Cleaning Service Marketing Plan

Mother's House Cleaning Service

Situation Analysis

Mother's House Cleaning Service is entering its first year of business as a start-up organization.  Sarah recognizes the imperative need for a comprehensive marketing plan to help ensure profitability.  Mother's offers a comprehensive residential cleaning service that is both professional and trustworthy. 

Market Summary

Mother's possess good information about the market and knows a great deal about the common attributes of its most prized customers. Mother's House Cleaning Service will leverage this information to better understand who is served, their specific needs, and how Mother's can better communicate with this group. 

Market Needs

Mother's is providing its customers with a professional, residential house cleaning service, aimed at the upper echelon of the market.  Mother's seeks to fulfill the following benefits that are important to its customers.

• Professionalism: All employees will be well trained to exude professionalism from all of their actions and conversations.

• Convenience: Mother's will provide its services in the manner that is most convenient to the customer, including arranging for visits when the owner is not home.

• Trustworthiness: Many people have legitimate concerns regarding cleaning services in their home and the possibility of theft and breakage.  These concerns have been eliminated or significantly reduced through a comprehensive screening and training process for employees.  Additionally, Mother's carries insurance designed to cover any loss that the customer may attribute to the company.

Market Trends

The market trend in house cleaning has shifted from individual service providers to companies.  Years ago, most families had a single housekeeper who was responsible for the cleaning of their home(s). This individual was often considered a member of the family. Less and less families these days are serviced by an individual housekeeper.  The trend is moving toward having a cleaning service come into the home weekly. 

This market shift has fueled the proliferation of different house cleaning services. There has been a shift from individuals to companies, as well as a shift from having the same service providers for five to 10 years to going through many different companies, unsatisfied with their services.  This change in the market has created a receptive environment for a cleaning service provider whose goal it is to develop long-term relationships with customers.

Market Growth

The market for residential house cleaning services has exploded within the last five years.  The industry is now a $323 million dollar industry.  The growth rate for this market is forecasted to stay at 9% for the next four years.

The market is likely to maintain better than average growth due to the lifestyle Americans have developed within the last five years, working longer and longer hours.  The effect of the longer work week is that people have less time to take care of the personal maintenance responsibilities such as house cleaning.  Instead, people will work and longer hours and pay someone to take care of other, less important or less desirable responsibilities.

SWOT Analysis

The following SWOT analysis captures the key strengths and weaknesses within the company, and describes the opportunities and threats facing Mother's.

Strengths

• An enthusiastic company with a strong, infectious leader.
• A well designed training program to share and capture intellectual capital for the organization.
• Dedicated employees.

Weaknesses

• Labor-intensive industry.
• Inherent time lag when building goodwill and trust.
• The difficulty of establishing brand equity as a start-up company.
  

Opportunities

• A large percentage of the market that is unaware of Mother's.
• Shifts in consumer consumption habits that are moving toward increased utilization of cleaning services.
• A business model that is easily scalable.

Threats

• Employee turnover.
• The entrance of a serious competitor.

Competition

• Individuals: There are still some individuals who are housekeepers for either one family or a couple families.  These individuals not only clean, but also take care of errands for the family, and help raise the children.  This type of competitor is a shrinking market segment.
• Franchises or Chains: These are larger companies that have expanded into different regional markets.  These service providers are best described as utilitarian.  They get the job done but are not stellar in any way.
• Independent Cleaning Companies: These companies are similar to Mother's and vary greatly in quality.

Service Offering

Mother's House Cleaning Service will provide a residential house cleaning service for the upper end of the market. Mother's will have two target customers: 

1. The affluent that have a spouse who does not work, and is not inclined to do housework. To many a maid/house cleaner is a symbol of wealth, and this idea symbolizes this group of customers. 
2. The two-income households whose opportunity costs are too great to spend time cleaning the house.

MHCS offers house cleaning to these targeted customers. House cleaning ranges from cleaning of standard rooms such as kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, as well as more unusual jobs like small disasters from children and pets.

Keys to Success

The keys to success are:

• Professionalism.
• Trustworthiness.
• Quality work.
• Well-chosen and trained employees.

Critical Issues

Mother's is still in the speculative stages since it is a start-up company just beginning operations.  The critical issue that Mother's faces is to continue to take a modest fiscal approach; expand at a reasonable rate.  Expansion should only occur if there is sufficient demand and the quality of services is not diminished.