Building service contractors (BSCs) strive to serve the needs of their clients. Many BSCs agree that improving facility image is the No. 1 concern of their customers, with 85% of respondents to CMM’s 2023 BSC Benchmarking Survey indicating this goal is very important to their clients.
The CMM BSC/Contract Cleaning Benchmarking Survey Report, sponsored by business software company Aspire, is a tool that can help your business gauge its performance. Participants answer a variety of questions regarding their challenges, goals, operations, and employees. Regarding top customer concerns, along with facility image, 73% of survey respondents listed the health, safety, and security of buildings and tenants as very important. Other top client concerns included reducing overall cleaning costs (71%), preserving assets (56%), and retaining tenants (53%).
Although many questions appear every year, several queries regarding sustainability practices—along with environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) efforts—are newer additions to the survey. This year, 31% of respondents stated that their customers require them to report their ESG or sustainability efforts, compared to 24% last year. The most common customers requiring sustainability reports include those in the government (61%), commercial (44%), healthcare (38%), and education (23%) sectors. Slightly more respondents (31%) are leveraging ESG and sustainability efforts as part of their customer or employee recruitment efforts in 2023, compared to 29% in 2022.
Top customer complaints have long been a survey question topic. Once again, BSCs listed restrooms as the top cause of customer complaints; 38% of survey respondents listed it as their No. 1 customer complaint, compared to 32% in 2022 and 42% in 2021. Hard floor surfaces came in second place at 17%, followed by common/shared spaces at 13%, carpeting at 9%, and trash at 7%. Other problem areas and challenges include entranceways, windows, and keeping up with dust.
Recruiting and retaining staff is still the biggest business challenge for BSCs, with 47% of survey respondents listing it as a challenge that pertains to their business to a large extent, compared
to 57% in 2022 and 63% in 2021. Maintaining profitable margins and winning new bids/contracts remain the next most common business challenges, just as they did in the previous two
surveys.
Examine the report below to see how your operation stacks up to others, discover industry trends, or determine if your projected growth is on par. We hope you find the survey results useful,
and if you didn’t participate in the survey this year, please consider doing so in 2024.
This year’s BSC survey is sponsored by Aspire.
Download the full survey report below.
