AI for Commercial Cleaning and Security Services: Q&A on What’s Ahead

Artificial intelligence (AI) is seemingly everywhere. Across industry events, conferences, expos and meetings, AI is the topic that everyone wants to hear more about.

The security and janitorial industries are no different. Business owners are hungry to know how AI can be embedded into daily workflows to make operations leaner, faster and more efficient.

We sat down with WorkWave’s Senior Director of Artificial Intelligence Strategy, Dr. Robert Coop, to discuss how AI is changing the facilities management industry and offer valuable insights into what AI will look like in your soon-to-be day-to-day.

Q: How will AI simplify and automate scheduling in the facilities management industry?

Coop: For many cleaning and security professionals, scheduling workers can be challenging. Especially if a company is not using a technology solution to help manage, jobs can often suffer from lack of coverage and time management errors, miscommunications, and inaccurate record keeping. Combining AI with automation capabilities can ensure a company is running an accurate and maintainable schedule and predict future services.

1. Smart Scheduling: In these industries, AI will be able to create optimal schedules for frontline workers based on factors like location, required skills and job complexity. This helps reduce overtime – especially non-billable overtime – and cuts back on the time-consuming nature of a manager having to manually fill in the blanks when trying to ensure contract coverage. 
2. Predicting Service Needs: By analyzing past data and seasonal trends, AI can forecast future service demand. This helps cleaning and security teams avoid overbooking or understaffing, manage inventory needs and coordinate resources based on the demands of contracts and dispersed jobs.

Q: What are the main security & cleaning companies might see after implementing AI in their business?

Coop: This early in development, the benefits of AI are really endless. As a starting point, though, security teams and cleaning companies can expect three initial benefits after implementation.

1. Improved Efficiency: AI automates routine tasks and optimizes resource allocation, saving time and reducing costs. As it reduces manual processes and human error behind the scenes, AI will also be able to start improving efficiency in the field. For example, an AI program might be able to determine efficient guard tours or suggest facility cleaning processes and frequencies based on traffic patterns and usage. This helps ensure you’re staying ahead of contract needs and preserving cleaning resources (and pay) based on actual needs for contract fulfillment.
2. Better Customer Experience: Some of the resistance to AI comes with a fear that these people-centered services will begin to lose human connection. However, AI is a tool that can help support personalized services, ultimately improving customer experiences and leading to greater rates of customer retention. An AI system, for instance, can help suggest proactive service, supporting your customers even in your off hours through 24/7 chatbots fed from your own learning bases. This can help solve customer issues faster and build long-term loyalty.
3. Data-Based Decision Making: One of the biggest benefits of AI is its ability to analyze vast amounts of data. This information can then be used to identify patterns, predict trends and provide data-driven steps for your company to strategize around and take action on. Especially as AI becomes an in-built element of workforce management software like TEAM Software offers, this type of information will be built around your own unique customers and prospects, offering in-platform insights for even greater value.

Q: You mentioned how human connection is still an important pillar of AI. How can security and commercial cleaning companies use AI to support their field workers?

Coop: Yes, AI is a really useful tool to support and enhance the work of guards and cleaners. In any business, employee productivity and quality of work improves when they can work independently with their company’s support. AI can help give your employees a hub of information that helps them better serve customers and make informed decisions from the field.

1. Enhanced Customer Communication: AI can provide customer insights, summarize past interactions and suggest problem solutions in real time, enabling them to build rapport, explain issues clearly and provide exceptional service.
2. Expert Knowledge at Your Fingertips: AI-powered knowledge management systems make it easy for your frontline staff to access expert advice, guidance and training materials in the field, allowing them to resolve janitorial issues and security incidents faster. 
3. Augmented Decision-Making: AI provides frontline workers with real-time data and insights, recommendations and contextual information, empowering them to make better-informed decisions and solve problems more effectively on the job. A possible example might be this: your frontline staff might someday be able to take the findings of a QA checkpoint or audit and output a personalized training or support plan to help ensure that individual is meeting QA standards. This ensures your company is meeting customer expectations while nurturing and retaining staff in an otherwise high-churn environment. 

Q: How does AI in field service contribute to efficiency and customer satisfaction in security and commercial cleaning?

Coop: By harnessing AI, companies will be able to streamline processes and build stronger relationships through more responsive and tailored service delivery. Here’s a look at four key elements to think about as contributors to this effort:

1. Intelligent Scheduling: AI will plan routes and optimize the schedules of front line employees, reducing travel time and enabling faster service delivery, which improves both operational efficiency and customer responsiveness.
2. Personalized Service: AI analyzes customer preferences, service history and feedback to tailor service recommendations and communication, delivering a more personalized experience that boosts satisfaction and loyalty.
3. Knowledge Management: AI-powered tools can process large volumes of technical manuals, prior support cases and other service bulletins and provide a conversational interface able to answer technical questions quickly.
4. Continuous Improvement From Data Driven Insights: AI continuously analyzes service performance data to identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies and improvement opportunities, allowing companies to optimize operations and elevate service quality over time.

Q: How can a cleaning/security business use AI for predictive customer service?

Coop: Predictive services is something that’s really exciting to talk about in the facility management industry. To date, technology companies like WorkWave have been focusing on automation and optimization as primary benefits of implementing technology systems, from CRM and scheduling to routing and mobile applications. As we continue to be the leader in these areas, we’re able now to turn an eye towards predictive services — helping our clients anticipate the needs of their customers to win, retain and maintain more business. Here are a few ways predictive AI might improve the unique challenges of the commercial cleaning industry and security services in the future:

1. Anticipating Service Needs: By analyzing customer data, service history and local weather patterns, AI can predict when a contract might need specific services, even ad hoc cleaning tasks or elevated security. This allows commercial cleaning and security businesses to reach out proactively, often before the customer notices an issue.
2. Identifying At-Risk Customers and Preventing Churn: AI can analyze customer engagement, behavior and feedback to identify which customers might be considering switching to a competitor. This allows companies to address issues promptly and potentially improve customer retention.
3. Forecasting Demand: By considering factors like seasonal changes, occupancy trends and historical data, AI can change a company’s approach by predicting future service demand. This helps security and janitorial companies prepare their resources to meet customer needs during busy periods.

Q: Can you describe what’s possible with AI in security and commercial cleaning field service management?

Coop: The answer to this question is really endless. The security and cleaning industry has the unique opportunity to be on the forefront of innovative software — one that can change what, when, where and which services are delivered to customers.

If we break down the possibilities of AI-powered cleaning and security solutions into bite-sized milestones, some things to look forward to might be:

• Optimized Daily Planning: The AI-powered dashboard displays optimized routes and schedules for the day, considering real-time data, weather conditions, and employee certifications and training.
• Proactive Issue Identification: The AI system flags high-priority jobs based on customer engagement, sentiment analysis and routine maintenance alerts at key accounts.
• Automated Resource Allocation: The AI identifies a gap in service coverage that might cause customer churn and automatically identifies, assigns and schedules the most qualified guard or cleaner to handle the job, notifying the operator of the change.
• Real-Time Monitoring: Throughout the day, the operator can monitor job progress and customer feedback in real-time, while the AI system continuously optimizes schedules to accommodate any new urgent requests or cancellations.
• Personalized Customer Support: When a customer calls in with a question about their service history, the back office can quickly pull up their information and use the AI-powered recommendation engine to offer personalized suggestions for proactive services.
• AI-driven Insights Backed by Data: After each day, the operator reviews the AI-generated report highlighting key performance metrics, customer sentiment trends and revenue forecasts, allowing them to make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.

The only part of the equation that will remain unchanged by AI, really, is the why behind what commercial cleaning and security companies do: to help keep the world clean, safe and secure.

Dr. Robert Coop, known as Coop, is the Senior Director of AI StrategyChief Artificial Intelligence Officer at WorkWave, where he leads AI and machine learning initiatives, driving innovation in product development and operations through generative AI, ChatGPT and other advanced technologies. With over a decade of experience in data science and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering with a focus on Machine Learning from the University of Tennessee, Coop has developed and executed strategic roadmaps in a diverse set of scenarios including the manufacturing industry, healthcare industry and professional services for platforms like CAVO and APPELLO.