING AUTHORITY

I just had my first clean with this company yesterday. The first clean is designated as a "deep clean" and I was charged extra because they felt the first clean would take a longer amount of time. The focus areas for this deep clean were the kitchen and bathrooms. I was not home when they cleaned so I did not see how much time they spent or the number of people that were in the house performing the service. I simply was very underwhelmed with the results. As this was a "deep clean" that cost more than a regular visit, I expected to find the kitchen and bathrooms sparkling. What I found instead were corners of the kitchen floor that were not mopped, nor even swept, countertops not completely cleaned, the range hood was not even touched, and I have no idea what they used to clean my kitchen table but it was smeared with something. The stairs were vacuumed but not very well. There was still toothpaste on one of the bathroom faucets. I called the service center to provide my feedback. The woman I spoke with was very nice and eager to help resolve the problem. She said they could have one of their quality auditors come do a walkthrough. She said someone would get back to me. Within an hour, I received a call from Carrie at the local service provider in Eagan, who I originally interviewed for this service. She addressed only one of the issues that I raised - the stairs would be vacuumed more thoroughly on the 2nd "deep clean" - that is how they do it. She said that I could give them a chance to do a better job on the next "deep clean" which was scheduled for two weeks from now. I felt that she was not interested in trying to resolve my concerns, and was not very interested in keeping my business. I was expecting her to offer to have a quality auditor come out to see for themselves the poor quality of the work done. Needless to say, I discontinued my service with The Cleaning Authority with that call. I'm out the money I spent for this first clean and didn't want to gamble another payment on a company that was not interested in fixing the poor job done on this very first clean. I will be looking elsewhere for my cleaning service. Last bit of advice - you get what you pay for. The Cleaning Authority was much less expensive than another service I interviewed. I should have gone with that other service - I would have paid more but I am confident that I would have been happier with the job done.

unknown

First it started with a visit from the owner, Char. She seemed great when she came out to our house to look around and give a final price for cleaning every other week - $120.00 for the first two visits, then $85 for all future visits. She provided a list of things that would be cleaned each time and then the "detail clean" items that would be done on a rotation. Char asked our preferred days for cleaning and said she would call back the next morning to let us know if they had those days available. No phone call came next morning, so I called the afternoon of the next day and left a message with the office person. Char did call back within a few mintues and said that she had called the previous day (there was nothing on the caller id or a missed call on my cell phone), apologized and let us know when our first day of cleaning would be. The first day of was not a success. There were two cleaners and were there for an 1 hour and 20 minutes (scheduled for 2 hours). This cleaning was to include a "detail" clean of the kitchen and bathrooms. The list of things they missed seemed almost endless. A few highlights: - The mudroom rug was not vacumed, shaken out or for that matter even moved. There was still sand on the mudroom floor and dried mud between the door and the rug. - In the kitchen...cabinets were supposed to hand wiped. The uppers were barely touched and the lowers were not even done at all. All kitchen furniture was to be hand wiped. I take this to mean the kitchen table and chairs. The chair rungs were still dusty and nothing had been wiped off. - Half of the foyer railing was not dusted. - The doors in the bathroom and kitchen were to be hand wiped. Most of them were not. - I don't think that they did anything in the living room except vacuum. Not much to do in here, but dust the end table, outside of curio cabinet and blinds. All not done. - Powder bath furniture was only dusted on top and baseboards seemed to have been missed. These things should have been done with the detail clean. I don't know why they bother to provide a list if they are not going to clean what's on it. The inspector did come about half way through the cleaning. Which does make sense, because I do feel they did a better job upstairs than on the main level. It's not like they ran out of time if the were there for 1 hr 20 min, but were schedule for 2 hrs. Needless to say, I did call and complain. They did offer to send some one out to take care of everything that was missed. Their claim on their brochure and website was that this would happen the next day, but this is not true. I called on a Friday and Tuesday was the earliest they could come. I told them that I would take care of these things this time and hoped that they would not be missed in the future. The person I talked to said that she would make a note for the cleaners to pay extra attention to the items missed the next time they came to clean. Since I said that I would clean these items, I am not sure that they need to pay extra attention to them next time....must be their robotic answer to everything. I do understand that we are all human and things could get missed occaisionally, but it just seems that there were so many things that were missed. This was the first clean, you would think they would try and impress us. Not even close. I will give them one more chance to see if they improve due to my complaint. I don't hold out a lot of hope.

We had a very poor experience with this company for the following reasons: 1.) Incomplete cleanings 2.) Refusal to listen to the customer 3.) Refusal to stand behind their product Overalll, I was consistently disappointed with the work performed by the Cleaning Authority. Despite remaining a loyal customer for over 10 months and providing consistent and specific feedback to the manager, I found that my house was almost always incompletely cleaned by the staff. We were informed that with each cleaning, there would be a focus on a specific room such as a bathroom. Over time, we found that even the room of focus was incompletely cleaned--the dining room would still be dusty and the bathroom would still have mold growing between the tiles. There were times where it was hard to even tell that the house had been visited. Despite informing the manager about these problems multiple times, the work continued to fall below expectations. Eventually, I contacted the manager about stopping service and asked for my money back after an unsatisfactory cleaning that left the bathroom floor dirty and the shower peppered with mold. She was not willing to agree and failed to even offer a compromise. After terminating service with the Clearning Authority, we hired a separate company to perform a cleaning within 1 week. The owner toured our house and could not believe that we had previously hired cleaners--dust was located almost everywhere. He recommend a 6 hour cleaning session, and we had to spend an extra $180 to actually obtained the desired product. We would never recommend them to others as their business lacks any committment to a high quality final product.

When I complain or point out things their missing, they've been really responsive. They've even gotten rid of sub-par performers who have gotten complaints out of other houses.

Very bad experience. Unprofessional manager Kari. Doesn't stand behind their service. Quality of cleaning sub-par and inconsistent. Sometimes we would have averge good cleaning; other times it would be bad (depending on what two girls we would have). Most recently, had a very poor cleaning and there was dried urine on back of toilet, floor full of crumbs, carpet not vacumned, mud room sink dirty, patio door full of smudges. Manager indicated that she was at the house, at one point during the clean, and didn't see these things. Essentially, called me a liar. Pretty difficult for my husband to do all this himself in a couple hour timeframe while working from home and I got home and called immediately. They failed to call me back till the next evening and we played phone tag for multiple days. They now indicate too many days went by for them to perform the simple fixes of what they failed to clean. They have also ruined two rugs, broke a blind, sucked up headphones, etc. Way too much hassle to just get a simple cleaning done. Manager abruptlyindicated they didn't want to clean for us anymore. I have never dealt with anything so absurd. It would have been so easy for them to make it right and re-clean the areas they didn't. However, we would have dropped their service anyways. Too sloppy and inconsistent to deal with this regularly.

I have been considering changing. I pointed out the inadequacies and they?ve been doing a better job so I?ll be keeping them for now. They are always on time, it is always the same team, and they are very pleasant.

In the beginning, we were impressed by the thoroughness and quality of cleaning. But as time passed, we started seeing drop in the quality/thoroughness. We complained 2-3 times, and a repeat cleaning was performed. However, we got tired of keeping track of quality/thoroughness of the work, and then complaining about it. When we said (while terminating the service) that we needed somebody who can clean the house as their own so that we don't need to follow up, the manager/supervisor told us - "Good luck with that!" and hanged up the phone. I regret not reading earlier reports on Angie's list on this service before hiring the service.

The Cleaning Authority cleaned my home on a bi-weekly basis for approximately one year. In retrospect, I should have discontinued their services much sooner. They did basic cleaning for me - hardwood and tile floors, 4 bathrooms, and large kitchen. With a team of 2 they were routinely in and out of my home in less than an hour and I never felt that this was enough time spent to do an adequate job. In general, I was disappointed with the thoroughness and quality of work. They repeatedly missed things each week - I had to resort to leaving notes or signs to remind them to clean out my microwave. My floors were never done thoroughly and when I brought this to the attention of the supervisor, I was met with unprofessionalism and terrible customer service - especially by Jessica, the area supervisor. She was regularly unpleasant to speak with over the phone and always made me feel as though I was inconveniencing her. Unprofessionalism & poor work ethic - an all around disappointment.

Not only is the cleaning mediocre, but the customer service is terrible. Char is very rude and unaccommodating. When we called to complain about a floor that was still dirty, she asked why we hadn't said something to the cleaners while they were still there (we hadn't seen it). When I asked to switch a time (after they failed to call to give us one as promised the day before), I was made to feel like a child. She steadfastly refused to accommodate me (my baby's nap time was right during the time they had scheduled to come) and basically told me the onus was on me. I'll be finding another cleaning service.

I contacted a few cleaning agencies for estimates. Char came out to give me an estimate. She was on time and pleasant. She explained her company and the rotating cleaning schedules. The estimate was the highest I received. She left on the basis that she was going to go to her office and call me in the morning to arrange a first cleaning. She did call the next morning but when I told her that we had decided against starting immediately and I would call her back to arrange a cleaning in a few weeks she was rather unpleasant and rude. Her reply was, ''Well then you just do that then (call me back.)'' I don't think I would appreciated working closely with someone who displayed that attitude. The main reason we were hesitant to use this company was that there was no guarantee that the same cleaning team would be coming to our home. We didn't want a revolving door.

I HAVE USED THIS COMPANY FOR OVER A YEAR AND A HALF AND AM HAPPY WITH THE BASIC SERVICE THEY PROVIDE. ONLY A FEW TIMES HAVE I BEEN DISSATISFIED BECAUSE THEY MISSED AN AREA.

WE HAD THEM COME TO CLEAN THE HOUSE WEEKLY. CHAR, WHO WAS ONE WHO RAN THE BUSINESS WAS VERY FRIENDLY. SHE ASSURED ME THAT IF I WASN'T SATISFIED WITH THE JOB THEY DID EVER THAT THEY WOULD COME BACK THE NEXT DAY AND TAKE CARE OF IT. THEY DID WELL AT RESPONDING TO ANY PROBLEMS. THE ONLY PROBLEM WE HAD WAS THAT I DID NOT FEEL WE SHOULD HAVE TO CALL EACH TIME BECAUSE THEY MISSED QUITE A FEW THINGS THAT WERE SUPPOSE TO BE ON THEIR ROTATION SCHEDULE. THINGS WEREN'T PUT BACK IN PLACE MANY TIMES AND THEY WOULD ALWAYS LEAVE THE DOG BED ON TOP OF OUR BED. THEY ALSO LEFT THE CURLING IRON WRAPPED IN THE CORD, PLUGGED IN AND TURNED ON HIGH, ON TOP OF OUR MEDICINE CABINET.