Carpet Cleaning Blog

When a customer calls me for some service I try to retrieve as much information about the job they want us to do before we arrive. This information is key to a succesful carpet cleaning experience. I know based on how long it has been since last cleaning on how much soil and dirt could be in the carpet. It’s the spots and stains in the carpet that are my bigger concerns. My communication with customers is that they usually use terms like “spots and stains” interchangably. In simplest terms it is the product, chemical or material make-up that attaches itself to the carpet that decides if it is a spot or stain. A spot can be removed with a towel and warm water, shop-vac or professional carpet cleaning for the bigger or deeper spots that may be down close to the pad. This extra attention to the spot should not be of any great time or money charged to the customer in order for succesful removal. A stain on the other hand is another story. The chemical compound can attach itself to the fiber and even get inside the fiber often times making it difficult if not impossible to remove. The 2 most important questions I have for the customer about stains are: 1) How long has the stain been their? 2) Has anyone else tried to clean it up? Time is a huge problem with removing stains. Anything over a year old will probably make this attempt a real problem. If another carpet cleaner who does not have much experience in stain renoval has used some kind of chemical that was not meant for this kind of stain in the past could lead to a permanent stain.
I know my customers are interested in price when shopping for carpet cleaners but I suggest to them that they should also ask about years of cleaning experinece? and do they have a good success rate at stain removal. Price is important but at the end of the day, you did want your carpets to be cleaned and your stains removed.

Monday of this week we went out to a customers home in Tualatin Oregon to clean a beige carpet in the entire house. The customer informed us that the last time they had the carpets cleaned was about a year ago. She also informed us that they rearrange the furniture in the family room from time to time and asked if we would move the Sofa, Love seat and recliner, clean the carpet and then move the furniture back. As we moved the furniture we noticed dark burgundy spots underneath the legs of the furniture. This is a furniture polish stain caused from putting the furniture on wet carpet from the last time they had them cleaned. I wouldn’t say we see this frequently but it is also not uncommon. The expectations should always be some kind of tabs or carpet protection tape used on furniture legs when professionally cleaned. Customer did not budget this repair into her cleaning as it can be an expensive and time consuming process to fix.

A carpet cleaner should always do a walk through with the customer upon arrival. This gives the carpet cleaner a chance to ask about spots or stains so that they can be addressed appropriately. It also gives a chance for the customer to point out the issues that they were concerned about when making the call for appointment. I had a customer ealier this week point out some ink marker stains in the kids bedroom. The customer was sure that the ink was a water soluble product but after a pre-treatment was done we realized that this ink was not going to come out easily. Customer found the box and sure enough it was not what they thought when they made the purchase. I was able to pull the ink out with little extra charge but depending on how much ink was in the carpet, this could have been expensive. I informed the customer that had this been a water soluble product that they could have removed the ink with warm water and a towel. At the end of the day the customer was happy with our service. I have found the cleaning experience to be a success when their is communication during the cleaning process. This has helped to solve the issue of any surprises.