BestStart Chooses CrestClean
CrestClean National Sales Manager Chris Barker, BestStart South Island Regional Manager Mike Sellwood and Christchurch Regional Manager Yasa Panagoda.
CrestClean has just celebrated their first anniversary of cleaning all 63 BestStart Centres in the South Island with very happy clients.
BestStart is New Zealand’s largest private provider of early childhood education, with nurseries, preschools, kindergartens, Montessori and childcare facilities from Kaitaia to Invercargill. As the umbrella organisation for over 240 different childcare centres operating under 20 different brands, they are in an active growth and acquisition phase and were eager to secure a reliable cleaning services provider.
Originally, CrestClean was asked to provide solutions to four key issues that BestStart were experiencing with their previous cleaning services contractor – quality, high staff turnover, poor communication and poor attitude.
“We had to prepare a detailed submission as to how we would address these areas,” says Chris Barker, CrestClean’s National Sales Manager.
“CrestClean already has communications systems in place to ward against many of these quality issues and our Regional Managers and franchisees are trained to proactively resolve problems before they start.”
Using the experience of Christchurch Regional Manager Yasa Panagoda, CrestClean arranged consistent pricing and specifications for all centres, which are sustainable and fair to both parties and provide the basis for a long-term relationship.
“Initially we were invited to address a meeting of BestStart’s South Island Area Managers to discuss the transition process from the incumbent provider to CrestClean. This gave everyone an opportunity to ask questions about our systems,” says Chris.
“We also brought along one of our franchisees in full uniform with their cleaning equipment and vehicle to demonstrate our professionalism and capabilities,” he says. “At the end of our presentation, managers that were present accepted our invitation to inspect the vehicle and equipment and they asked further questions. It was really effective and powerful to have a CrestClean franchisee there.”
National Training Manager Chris Chapman established dedicated Training Programmes and a Schedule of Duties for all the BestStart centres, which are located in every CrestClean South Island region – Blenheim, Nelson, Christchurch, South Canterbury, Invercargill and Dunedin/Otago. Auckland Regional Manager Dries Mangnus provided additional operational experience.
Chris says feedback from BestStart management has been very positive since the cleaning contracts began, particularly around implementation processes and the smooth transition between providers. He’s now in active discussions with BestStart regarding the regions that CrestClean does not currently service.
“I’m putting together a consistent offering that will be beneficial for both parties for many years to come,” he says.
