Years of cleaning the offices of many of London’s leading luxury stores has given Calabash Group the experience and expertise to branch out into private schools and residential homes.

“There are many cleaning companies but we really believe we are the best. The staff here believe it passionately and as a result we all go the extra mile, it’s central to all that we do,” says Julian Hill, Calabash’s old Carthusian Managing Director.

Julian understands the need for superb customer service as well as anyone. He has had to in order to build up an enviable client list that includes Boodles, Louis Vuitton, Jo Malone, Cartier, Christian Dior, Hackett, Ralph Lauren and Thomas Pink to name but a few. These are of course all band names associated with the very highest of standards but as one of Julian’s leading clients puts it, ‘People who cannot afford not to have the very best use of Calabash.’

As is so often the case when excellence is found in the services industry, Julian started right at the bottom and worked his way up. Having left Charterhouse ‘earlier than scheduled’ and flunked his A-levels at a local college, Julian started working for OCS, the UK’s largest privately owned cleaning company, to earn some cash while he decided what he really wanted to do.

18 months later – having cleaned bathrooms for student nurses and scrubbed and polished floors at the American School of London for there days and nights solidly – he pretty much knew how the business worked.

Julian stayed at OCS until 1986 and worked within a number of other established organizations before deciding in 1992 that there was a gap in the market for a cleaning company with real vision and focus on client care. Calabash – the place where Julian and his wife Helen went on honeymoon – was soon established but it was buying out his original business partner and the subsequent recruitment of like-minded associates, colleagues, friends and family that really took the company to the next level.

Initial success within the London luxury store sector meant that Calabash quickly gained a reputation for providing the highest levels of service and this, in turn, led to contracts being gained within banking, insurance, estate agency and finally the notoriously difficult private schools sector.

Well known school clients include Kensington Prep, Putney High School and Thomas’ London Day Schools. Julian now has a business which as he says, ‘can provide a full range of personalized cleaning services tailored specifically to the needs of our clients.’

The knowledge and experience gained in the business and education markets has also now allowed Calabash to develop a new service for Residential Cleaning. The company will cover both London and country properties and offers a complete but flexible home cleaning service for pretty much every eventuality’ before and/or after Christmas, on your return from holiday, when selling or renting your house, post builders or just for annual or bi-annual blitz cleans. No job seems too big or too small – Calabash will even sand your floors for you or jet-wash your patios.

It does not seem at all surprising that Calabash is winning more and more consumer business when it has had to learn to cut its teeth by keeping companies such as Cartier and Louis Vuitton happy. It all of course boils back down to a company-wide ethic of service, service, service. One of their many longstanding clients says it all:

“Calabash has cleaned our offices for years. It’s such a relief to deal with a company that does it all and does it so well.” Belinda Wilkins, Price Jamieson