A good cleaning RFQ asks every contractor for the same things: pricing against your written scope, the hours behind it, who does the work and how it is supervised, how quality is checked, proof of insurance and compliance, references and any changes they want to your terms. Asking in a fixed structure is what makes the responses comparable.
What should the RFQ include from you?
Send the scope of work, the site address and areas, access days and hours, the proposed start date and contract term, who supplies consumables and equipment, and the date and format for responses. Without these a contractor must guess, and the guesses will differ.
What should you ask contractors for?
Pricing
- A price per week or month against each task in your scope, stated whether GST is included.
- The labour hours per week behind the price.
- Anything excluded from the price and anything quoted separately, such as carpet extraction or high-level glass.
- How price changes are handled during the term.
People and supervision
- Who will clean the site, whether as employees or subcontractors, and how they are engaged and paid under the Cleaning Services Award.
- How staff are screened and inducted for your site.
- Who supervises, how often they visit and how you reach them.
Quality and reporting
- How work is checked, how often and by whom.
- What you receive as proof, such as a checklist or regular report against your scope.
- How a missed task is reported, corrected and recorded.
Safety, insurance and compliance
- Current certificates of currency for public liability and workers' compensation cover.
- How chemicals are managed, including safety data sheets for products used on your site.
- Their site safety procedures and how incidents are reported.
References
- Two or three clients in similar buildings, with permission to call them.
Exceptions
- Any term in your draft contract they want changed, in writing.
How do you make the answers easy to compare?
Provide a response form with a numbered question for each item above, so every bidder answers in the same order. Then score the answers using the cleaning tender evaluation scorecard.
What should you do next?
If you are running a larger process, follow how to run a cleaning tender. Make sure your scope is solid first with how to write a cleaning scope of work. To send us an RFQ, book a walkthrough and we will respond against your scope.