Castle Keepers Only Residential Cleaning
Company to Achieve Worldwide Certification
CHARLESTON, S.C. – Castle Keepers, a Charleston-area residential cleaning business, recently became the only residential cleaning company in the world to achieve a stringent customer service certification typically achieved only by industrial and commercial cleaning companies.
Castle Keepers received the Cleaning Industry Management Standard Certification through ISSA, a worldwide cleaning industry association, in September. The company had to complete a lengthy review by an accredited assessor who verified the company’s processes and randomly visited customers.
Compliance with the CIMS standard demonstrates that a cleaning operation is structured to deliver consistent, quality services designed to meet customers’ needs and expectations. CIMS certification has become a requirement in many cleaning service bid specifications as customers look for an effective way to identify cleaning service providers who are true companies of excellence and committed to customer satisfaction.
“ISSA is tremendously pleased to add Castle Keepers of Charleston to the roster of CIMS-certified organizations,” says Dan Wagner, director of facility service programs for ISSA. “In becoming the very first residential cleaning company to achieve certification, Castle Keepers has proven that the management best practice elements contained within the CIMS standards are universally applicable to all segments of the cleaning industry and have demonstrated that, as an organization, Castle Keepers stands out as among the best of the best.”
“The whole foundation of our client relationship starts with trust. After all, you don’t just give the key to your home to anybody,” says Tom Stewart, president and owner of Castle Keepers. “It’s easy to make claims about what you do, but those claims are tough to verify. We thought what better way to demonstrate we’re trustworthy than to adopt a customer-focused management standard like CIMS, and have a third party verify we are doing the things that mean the most to our clients.”
CIMS certified organizations must demonstrate compliance with the five core principles: quality systems; service delivery; human resources; health, safety and environmental stewardship; and management commitment. They also undergo a comprehensive assessment of management and operational execution.
The Cleaning Industry Management Standards-Green Building (CIMS-GB) standard is a new designation that can help companies secure points under the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (LEED-EBOM) Green Building Rating System.
CIMS-GB focuses on delivering environmentally-preferable cleaning service. The certification was molded to meet LEED-EBOM criteria while greening operations overall.
ISSA and the American Institute for Cleaning Sciences led representatives of the cleaning, facilities-management and purchasing industries in creating the standards for CIMS-GB designation. The process included a full peer review of the criteria.