With demand on the rise and an even steeper rise in competition, the crowded space of the janitorial industry is becoming a battleground for growth. Many cleaning service providers gain market share and establish a name in the industry, but they can also plateau due to marketing saturation, a lack of growth opportunities, and fewer office spaces to service with the rise in remote work.
Growth opportunities in the residential cleaning sector
A growing awareness of their cleaning needs is causing consumers to seek professional services for not just homes, but office buildings and retail stores. House cleaning services are becoming a high-value opportunity for commercial cleaning companies in need of new avenues of growth. The growth rate in the residential sector shows what kind of opportunity is available for commercial small businesses.
In 2020, that market value skyrocketed to over 34 billion, creating a growth rate increase of 8%. That trend continued in 2021 with a 9% in growth to market value for U.S. house cleaners.
Since the pandemic era, the yearly growth rate for residential cleaning services has hovered around 6%
While COVID-19 greatly improved the public’s awareness of professional cleaning services, more variables have played into the growing value of residential services.
Since the pandemic, high-growth residential cleaning services have only grown. Over the past five years, U.S. consumers have found tremendous value in hiring professional cleaning technicians for their homes.
As highlighted in a survey conducted by the American Cleaning Institute, U.S. consumers claimed to prefer spending an average of 6 hours every week cleaning their homes. A third of the survey respondents also claimed to have concerns about whether they were cleaning their homes correctly.
The top 4 most worried over cleaning tasks among respondents were:
Cleaning the bathroom (52%)
Cleaning the kitchen (23%)
Dusting (21%)
Mopping (20%)
Other top services that consumers prefer to trust professional services with include:
One of the top reasons residential customers seek out professional services for their cleaning needs is due to the “time-savings.” Other reasons included lacking knowledge and cleaning skills, lacking equipment or cleaning products, and worrying that cleaning isn’t being done properly.
That’s a 3:2 ratio of one-off and short-term jobs vs. repeat business. Those are inspiring numbers for high-growth commercial cleaners looking to build a loyal base of returning customers in 2023. And with gross profit margins ranging between 15%-30% in residential services, that’s a huge opportunity for revenue growth as well.
Tapping into residential growth today
With the right management software, tapping into the growing opportunities of the residential cleaning industry is simple. Whether you’re an established janitorial business or new to commercial cleaning services all around, the residential sector is a viable strategy for becoming a hyper-growth property management business.
With proper management tools, you can deploy team members with commercial experience into the residential sector or branch out by hiring high-quality subcontractors. Aspire’s cloud-based janitorial business software provides the features that guide business owners as they expand into new cleaning and disinfecting service verticals, such as residential, green cleaning, power washing, and more.