BnB Clean Services Streamlined Daily Operations With Connecteam

Key Takeaways:

The Challenge:

BnB Clean Services offers executive cleaning services to about a 100 Airbnb, residential and commercial properties.

Like many cleaning service companies, they faced some typical challenges:

• Lack of oversight on employee availability made it hard to create an efficient schedule
• Manual scheduling headaches when using Google Calendar just ate up too much time and was so messy
• Hard to access the schedule if employees don’t have a Google account so things fall between the cracks
• Messy communication over multiple channels caused us to jump from tool to tool with no way to track who read and got the message
• Huge time costs on manual payroll without a clear picture of actual time spent at each job

The Solution:

• Simple, mobile scheduling instead of creating & sharing Google Calendar events with every single employee
• Digital timesheets with precalculated overtime automatically shared with the accountant instead of time-consuming, manual calculations, prone to errors
• In-app shift notes & attachments to get signed virtual reports from the field with pictures snapped at the specific time at the specific location, instead of searching through thousands of random pictures from all the properties
• A single channel for all work-related communication over a dedicated company mobile app improved internal communication, instead of dozens of calls, messages, and emails

The Outcome:

• Schedules are quickly created and distributed so managers don’t have to play phone tag with their employees
• Freed up time for new business development by cutting time invested in oversight
• Substantially reduced the time managers spend on tracking staff, equipment, and work status
• Saved hours of organizing and searching through thousands of pictures by having them uploaded by employees and attached directly to the specific shift, property, and location
• Much easier and faster payroll thanks to the digital, easily-exportable timesheets

We asked Cathy and Olivia from BnB Clean Services to virtually sit down with us to discuss their experience with Connecteam’s cleaning service app and how their business operations are benefiting from using an all-in-one solution. Here’s what they had to say.

“We were looking at scheduling and time tracking solutions with a list of things we needed, and we couldn’t find any that had it all until we found Connecteam.”

Background:

Since around ‘98, Cathy has been involved with the cleaning industry with specialization in residential and commercial properties, and even move-in services. Last year, she came across some Airbnb owners that sort of made everything come full circle with her growing cleaning company, BnB Clean Services.

Like any cleaning service company, they faced some challenges from lack of oversight to manual scheduling headaches via Google Calendar, messy communication, and so on.

“We were looking at scheduling and time tracking solutions with a list of things we needed, and we couldn’t find any that had all until we found Connecteam,” says Kathy from BnB Cleaning

“The implementation process didn’t take very long at all. To be honest, it looked intimidating at first, but apparently, it looks more complicated than it actually is. And for our users, they pick it up pretty quick like a day at most. The customer support is amazing too, so we get pretty quick responses if something’s unclear.”

“We had about five, six different systems and now it’s all in one place. This is such a relief.”

Challenges Faced:

One of our biggest challenges was creating an efficient schedule. It’s laughable that we were using Google Calendar to create and distribute schedules. And as we were growing, it just wasn’t working for us:

• Every employee would need to create a Gmail account
• The Calendar wasn’t always compatible with everyone’s phone or email
• We had no way to track our employees’ time
• We sent way too many emails and text messages

Plus, we were using multiple solutions for tracking time, communication, going through reports, and so on. This caused so many headaches and was incredibly inefficient in running a growing company.

“It wasn’t until we found Connecteam’s cleaning service app that our biggest challenges gradually became a thing of the past!”

The All-In-One Solution

Efficient Job Scheduling:

The most helpful feature for us is the job schedule! One of the biggest issues we faced before is that each job has a different location, description, entry details, and so on. There was no way to bring it all together. I had to copy and paste for every shift or write a new description which was very time-consuming. But with Connecteam, we can have those jobs all ready to go with templates so I don’t need to copy and paste every single time, the information is already there.

“With Connecteam, we have those jobs ready to go with templates, so I don’t need to copy and paste every single time.”

We also use the availability and request forms so our employees can let us know when they’re available for a shift and they just add their information in themselves so we aren’t following up on that all the time. If they want to request vacation or a sick day, that’s done on the app in their own time so we don’t have to worry about writing it down and remembering that they aren’t available at that time. We have full visibility into our cleaners’ schedules now.

GPS Empowered Time Tracking:

Before, our employees would manually write down their hours on a printed timesheet and send a picture of it to us. We would literally print out timesheets and our employees would have to fill it all in like the date, where they were, and how long they were there. We had no way to track if all this information was accurate. Now, it’s all in the app so we can easily track work hours so we know when they got to the site and when they left — the live geo-tracking uses “Breadcrumbs” technology that allows for tracking employees’ location while they’re clocked in and on the move, with minimal effect on their battery or data plan.

On the employees’ side they clock in and out as usual, while the administrators are able to view their route during the shift over the enlarged map and even play a video animation that connects all the breadcrumbs together into a single trail. Breadcrumbs track employees’ location while they’re on the clock, whether their app is opened, closed, or running in the background.

Also for security purposes, we would know not to let anyone else in the property while our workers are there.

“Connecteam helped cut the time invested in oversight because we used to spend like 75% of our time just on tracking stuff.”

Connecteam’s live geo-tracking uses “Breadcrumbs” technology that allows for tracking employees’ location while they’re clocked in and on the move, with minimal effect on their battery or data plan. On the employees’ side they clock in and clock out as usual, while the administrators are able to view their route during the shift over the enlarged map and even play a video animation that connects all the breadcrumbs together into a single trail. Breadcrumbs track employees’ location while they’re on the clock, whether their app is opened, closed, or running in the background.

Targeted Communication:

We use updates quite frequently for a morale boost, to trade ideas and suggestions (like how to get a wine stain out), to share positive customer reviews, to acknowledge employees who went above and beyond, but it also helps with logistics. For example, if somebody is overwhelmed at a property, we’ll send out an update if anybody is near the area and can help out. We don’t have to send out 20 different text messages to 20 different people, instead, it’s all done in one tap.

“Anytime we add new users to the app, they are really impressed with Connecteam. They really love it”

Shift notes:

We control the stock in these Airbnb properties, like toilet paper and coffee, and the employees can add notes into a shift so if something is running low and needs to be replaced then that’s noted in the shift. This really helps streamline the operations and processes.

“It was a big deal for us to find Connecteam, it makes my job a lot easier.”

Final Thoughts

It’s been a huge weight off of our shoulders and a big time-saver and time is huge for us, time is money in our business. We do often get bottlenecked and we run 7 days a week so anything that saves us even a minute of time is huge for us. Connecteam makes us more efficient so we can take on more business and more locations – time is money. We’ve dealt with a lot of other apps that didn’t have everything we needed or offered things we didn’t need, and often there would be some issues. But once we found Connecteam, we have never even considered changing to another solution, whereas, with other solutions, we have definitely thought about switching. We have not felt the need to look anywhere with Connecteam.

I would absolutely recommend Connecteam to my peers and any kind of business that relies on processes similar to ours. Streamlining and time-saving is super huge.

Going forward, we would like to add training videos to enhance our training and onboarding. We’re a rapidly growing company and I think Connecteam would make it quick and efficient to really onboard new cleaners and get them up to speed.

“Time is huge for us, and Connecteam makes us more efficient so we can take on more business and more locations. Time is money!”