| 77 T T Virginia Wright Keeping the country clean - and more Clean Planet offers commercial cleaning, domestic cleaning, car valeting, grounds care, and property services. CONTRACTING Clean Planet Clean Planet was set up in 2008 by several investors as a small commercial cleaning franchise in Auckland that cared about the environment. Today it has 250 franchisees nationwide and has evolved from being a commercial cleaning company into a property services or facilities company. Original investor Mark Houghton Brown was joined by CEO and fellow Director Tony Pattison 13 years ago and the company has continued its upward trajectory since then. When Tony Pattison joined the company in their Auckland Head Office, Clean Planet had bases in Auckland, and Hawkes Bay, and only offered commercial cleaning. Now it offers commercial cleaning, domestic cleaning, car valeting, grounds care, and property services from Whangarei to Invercargill. “We found a really good niche market where there’s not only sustainability, there’s also a huge market of commercial customers looking for a company that can cover different things for them,” Tony says. “ Instead of going through four or five different suppliers they have only one, an easily managed point of contact offering a breadth of services which we continue to expand.” The Z Energy example says it all. What began as a contract for commercial cleaning services in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch has evolved into a contract that includes pest management, plant hire (live plants on site), maintenance for floors including carpets, and managing their stations all around the country, which includes callouts, disaster cleaning, repair works and more. “Again, morphing the cleaning business into a one-stop shop for cleaning and maintenance. Instead of the customer dealing with several different people, each customer has an account manager and a list of services they can always come to us for. “We also help the franchisees to get the certifications and the skills they need to deliver the services,” says Tony. Clean Planet has internal training with modules for every service, anything from carpet restoration to grounds care, where franchisees can learn the machinery and learn about Health & Safety before getting external certifications to back it up, knowing that’s what their customers want. Clean Planet takes its reputation seriously. As the company grew and became more sophisticated, they decided to put more resources into their sustainability, Tony explains. “We’re now the only cleaning company or property services company in New Zealand to manufacture their own proprietary commercial cleaning products using New Zealand sourced ingredients. “We’re accredited by Sensitive Choice (formerly the National Asthma Foundation) for our allergen free ingredients, and by Toitu as Carbon Zero. All our packaging is sent back to us for refilling after use.” Platinum and Gold customers are managed directly through Head Office, and there’s a network of Master Franchisees in every region managing the individual franchises in their areas. Pam Castillo and Emmel Yap in the Auckland region have twice in three years been finalists for Master Regional Franchise of the Year, and Clean Planet was a finalist in the newly created category of Innovation and Sustainability in a Franchise System.
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