Quality scores
Every cleaning company carries a score. It decides nothing on its own, and it is not a star rating averaged out of a review box — it is built from what each visit actually did.
What you need
- Completed visits. A company with none has no score, and says so rather than showing a zero.
What the score is made of
| Part | Weight | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| The host's rating | 50% | The star left on the visit |
| Punctuality | 20% | Minutes late against the window |
| Proof | 15% | Whether the photos the service asked for were taken |
| Outcome | 15% | Whether the visit ended in an upheld dispute |
These are relative. A visit nobody rated is scored on the other three rather than counted as a zero.
The host's star dominates, because it is the only part that reflects the thing being bought. The other three exist because a company reading one star cannot act on it — "you were forty minutes late on three visits" they can.
Punctuality, in numbers
| Minutes late | Score |
|---|---|
| up to 10 | 5 |
| up to 20 | 4 |
| up to 40 | 3 |
| up to 90 | 2 |
| beyond that | 1 |
Arriving early is not better than arriving on time, and is not scored higher.
Why one perfect visit is not a five
A company with a single five-star visit is not a five-star company; there is simply no evidence yet. Every score is blended with a prior worth about five imaginary visits at a little above four.
The effect: one perfect visit reads around 4.4, and climbing takes a genuine run of them. A company with two hundred visits is essentially unaffected — the prior fades as evidence arrives, which is the point.
Why a bad quarter does not last
A visit counts half as much after 45 days. Roughly a month and a half of trading: long enough that one bad week does not erase a good record, short enough that "we have improved" becomes true in the number within a quarter.
Visits older than a year are not read at all — at that half-life they are worth under half a percent of a visit today.
When it goes wrong
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A score below the stars you were given | The prior, and the three non-rating parts | Look at punctuality and proof first — they are the actionable half |
| A score that will not move after a good week | The prior, and the 45-day half-life | It moves over a month, not a week |
| An upheld dispute in the score | Upheld outcomes count | A dismissed dispute counts against nobody |
| No score at all | No completed visits inside the window | It appears with the first visits |