Spotless Commercial Cleaning use iPad app

The new iPad app sends information direct from office cleaners to the client. Picture: Jane Barlow

CLEANERS have a new weapon in their fight against dirt – the iPad. Spotless Commercial Cleaning is issuing the tablet computers to its managers with a specially designed app to let them record how well their cleaners are performing.

Niall Moffat, managing director at the Edinburgh-based firm, came up with the idea for the app after one of his staff convinced him to buy an iPhone.

“I saw an app called Around Me – which lists banks, cafés and other businesses in the area surrounding your phone – and I thought that we could do something similar,” he said.

“Customers sometimes don’t see what their cleaners are doing for them because they are in the office late at night or early in the morning. This can help to demonstrate the service they get.”

Moffat recruited Steven Calder at Glasgow-based app developer Streamba to design the software, which allows managers to log health and safety problems at their sites.

Customers receive information from the app instantly on their computers, which Moffat hopes will help him to retain clients as well as win fresh contracts. He already carries out work for Jones Lang LaSalle, Maclay Murray & Spens and Virgin.

Spotless, which employs more than 1,000 people throughout the UK, was founded in 1988 by Edinburgh University student Steven Calder and now turns over more than £10 million.

Moffat hopes that the app will help him to grow revenues by 50 per cent over the next four years.