Katarina first started the company as a sole trader in 2008 and had only one employee. Katarina says it was good timing because it was at the same time as the RUT deduction was introduced in Sweden, which meant that demand for household services increased sharply. Since then, the business has gradually grown and in 2011 she converted the sole proprietorship into a limited company. Today, the company has a turnover of almost 30 million and around 60 employees.
Katarina's Cleaning Service currently offers services to both private individuals and companies, but where most of the customers are in domestic services. In addition to cleaning, they also offer window cleaning, floor care and they perform a lot of moving cleaning, something they have become specialists in thanks to recommendations from many brokers. Katarina says that it is great that the company is doing so well, but that the goal for her has never been growth per se, but her main goal is to make all customers and employees happy. "If you focus on quality, you grow with quantity, it is difficult to do the opposite," says Katarina.
"It's a tough industry with low margins and since we work a lot with private individuals, it's extra important that the customer feels safe with us," says Katarina. Something Katarina also invests a lot in is that the staff should feel that they can stay here for a long time, that they have a salary they can live on and that it does not have to be a temporary profession as many often otherwise see a job in the cleaning industry.
What was the reason behind the decision to join Tengella?
Before they introduced Tengella, Katarina had created a manual system for how all administration should be handled within the company, which consisted of many different Word documents, but above all, she herself had most of the information in her head. Since they had no system where the staff could access information about their scheme or changes in the schedule, there were long time-consuming descriptions via text message and in paper form.
Katarina did everything scheduling in Word tables that eventually stretched over several A4 sheets. Katarina finally felt that it would be incredibly nice to have everything in one place. With Tengella, you can search for all possible information about the customer and manage scheduling, and the staff can now see their schedule and any changes directly in mobileso you don't have to send text messages back and forth about it.
Katarina evaluated different systems, but they didn't really meet her needs. They seemed complicated. But then she got a tip from another cleaning company using Tengella and was convinced that Tengella was the right system for her. Katarina says that if a cleaning company that is bigger than me, is very professional and competitive, deals with the same challenges and has been around longer than me, highly recommends Tengella, well - then I did not hesitate!
Katarina's recommendation to other cleaning companies that don't have a business system today is not to wait until you reach a certain size or level to invest in one.
Katarina says that if she had it to do over again, she would have bought Tengella as soon as she started the company, instead of waiting until they were around 30 employees.
"The invoice should be sent while the customer's house still smells clean"
One of the great advantages of Tengella is that you have everything in one place. The whole is the winning concept, it is incredibly nice not to have a lot of different systems, says Katarina. The scheduling is much easier, for example
What are your business plans? Looking ahead, what are the next steps?
My only goal is to continue to make customers happy and those who are already happy will be very happy," says Katarina, "while retaining our staff who are our stars and pillars. If we succeed in this, then we will probably continue to grow as the demand for cleaning services in the consumer sector also increases. More and more people realize that they can't get their daily lives together and would rather spend their free time with family and friends," says Katarina.
Another part is to take the next step in Tengella and start using more features such as CRM/ Sales support, quality controls, post-calculations and customer portals. Katarina also has the ambition to start collaborating with the local municipality in Varberg to reach out with her services to more households, and she has a dream of creating a better climate together with other local cleaning companies in Varberg.