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You Know The Price, But What Are You Paying For?

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In the professional carpet cleaning industry, the term, “professional” can be a loose term.  This can be for many reasons, but the one I plan to focus on in this article are those with good intentions and training, but weak equipment.  What do I mean by weak equipment?

  • Equipment can be purchased for as little as a few thousand dollars or more than 50,000 dollars.  Why would anyone pay 1,000 times as much for equipment unless it is substantially more powerful?
  • Some portable carpet cleaning equipment is small enough to be transported in the trunk of a car and run off of low wattage circuit breakers.  In order to get the most power possible for carpet cleaning equipment, it is powered directly off of the van’s 8 cylinder engine.  To draw even a fraction of the power of an 8 cylinder engine from a circuit in a home or business, the circuit would pop in a matter of seconds.  The more powerful the carpet cleaning equipment, the more thorough the cleaning will be.

We all worry about price when we schedule service appointments, but we also have to consider that a very low price can mean very cheap and weak equipment.  Even the best of intentions can’t replace the power that is necessary to do the job right.

Too Good To Be True Carpet Cleaning Prices

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Ask just about any Established Professional Carpet Cleaner in the Twin Cities, or anywhere for that matter, what makes it tough to make a profit and they will usually bring up the “low ballers”.  These are fly-by-night companies that pop up and offer bad work for low prices.  You see, the carpet cleaning industry is one of the easiest industries to get started in.  It is however one of the most difficult to compete in.

After people lose their jobs or even quit their jobs they figure they can buy some cheap equipment and enter the industry.  These people receive a crash course and a franchise or sometimes not even that.  They have good intentions but have no experience in either being a carpet cleaner or being a business owner.  They stick it out for 6 months to 2 years offering unrealistically low prices.

They eventually realize they are working hard but can’t make a profit even without hiring employees.  Just as fast as they disappear due to a lack of quality, no profit margin, or a bad reputation, another pops up to take its place.  This creates a constant stream of “low ball” companies that in some ways affect the industry as a whole.  Companies that have nearly perfect customer satisfaction are labeled with the same cloud left behind by the spotty work of these fly-by-nights.  Reputation is key to individual companies, but it is also key to the industry.  Some people lose faith that great carpet cleaning companies exist and they just stop looking.

Especially in a market like the Twin Cities Area, companies need both good intentions, and time to build knowledge and expertise.  It is also important for the company to offer incentives for good work like bonuses for customer satisfaction and profit sharing which never exist in the “low ball” companies.  “Too good to be true” just doesn’t exist in satisfaction run industries.  “Fair pay for great work” not only exists but is “fair” for both parties involved.