FAQ's About our Service
The following are some of the more frequently asked questions and answers. Simply click on a question to bring up the answer.
- Why should I hire a cleaning service?
- Isn't it expensive and only for the wealthy?
- How are you different from the other services?
- What's the difference between a "cleaning service" and a "maid"?
- Am I required to commit to a long-term contract?
- What is your geographical service area?
- Do you offer discounts or use coupons?
- How do you assure me and my family's safety?
- How do you keep my key safe and sound?
- Why do you need to do the "Initial Deep Clean"?
- Why do the first one or two cleanings cost more?
- My home has been cleaned by a professional maid. Will the initial cleanings still be required?
- What products do you use and are they safe?
- How do you care for natural stone, like marble and granite?
- Can I buy the same products you use?
- Do you do specialized work, like cleaning windows or ironing?
- What insurance do you carry?
- Do you pay taxes on your employees and do you have Workers Compensation coverage?
- Why can't you give me an estimate over the phone or via email?
- What if you break something in my home?
- What if something is missing in my home after you leave?
- Can I substitute one chore for another at the time of service?
- What if I need to cancel a cleaning?
- I have very high ceilings with ceiling fans. How do you clean those? What about high chandeliers?
- What's the difference between your "deep" cleanings and "general" or regular cleanings?
- I have a question that's not listed here - what do I do?
Why should I hire a cleaning service?
People hire cleaning professionals for many different reasons. The number one reason is to save valuable time. You can save countless hours on dreaded housework (including the time you spend thinking about not wanting to do it). So, how do you value your time? There are a couple of great articles on this topic.
CNN / MONEY MAGAZINE ARTICLE - How Much is Your Time Worth?
MSN ARTICLE - Why it Pays to Hire Help at Home MSN Time Value Calculator
For most of us, our time is worth much more than we may think, especially when psychological aspects are considered. It seems that life just keeps moving a faster pace. It is easy for valuable personal or family time to get shortened. Hiring a good home cleaning service can give you back some free time. In most homes, cleaning services are rapidly becoming a needed service rather than a luxury. While it is not difficult to find a cleaning service, it is not easy to find a service that consistently provides the level of service you deserve.
Isn't it expensive and only for the "wealthy"?
It's probably less expensive than you think!
On average, house cleaning chores require 35 hours per week (according to a 1999 Whirlpool Foundation study). So, to answer this question, you need to develop an estimate of what your time is actually worth, and how much your cleaning time would be reduced with a cleaning service. It is not likely to drop to zero unless you hire a live-in maid. The previous question/answer provides information on how to determine the value of your free-time.
Using some round numbers for folks in southeast Texas, the value of free-time for a single-income family earning $40,000 per year is around $30 per hour. For a $50,000 income family, it's $55 per hour and it is $67 per hour for a single income family earning $60,000 per year. These values were obtained using the MSN Time Value Calculator.
Now, not only is our average hourly cost significantly less than these figures, we also know we can clean a house better than most homeowners and in about 50% to 75% less time. Why? We are professionally trained and equipped to do so. This means that you would likely save 1.2 to 1.5 hours of housework for every hour you paid a professional cleaning service.
What makes you any different from all the other services out there?
Let us count the ways!
Our Mission and Vision - It starts with our mission and vision. We are here to be profitable enough to give back to those in the community who need our services at low or no cost. We aspire to be known as an enabler of stronger families as we give our Customers more time to spend on the really important things in life.
Selection of Employees/Associates - Then there is our extremely careful selection of employees - we call them Associates. We hire people who love to clean! Click here to get an overview of our screening process.
Training - Our state-of-the art training - we take about three weeks to train a new Associate - and we don't train on your time! We provide classroom lecture, book reading and video coupled with multiple testing along the way. This is followed by field training in a controlled environment - not your home! The Best People on Our Team - The end result of the previous two items is the absolute best housecleaning professionals - period!
Our Compensation Process - Since we've hired the best, we also treat them in like-fashion. We use hourly compensation and not a "pay-by-the-house" plan. We believe paying our Associates by the hour coupled with a profit sharing plan second to none. Our compensation plan, corporate culture and management experience sustains our Associates' motivation to do what's right - right for the Customer and our business.
Quality Management - Our quality management program is second to none. Having more than a decade of experience on our team with corporate quality activities - we know quality and how to make it real. We have modeled our program using the criteria of the Baldrige National Quality Award.
Our Cleaning Products and Equipment - Our products and equipment match the caliber of people we hire - they are the best money can buy. Our main vacuums are German-built and include certified HEPA filtration. Our cleaning products are extremely effective and environmentally safe.
Our Highly Engineered Cleaning Process - We have spent significant time developing the most efficient and effective methods to clean a home. With our industrial engineering background, we know a little something about motion and time. We applied this knowledge and experience to our cleaning methods. The result is a highly effective process that actually eliminates many sources of errors (such as forgetting to do something).
Our Commitment to Our Customers - is second to none! Sure, we have a guarantee similar to others. We simply stand behind ours - 100% of the time. We also offer significant flexibility. Need something special, something extra, and something different? No problem! We can handle most anything. All we ask is a couple of days notice so that we can effectively schedule the work.
Professional Credentials – See our Partners Page for all our credentials.
What's the difference between a "cleaning service" and a "maid"?
For some interesting reading, take a gander at some information put together by some of our friends in the business:
The Dirty Truth About the Cleaning Business
How to Avoid Hiring an Illegal Contractor
While many call themselves maid services and many more call themselves cleaning services, most are the same. There are several categories of differences - training, insurance/bonding, and legality.
Training - Most services train their employees. Most maids or individuals have had no formal training for cleaning. This increases the chance that maids can damage items by using the wrong cleaning product or process. So, the Customer must provide the instruction. Our Associates go through more formal training than any service we know of in Beaumont.
Insurance and Bonding - Be sure to inquire about items such as insurance and workers compensation. Most individuals do not carry this type of coverage. A simple service bond does not actually provide the Customer with very strong coverage, as service bonds usually require that someone is convicted of the crime before the bond will pay.
While most homeowner's insurance policies cover medical costs, should someone be injured in your home, they rarely provide coverage for lost wages or income. This is where the service provider's workers compensation coverage comes into play.
Of course, we are bonded, carry full liability coverage along with the non-mandatory workers' compensation (and we can tell you first hand that it is all expensive!).
Legality - Many individual maids work on a "cash" basis and most do not report their income. Hence, they are not paying income tax or social security. Rest assured however, that they will file for social security when they are eligible! Many are also illegal aliens who do not have the proper documentation to work in the U.S. but also obtain social services from our community.
Sure these individual maids charge less for the service provided, but we feel strongly that people who employee these maids are supporting an underground economy that ultimately hurts all of us. Of course, we do not discriminate in our hiring process. We do, however, insist that all individuals have the legal right to work in our country. All of our Associates have I-9 documentation and we pay all legal taxes (federal and state taxes and social security).
Am I required to commit to a long-term contract??
No, absolutely not. We are confident enough in the quality and value of our service that it speaks for itself rather than using a contract to rope you into something! We do use a service agreement we use that spells out all the details of our service.
What is your service area??
Our service area includes Beaumont, north to Lumberton, east to Vidor, south to Port Arthur (including Port Neches, Groves, Nederland), west to Fannett. Note that some areas west (specifically within zip code 77705) are not services due to the long drive times involved given no direct routes. Areas we are asked about frequently but do not currently service include Orange, Orangefield, LaBelle, Winnie, Jasper, and Sour Lake.
Do you offer discounts or use coupons?
We do offer senior citizens (over 65 years young) 10% discounts. We also have coupons that are available from time to time. See Today's Specials for current discount offers.
How do you assure me and my family's safety?
While we can't assure anyone's safety, including our own, we do take more preventative steps than most anyone. We start with in-person interviews where we carefully screen out individuals who don't meet our exacting requirements. For those candidates with whom we have interest, we put them through an intensive (and costly) screening process.
The very first step is to use a very powerful and extremely accurate Orion Opinion Survey from The Steering Group. The Orion Opinion Survey provides accurate, valid and illuminating insight, free from adverse impact. It examines job-related attitudes of our applicants bring with them to the work environment including attitudes toward work, supervision, drug use, theft, customer service and safety.
Then we perform extensive background screening with Intellicorp (www.intellicorp.net), a premier employment background checking service. The screening starts with an identity verification check that searches over 600 million records on an individual's reported social security number and provides the ability to verify and validate who may be using a specific social security number. This is the same information used by banks, lenders and credit companies nationwide. Once the candidate's identity is confirmed, we conduct a nationwide criminal search (covering arrest records, court records, inmate records, and sex offender registries). This is followed with a comprehensive Texas criminal check - which provides more timely information than the national search. We also perform a check of the candidate's Texas driving record and we look at their credit history. Having passed all of this, the candidate is then subjected to initial and subsequent random drug testing. We use Accutox, Inc. for all our drug testing and we use the more expensive 12 panel screen. Last, but not least, we fingerprint all Associates and maintain these records for at least 5 years after an Associate leaves us. We obviously believe an ounce of prevention is worth a lot!
In addition to the screening, all Associates are supervised while in a Customer's home. We do not use any subcontractors for residential cleaning services. Through our dispatching software we track the movements of our teams - so we know exactly where they are at any time. Finally, we work as teams which not only helps to assure your safety, but theirs as well!
How do you keep my key safe and sound?
Most of our Customers are working during the day, which is exactly when we like to clean your home - so we don't bother you when you are at home spending some of that precious time for yourself or family. As a result, most Customers provide us with a key to their homes. To ensure the security of your keys, we do not mark them with your name, but rather a secure code number. Your key is stored in a locked key safe at our office, which has a 24-hour security monitoring system. We take your key out of the key safe only on your cleaning day. It is put on a locked key chain and carried by the Team Leader. Should the key be lost, there is no way to trace it back to your home. Should our office be broken into, in addition to getting through our office security system, they would have to be able to quickly hack a system with two levels of separate password protection (where we store our Customer information data).
Why do you need to do the "Initial Deep Cleans"?
Old dirt! We have found that simply doing a general cleaning does not provide you with a sparkling clean home. Old dirt is significantly harder to clean than "new" dirt. Our initial cleaning takes this fact into account as we deliver a totally "spring cleaned" home at its conclusion. Doing an initial or deep/spring cleaning once is also not the answer as Mr. Grunge has an insidious way of sneaking back in. That's why our initial cleaning followed by the deep cleaning rotation system ensures that your home gets what amounts to a complete "spring cleaning" at the end of every fourth visit.
Why do the first two cleanings cost more?
It takes us significantly more time and effort to clean "old" dirt as compared to "new" dirt. A good example is the dust that accumulates on the top of your picture frames or refrigerator. As it sits there and piles up over time, it literally packs down. This "old" packed dust cannot be removed with a duster, but requires hand-wiping with a general cleaner. The more time it takes us, the more costly it is for both of us. That's why we specialize in and encourage folks to use a recurring cleaning service.
My home has been cleaned by a professional maid. Will the initial cleanings still be required?
It depends (sorry!). If you have had an outstanding service, then an initial cleaning may not be needed. We must tell you, however, that we've yet to see a home that has been "professionally cleaned" that lives up to our standards. So, the actual answer is - maybe an initial clean will not be required, but it likely will be based on our experience.
How do you care for natural stone, like granite and marble?
We use specialized products developed by a world reknown master - Mario Bertinelli. Specific information on our care for natural stone can be found here.
What products do you use and are they safe?
All of the chemicals we use are safe for you, your children and your animals! Our primary cleaners are hydrogen peroxide based cleaners. Our disinfectant cleaners used in bathrooms is very environmentally friendly.
If you ever have any questions about any product we use, simply call us, or ask a Team Member when they are visiting your home. We can provide you with Material Safety Data Sheets on all.
Can I buy the same products you use?
Yes- most of them!
Do you do specialized work, like cleaning windows or ironing?
But of course! We can handle many, but not all household cleaning chores - including windows, ironing, washing. Since these services are not included in our standard rotational cleaning process, we will provide you with a quote for any additional service requests.
What insurance do you carry?
To protect our Customers and our company, we carry General Liability, Workers Compensation, and a bond. Our liability insurance covers accidental breakage. Workers' compensation covers our Associates should they get injured while on the job and our bond protects you in the case of stolen property. One note about bonds, they are not as useful as many think. They are inexpensive coverage for severe theft and require a conviction to provide coverage.
Do you pay taxes? Workers' Compensation?
Yes! We pay federal income tax on our earnings, social security for our Associates, Federal Unemployment Tax, and State Unemployment Tax. There are absolutely no tax liabilities for you, other than the sales tax that is included on your invoice.
We also pay property taxes, as required by law, than many of our competitors do not pay. This is another example of our commitment to our community!
Why can't you give me an estimate over the phone or via email?
Gosh, we sure wish we could - it would save us both time! We don't do it for one simple reason - we need to see your home to give you an exact price to clean it. Some call their homes "small", when in fact they are huge! The size of your home is not the only factor. There are multiple aspects we consider when developing your customer estimate - amount of woodwork, increase in cleaning from pets and children, amount of decorative items, type of appliances, etc. Now, having said that, we can assure you the last person we want in our own home is a pushy salesperson! We pledge to you that this will never occur. The estimating process takes about 10 to 15 minutes. We simply ask you to give us a quick tour of your home so that we can see what we need to clean. As we are walking through your home, we will ask you some questions about any issues/concerns/specialty items you may require. At the conclusion of the tour, we sit down with you, develop a written quotation and review our cleaning process. We ask if you have any questions, and whoosh - we're out of your hair! We can assure you that compared to the time you invest with us to develop an accurate estimate will be repaid hundreds of times over with the time you save each month!
What if you break something in my home?
Since we are all human, an accident can happen. If it ever does, the Team Leader attempts to contact you (if you are not at home) to tell you what happened. If we are unable to contact you, then we will leave a message. For many items, we will gladly replace the item or pay you its fair value. For very expensive items, we turn it over to our insurance company to replace the item.
While you will not hear a lot of hemming and hawing from Towers Elite Service - it's not in our best interest or yours - we do ask that you tell us if you have anything that is not secure. For example, we've been asked to replace pictures that were broken when we attempted to dust them - and they will held up with a straight pin which could not support the least little nudge.
What if something is missing in my home after you leave?
In our case, every time we have been blamed for something, the missing item was simply misplaced by the customer (the "Butler most often does not do it"). However, should this ever happen, we urge you to immediately contact the office. We will investigate it promptly. We also request that you file a police report, as we treat this type of issue with utmost seriousness. We will cooperate fully with any and all crime investigations. Fortunately, this has not been an issue – thanks to our hiring process!
Can I substitute one chore for another at the time of service?
Well, that depends. We do not like to substitute cleaning one room for another. The reason is twofold. First, if the room being skipped on a cleaning is dirty, and someone comes to your home - we don't want them to think that we don't do a fantastic job. Second, it makes the room skipped a bit harder to clean the next time around. We can accommodate this, but would ask that you let us know while we are quoting your price as it can affect the price we quote you.
What if I need to skip a cleaning?
No problem! We simply ask that you give us at least 24 hours notice so that we may adjust our Associates' schedule.
I have very high ceilings with ceiling fans. How do you clean those? What about high chandeliers?
That depends on how high they are. We have specialized equipment for dealing with ceiling fans - assuming they are no more than 15 to 16 feet above the floor. During our deep cleaning process, ceiling fans are wiped down by hand. This is followed by dusting each visit by a specialized duster called a "rabbit ear" duster. As for chandeliers, our standard service provides for dusting. We can include a more thorough cleaning of chandeliers and other light fixtures at an additional charge.
What's the difference between your "deep" cleanings and "general" or regular cleanings?
To begin with, our "general" or regular cleanings leave your home sparkling clean - no exceptions! The primary difference between the deep and general cleanings is the level of hand-work involved. As an example, for deep cleanings, we hand-wipe baseboards and hand-vacuum carpet edges with a special tool, hand-wipe ceiling fans, knick-knacks, and polish furniture. For general cleanings, we mop and vacuum floors, dust ceiling fans, knick-knacks and furniture. Our objective is that your home always looks clean throughout when we leave - regardless of what rotation cleaning has been performed. Two areas of your home that differ little on the deep vs. general cleaning are your bathrooms and kitchen. The primary additional service in deep cleaning for these rooms is hand-wiping/polishing your cabinets. Otherwise, the deep and general services are about the same - both resulting in a clean and disinfected room.
I have a question that's not listed here - what do I do?
Easy - give us a call or send us an email!