Domestique Cleaning Services www.domestique.co.uk Reviews

Domestique Cleaning Services www.domestique.co.uk
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★☆☆☆☆
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“Very bad service”

Written on: 06/02/2013 by WayneLeighton

Avoid these cleaners, i was taken for a fool. Charged extra labour than originally quoted and they did a terrible job (read more)

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★☆☆☆☆
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“Incompetent, Late, Rude and VERY Expensive”

Written on: 22/08/2012

After booking Domestique to come and do, what they called, a 'thorough end of tenency house clean', I was left with a sense of relief that we had professionals to come a sort the house out, so I didn't have to scrub everything whilst pregnant - how wrong I was... Not only did they arrive 40mins late, (with no phone call to warn us) and coming up with an excuse of 'well, it is a Sunday and we needed to get breakfast first', but I had to re-do key areas of the house after they had left as... (read more)

Reviewer67's Comment

Written on: 25/08/2012

Domestique is a franchise model so it would help if you could state the area that you are living in.

My personal experience of Domestique in the Bracknell area is that they are expensive and poor value for money. The standard of cleaning was variable from good to poor, the holiday cover was poorly organised (we had to phone them when a cleaner didn't turn up). It made me wonder what we were paying an agency fee for.

The first cleaner they supplied was discovered leaving 1 hour earlier than paid for. The second cleaner they supplied went on holiday and didn't return the key. When we commented on the standard of work from our third (and final) cleaner we were informed that they would not clean our house anymore and that we should find someone who met our expectations and then walked out.

Not worth the money.

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Fairy109's Comment

Written on: 28/11/2012

The Domestique I dealt with is based in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire - sorry if I wasn't clear here.

It is run by (names removed).

I can not communicate strongly enough when I say - beware and for your own sake, stay clear of entirely!

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Domestique's Comment

Written on: 20/12/2012

Further to our conversation recently about your service experience I have spoken at length with the franchisee and they have provide the statement below. I am certain that they have learned from the experience and have adopted better procedures and practices that should prevent the majority of the issues that you found unsatisfactory. I would also like to add my gratitude for offing the feedback and giving us the opportunity to improve how we work. I believe our willingness to listen and adapt will ensure our continues growth as the vast majority of our customers are very satisfied with our service.

Statement from Leighton Buzzard franchisee:

Having analysed what happened; I think the crux of the misunderstanding between us stems from our initial phone call. We felt that all of the key information was clearly explained, but from your remarks; it would appear that wasn't so. I know that Leigh, our franchisor, has since spoken with you and hopefully now clarified any misinterpretations about payment and sub-contracting to specialist oven cleaners. Anyone reading this is not going to know the full circumstances, and I am not going to go through everything now, but I would like to mention that when you looked round after we had cleaned, you did remark what a great job we had done. With regards to cost; if your expectation was that you were going to get the entire property cleaned and the oven professionally cleaned all for £97.50, then yes I can appreciate that you were surprised. All of our prices are clearly published on our website, and in all off-line advertising. It took 3 people, 3 hours to clean your property, so you actually received 9 hours cleaning. We too felt very upset by the whole episode, and have not had an experience like this before or since. As user Melanieperry has pointed out; it is one of the most important traits of a great business to be able to own up to mistakes and learn from them. We do acknowledge that we make some mistakes; we didn't arrive on time; we couldn't find your phone number and we didn't contact you about the blocked toilet with overflowing excrement, and that the freezer still full of food. Our start time is always 9:30 when we do weekend (Saturday) cleaning. However, you wanted Sunday, which we thought we were being exceptionally helpful to you, by doing. Also (as we discovered afterwards) it had been agreed a 9am start time. Unfortunately, on the day of the clean, we were unable to locate our piece of paper with all your details. We were running 10 minutes late (we thought) and arrived at 9:40. Not knowing that your partner had been waiting 40 minutes. Upon our arrival he didn't say a word about this. It was only after the clean, that you made us aware of it. Since this episode, we have improved our recording of booking information. We have created a dedicated form, so that we record all relevant details and all possible contact details; we enter the appointment into an electronic calendar and we take a deposit payment in advance wherever possible; which leaves the client only having to pay a 'straight-forward' £10 per hour, per cleaner. Our learning from this has been that we needed to, and have, been much clearer about how long things take and the associated costs.
Contrary to what this experience may have lead you to think; I would like to assure you that we always aim to please our clients and to be as professional as possible; and that we do acknowledge and learn from negative feedback so thank you giving us the feedback that helped us to improve how we operate.

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Domestique's Comment

Written on: 14/09/2012

Wow. I am really surprised and sorry about this experience. I am Leigh Prendiville and I am the owner of Domestique. I would love to be directly in touch with you to find out when you had this experience, which franchisee area you are in and which cleaners were in attendance. We do not often supply a service on a Sunday but such a throw away comment about ‘having breakfast first’ is embarrassing to me and certainly not at all what we expect from anyone representing our company. Please do get in touch with me so I can really look in to this for you. I would like to offer you a refund for the inconvenience but don’t know who you are.

We are a cleaning agency so do somewhat rely on the results and performance of the housekeepers we allocate to jobs. If we become aware of poor standards or poor attitude of our cleaners we first try to promote a better work ethic from the individuals but if this fails we would cease to engage that cleaner for any further work.

We take our End of Tenancy cleaner so seriously that we have now invested in a fully equipped vehicle and a full time employee rather than agency staff. This means we can now excel at providing a really high level of service and excellent standards from our fully trained employees. We do a lot of work for a number of very significant and demanding estate agencies and they are more than delighted with our results. We move to this employed service as we realised some of the agency engaged operatives were not producing results that met our customers’ expectations.

I would like to add my further apologies again and sincerely request you contact us directly so I can at the very least prevent a similar experience by any other customer.

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Melanieperry's Comment

Written on: 15/09/2012

Totally agree. My experience of Domestique nearly resulted in my taking legal action against them. They have absolutely no concept of how a business should be run, make no checks on their cleaners as they maintain they do and I found the whole experience to be so bad it was almost farcical.

They are way too expensive for the absolutely dreadful quality of service they supply. (Name removed) I really hope you read this. If you are the owner of this brand, then Domestique Bracknell are going to kill your business. It is something I would love to speak to you about - however I am less than confident I will ever get the chance as no-one answers the phone at Domestique and the customer service email address does not work. Real quality customer service from you guys.

If you want to find out who I am speak to (names removed) at Domestique Bracknell - they will know who I am - I am from Maidenhead, and wife of reveiwer 67!

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Domestique's Comment

Written on: 22/11/2012

It's Leigh Prendiville here again and I am really pleased that I managed to track you down and speak to both you and your husband today.

Firstly I'd like to thank you both for being so open with me and sharing your experiences. The feedback will help me address some of the challenges you experienced.

I have tracked back fully on the history of your service with us and was really disappointed how it deteriorated. In March 2012 your feedback was "As of this moment in time I am satisfied with the service provided. I find my cleaner (name removed) very suitable and she does a good and thorough job. She communicates effectively, has never let me down, and I am very happy with her. I am glad to report that initial blips I had with the service have been adequately sorted out, and I have had no more issues that need resolution to date, so overall very pleased."
Sadly in August 2012 when your cleaner extended her holiday and we had to provide a replacement things started to go wrong. I understand that keys were not handed back to you as promptly as you wished and I fully accept the frustration this must have caused you. I hope my explanation that we do not hold your keys in the office and that the cleaner holds them locally may explain why we simply could not return them to you. If we had them in hand they would have been returned immediately.

I am very disappointed in the way you were spoken to by one of the self-employed cleaners representing us and subsequently this cleaner has been removed from our approved list of cleaners and will receive no more work through our business. We do not tolerate bad service - as soon as we know about it we take positive steps to either improve the individual or immediately cease to engage their service.

I fully accept that we have made mistakes and thankfully you have shared them with us and we have been able to effect change that will be most beneficial for our business moving forward. Some of your suggestions are now part of our plans to further improve how we work.

Thank you again for your feedback and please do not forget to get in touch soon so we can book your free oven clean in for you. I am pleased that you have found a suitable alternative cleaning service presently but of course would welcome you back for a free trial at your convenience.

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Melanieperry's Comment

Written on: 29/11/2012

Thanks for responding and I too am glad that we have spoken. One of the most important traits of a great business leader is to be able to own up to mistakes and learn from them.

It is a shame that this conversation happened too late for me to re-consider using Domestique as a service provider, and hopefully one of your key take-aways from our conversation will be to have someone constantly monitor review sites like this one for feedback - both good and bad so you are instantly able to respond. Your idea to send feedback surveys to clients that have left your service is also a very good one.

I hope you are able to instill the new business practices needed at your Bracknell branch and I wish you every success with your business.

I will arrange for the oven clean in January as my calendar is a nightmare now for the rest of the year.

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