Sometimes we lose accounts. Thank goodness more often than not there’s nothing we could have done to stop it and you just have to thank them for their business and hope that one day you get the opportunity to work with them again.

After 10 years of taking care of multiple sites for one of our largest clients, they’ve awarded the tender to a London based cleaning contractor and from the end of June we won’t be looking after them. Of course I tend to take it all personally because it our business and we absolutely hate losing customers for any reason but it happens!

If you think of the wonderful cleaning staff we have working with us, it can be an extremely worrying time for them as they could well have a new employer and there’s the stress of wondering what they’ll be like, if they’ll be looked after, paid properly, if holidays will be covered and untaken holiday paid up. A lot of cleaning companies even charge for uniforms! The easiest and probably most convenient thing for the cleaning operatives is to stay put. They know the clients, in many situations have great relationships with them, understand the buildings and are in the ‘habit’ of going to the same place, the same place they have (in some cases) been going to for many years. This makes staying an easy decision.

Guess what? Virtually every single one of them has asked to stay with us and be transferred to new clients. In some cases they may even be leaving good friends and established teams to remain working for us. Bloody hell, how humbling is that? I feel privileged to have such amazing people working with us. I honestly have had ‘watery eye’ moments during conversations with these fantastic people as they’ve asked us to move them to new sites rather than leave us. The disappointment of losing a lovely customer and been more than made up by these absolute superstars. Loyalty is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?