Gladys Vonglahn is Chilean, the first in her family to migrate to the United States. She founded her own cleaning services company, Gladys Cleaning Service, in New Jersey 18 years ago, serving Hudson and Bergen counties. When she arrived in that eastern state, she noticed that there was a niche in the market to serve, above all, residential areas, although over time she expanded the business to commercial clients.
With the pandemic and lockdown, many of his customers became temporarily unavailable, so Vonglahn made a quick turnaround: she focused on the commercial customers she already had, and also on the potential ones who, because of the situation, were in need of cleaning and disinfection services.
This is how they promote it on their Facebook page: “We are professional cleaning service responding to kill the Coronavirus to avoid spreading the illness. We are focusing on disinfecting buildings, warehouses, offices, churches, public bathrooms, restaurants and any store. Get ready to keep your staff and customers safe when the state reopens businesses.”
Vonglhan said in an interview with Victoria Arena of Latina in Business that, in addition to seeking new business opportunities with the pandemic in the commercial area, she has also been working on creating alliances with other professionals in her field ” helping others who are just getting into the cleaning industry by sharing my knowledge and years of experience.”
As the spread of the virus became more acute, on March 13 Vonglhan’s company issued a statement signed by her to her clients, in which she first clarified that her staff was following all hygiene measures: in addition to hand washing, she said they were distributing hand sanitizer and using masks and gloves.”
“I want to take this opportunity to let you know the importance of keeping your home or work place neat and clean to avoid any kind of sickness due to lack of hygiene. Now more than ever is very imperative to maintain your places disinfected and necessary to have a very clean living environment”, she stated the new business approach.
“We are in the front line to make sure people is working in clean and desinfect areas,” the company published in a later promotion message on Facebook.
According to the story published by Latinas in Business, Gladys Vonglhan’s husband, Kennedy Castro, and her children helped her in the redirection of the business: they cleaned several commercial locations and offices with her.
“My life in general has been impacted by this pandemic. But on the positive side, I have been able to reinvent myself and be reborn, both personally and professionally,” Vonglhan added to Latinas in Business.
“We are working to maintain effective communication between our team and our clients to prevent the spread of this virus,” Vonglhan told Latinas in Business. We are educating and training ourselves to utilize the new cleaning products available in the market and practicing the new safety measures to keep both our clients and our team safe.”
Precisely during the last two years, the publication report, Gladys Vonglhan had already expanded her client base to the corporate and commercial area. That is now working in her favor. She had managed and received the SBE/MBE/WBE (Small Business Enterprise/Minority Business Enterprise, Women Business Enterprise) certifications, in addition to the one granted by the New York and New Jersey Port Authority to authorize her company’s brand, name and logo.
During this period she had already established networks with colleagues in the industry and had given seminars and individual orientation sessions to newcomers.
Communication with her clients has also allowed Vonglhan’s company to constantly report how they are updating their cleaning protocols, “and that we are preparing for the influx of demand in the cleaning industry that will come once the State of New Jersey reopens.”