Most vendor evaluations focus on one number: the rate per square foot. It's the easiest thing to compare, so it's where buyers spend 80% of their time. After running over 200 corporate housekeeping contracts since 2012, we can tell you the rate is the least useful number on the page. It tells you nothing about whether the team will show up next Tuesday, whether the supervisor knows your floor plan, or whether your compliance auditor will sign off on the staff payroll.

Here are five questions that tell you much more than the rate card ever will.

1. Who actually works the shift - full-time staff or daily-wage labour?

The cheapest housekeeping contracts in Bangalore are cheap because the staff are not on the vendor's payroll. They are daily-wage workers, paid in cash, swapped weekly. The vendor is essentially a marketplace.

This sounds fine until something goes wrong. Daily-wage staff have no incentive to know your protocols, your access cards, or your supervisor. When they don't show up, the vendor sends someone new. Your facility manager spends the day re-explaining the SOPs.

Ask for a sample list of staff names and joining dates. If most have been with the vendor under 90 days, you're hiring a rotating bench, not a team.

2. Show me the compliance pack for last month.

This is the question that separates serious vendors from the rest. A proper housekeeping vendor produces a monthly compliance pack containing:

  • ESI and PF challans for every staff member on the contract
  • GST invoice with HSN codes
  • Attendance records signed off by your facility's representative
  • Statutory minimum wage compliance
  • PSARA records if security is part of the contract
  • Any incident reports for the month

If the vendor pauses, asks "what for?", or sends you a single invoice instead of a pack, you have your answer. Reputable vendors send this pack on the 5th of every month without being asked.

3. What happens when someone calls in sick at 5 AM?

Every housekeeping contract has the same answer on paper: "We send a replacement within an hour." Every contract. The differentiator is how.

The honest version sounds like this: "We maintain a floating reserve pool of 12 staff per area, all trained on the protocols of the buildings in their zone. The reserve is paid a base salary regardless of deployment so they're always reachable."

The dishonest version is a one-liner: "We have backup." Ask for the names, the salaries, and the dispatch protocol. If they can't produce a written document, the backup is theoretical.

4. How do you handle quality audits - and how often?

Most vendors mention "audits" in the proposal. Almost none can describe what an audit actually involves.

A real quality audit at a corporate housekeeping site has three pieces:

  • A daily walkthrough by the on-site supervisor, with a printed checklist
  • A weekly cross-audit by a different supervisor from another site (catches blind spots)
  • A monthly client-walk with the account manager, where you sign off

Ask to see the checklist. Ask for last month's audit scores. Ask how many issues were flagged and closed within the month. If you get vague language back, the audit doesn't exist.

5. Can I see a sample monthly report from a current client?

The single most useful artefact a vendor can show you is a real, redacted monthly report from an existing client. Names blacked out, but everything else intact: shift attendance, audit scores, incidents, consumables used, comparisons to the previous month, a written summary from the account manager.

If the vendor has one to send within a day, you're talking to a serious operator. If they say "we can put one together for you" - they're going to mock one up. Move on.

A simple two-week test

If you want a faster signal than five questions, just give the shortlist a two-week trial. Most reputable vendors will do this on a small section of your facility - a single floor, the reception area, the cafeteria - for a nominal fee.

Run two vendors in parallel for two weeks. The one that knew the answers to the five questions above will also be the one that shows up on Day 1 in uniform, with the right cleaning equipment, and with a supervisor who shakes your hand at 6 AM.

Common questions

We have been with the same housekeeping vendor for 8 years. Should we even be evaluating?
Yes - but the goal is to validate, not switch. Ask the five questions of your current vendor. If they answer all five comfortably with documents, you have confirmed you have a good vendor. If three of the five answers are vague, you have an opening conversation: "We need this paperwork formalised by next quarter."
What is a fair rate per square foot for corporate housekeeping in Bangalore?
For a tier-A office with 3-shift coverage in 2026, expect Rs 12-18 per sq ft per month. Anything below Rs 10 means staff are off-payroll. Anything above Rs 20 means you are paying for premium frequency or specialty cleaning (data centres, labs).
Should the housekeeping vendor also handle security and pantry?
Only if they have a PSARA licence for security and a track record running both. Many vendors quote one bundle to win the deal, then sub-contract half of it. Ask which services they self-staff vs which they outsource.
How long does mobilisation typically take?
A new corporate housekeeping contract should mobilise within 7-10 business days from signed work order. Less than 5 days suggests the vendor is recycling existing staff (no fresh training). More than 14 days suggests staffing problems.

Closing thought

Vendor evaluations get treated as a procurement exercise - comparing rate cards, ticking compliance boxes, signing the cheapest defensible quote. That works once. It almost never works twice.

The vendors who survive past year one are the ones who can answer the boring questions: who's actually on shift, where the compliance documents live, and what happens at 5 AM when someone doesn't turn up. Ask those questions early. The answers will save you the cost of switching vendors a year from now.