What is HCA's mission?

HCA was founded on the principles that independent house cleaning companies can compete more effectively by cooperating without other independent house cleaning companies located outside their own markets.

Franchises offer services which are beneficial to their own franchisees, so it makes sense that some such similar services might also prove to be beneficial to independent house cleaning companies.  So in that sense, HCA's real competitors are the major maid service franchisors. In a way, we compete with them for potential franchisees, since we offer entrepreneurs an alternative to purchasing a franchise.  Our service offerings represent a collection which might typically be offered by a franchisor, but by purchasing from HCA, business entrepreneurs can retain their independence and purchase only those services which they require and only for so long as they derive an ongoing economic benefit from doing so. HCA provides services on an la carte basis.  HCA provides support without shackles, franchise quality services without a franchise agreement.

What is HCA's relationship with Denver Concierge?

The founders of Denver Concierge founded, manage and fund HCA. If you are not familiar with Denver Concierge, it is one of the largest independent house cleaning companies in the US and last year it just turned six years old. It's a very profitable business. Thank goodness otherwise who would have funded the intial investment for HCA?

In 2006, the founders sold Denver Concierge, so the relationship now has been revised; Denver Concierge is a member of HCA and a customer for most of its services.

What is HCA's relationship with Ripple Applications?

Ripple Applications is a software development company which is owned by a group of investors. In fact, the founders of HCA were developing software under the umbrella of HCA, then decided that it made more sense to divide the software development element of HCA into a separate business, because software development is pretty specialized and kind of capital intensive, and it involves a lot of skill sets which are not naturally found in house cleaning enterprises.

What is HCA's relationship with ISSA?

HCA's affiliate, Ripple Applications, Inc. is a member of ISSA.

What is HCA's relationship with ARCSI?

We like one or two elements of ARCSI. Our missions are different. We compete with a lot of ARCSI sponsors. We think the industry could benefit from emphasizing quality instead of speed. We think it is better to do something than talk about doing something.

Aside from those differences, we fundamentally disagree about training certification. HCA believes the house cleaning industry is too fragmented and that any measure which might exasperate that condition is bad for the industry. By certifying individual cleaners, operators are encouraging them to split off and start their own businesses, usually by stealing a portion of the sponsoring company's clients. This is a systemic problem in the industry and any certification of cleaners will exasperate it. And in terms of certifying operators, the critical success factors for a house cleaning enterprise relate not to cleaning, but rather to business acumen. Operators fail because they make bad pricing decisions, bad operating decisions, and bad marketing decisions. Operators fail to scale because they churn customers and because they focus more on cleaning than establishing systems for managing and growing an enterprise, as a means of creating value to create wealth and support retirement. Simply put, ARCSI is off the mark on this one.

HCA's own training programs focus on avoiding damages to client's belongings and employment policies, both of which directly limit client churn, enhance profitability and facilitate the scaling of a house cleaning enterprise. HCA's new statistical analysis relating to the pricing of house cleaning assignments represents the most cutting edge study performed to date within the industry. So, while ARCSI is still voting and chattering endlessly, HCA is creating valuable tools for managiong a house clenaing enterprise.

While the list of differences between HCA and ARCSI may seem long and in fact are not trivial, in reality we actually agree about many industry fundamentals.

What is the significance of the HCA Evaluation Designer?

The HCA Evaluation Designer represents a system for creating performance evaluations. HCA Members have access to the HCA library which includes those evaluations the founders used at Denver Concierge. You can download these and use them straight up for your own company or you can modify them in any way you wish. Or if you are a particularly kind-hearted manager, and you find those versions too harsh for your liking, you can create some warm and fuzzy evaluations for your own warm and fuzzy little house cleaning company.

Significance? One of the primary success factors for Denver Concierge was our ability to efficiently sort employees. So, implicit in using the evaluations which are included in the library is the willingness on the part of an operator to promote, counsel, warn and fire house cleaning professionals every two weeks based on the results of the evaluations. So many managers have phoned us in Denver to ask what we've done to distinguish Denver Concierge in terms of incredible growth and profitability. Our first reply always begins with evaluations.

Why did HCA discontinue the Maid Service Shop?

The Maid Service Shop could only carry items used by Denver Concierge, because otherwise the risk of excess stock and returned goods was too high to bear. So now that the owners of HCA have sold DC, HCA can no longer risk carrying excess stock. Thus HCA has closed the Maid Service Shop coincident with the sale of Denver Concierge.

The Maid Service Shop could only carry items used by Denver Concierge, because otherwise the risk of excess stock and returned goods was too high to bear. So now that the owners of HCA have sold DC, HCA can no longer risk carrying excess stock. Thus HCA has closed the Maid Service Shop coincident with the sale of Denver Concierge.

What has changed about HCA's Training Program?

The library, and flexibility. Now you can download study material and exams from the library (many in English and Spanish), and modify them in any way you wish to suit the needs of your own house cleaning company. Or you can create your own material from scratch if you prefer, because the system allows that.

Now your employees can study from home. You can give them their own logins if you wish (that's free with the iDispatch program and even with HCA Membership). If you give them their own logins their access will be limited to just those parts of the program which you allow. So, if you like, you can allow them to take their exams from home too. We never did at Denver Concierge--we always supervised them at the office while they take their exams.

Since the library material is never available to competitors, and since the initial submissions are from Denver Concierge, companies from Colorado have no library material, but such companies can still use the Designer to create their own study material and exams.

Why Not Use Hands-On Training?

It's a trick question. If you don't provide hands-on training to your cleaning employees, then that puts you decidely in the bottom half of service providers throughout the industry. There is simply no substitute for hands-on training. HCA has never recommended that any company attempt to substitute the HCA Training Material for hands-on training.

It's a trick question. If you don't provide hands-on training to your cleaning employees, then that puts you decidely in the bottom half of service providers throughout the industry. There is simply no substitute for hands-on training. HCA has never recommended that any company attempt to substitute the HCA Training Material for hands-on training.

HCA's Training Designer was created for those companies which already provide hands-on training, but wish to take their training to the next level. The exam-based system represents the most effective way to ensure employees understand the company's policies and procedures. These include policies which can significantly enhance profitability, like those to limit damages and avoid dissatisfied customers terminating your service. The Designer was created and deployed by Denver Concierge in order to reduce damages and improve consistency of service. In that sense, it has proven to be very effective.

What has changed about the website templates?

We had a lot of demand for testimonials, so now we include them in templates and provide an online interface for editing and adding testimonials to the website templates. Aside from this, we've integrated the page text editors into the menu format and done a lot of work on the HCA Pricer. Oh yeah, and now we have available loads of new template designs. If you are an existing website customer, you can change to one of the new designs for a $100 change fee. It takes just a day or maybe two, if we are busy to bring a website template live for your company, and if you later decide that you prefer a custom website, the website template fee can be credited to the cost of a custom website, so in that sense the Industry Templates are upgradeable.

What has changed about the HCA Pricer?

The HCA Pricer is now available to all members, except that it's only online for website customers. So, if you are a member but dont have a website, you can still develop scenarios and experiment with the HCA pricer and the HCA pricer formula and coefficients

The biggest change with the HCA Pricer is that the formulae are statistically proven. And the HCA Pricer is highly customizable. You can use the HCA defaults, or customize it to suit your needs. The HCA Pricer controls are fully integrated with HCA's menu-driven web-based program. The new controls allow website customers to revise prices in real time (in the old days it was hard to change prices). The HCA Pricer is becoming ever more flexible and accurate.

The story continues. If you are an iDispatch customer, you may request to be included in future statistical studies for pricing. The next step is to evaluate cleaning times under disparate operating profiles. If you are interested in becoming a part of future studies, phone Hanna or Mike at 1 877 865 4100.