Carpet Cleaning

Complaint # 1

Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 1:01 PM Subject: Carpet Cleaning Review Denise,

Per our conversation, here is an email for review.  I can only hope that you find this constructive criticism to be helpful for you business. I know I wish I was able to get detailed feedback for my business.   Feel free to distribute copies as needed.

As a customer, I basically had 2 main expectations and one secondary expectation.  The 2 main expectations were to receive 1) a high end vacuuming and 2) a good cleaning.  As a carpet cleaning business, I would believe you would want to provide these 2 services at a level higher than the customer could do it themselves.  The 3rd expectation was to receive decent customer service.

Initially I was drawn to Blueagle from the flyer distribution I received.  I thought the complete information of the flyer demonstrated a company with attention to detail.  I did not call any other companies.  My first inquiry calls to Denise were handled very well and answered all my questions which is why I called back at a later time.  One note, Denise did not have any details of my first call which included an overall quote for my entire house.  I would recommend tracking all calls and keeping that information to have available at a later time, if needed.

My service time was set up on very short notice (that morning) and you were able to be at my house within the hour time frame provided. I am thankful for the quick response.

The 2 workers were friendly and answered all my questions.  However, I would recommend that they be a little more "forceful" and informative upon arrival.  Tell the customer exactly what you are going to do, how you are going to do it and how long it will take.  Don’t wait for the customer to ask questions to receive this information.  Consider having materials to give to the customer telling about the service to be provided, who to contact for follow up, business cards (good for referrals), etc.

My other recommendation is to have the workers be dressed more professionally.  I have no problem with a younger worker, but they need to realize that because of their age, they must take extra steps in their appearance (and ’showmanship’).  Company shirts with the company logo should be a minimum standard.  Professional attire should also include nice jeans or shirts (depending on the weather) and work shoes, not sneakers.    Upon arrival at a house, they should ask if they should take off their shoes.  I had no problem with keeping their shoes on, but they should not assume that of each customer.

*** To save money, consider getting your business attire from Goodwill.  For my business, I can find nice matching (although matching not necessary) short and long sleeve shirts for no more than $4 each, which I then take to Walmart or a local company and have the business name embroidered on.  Total cost is just over $10 per shirt.  Also, nice shorts and jeans can be found at Goodwill for a few dollars.

I did not want to pry (too much) after the guys got started, but immediately I noticed them vacuuming my carpets using a vacuum that…did not look very powerful.  I was a little concerned, so I offered my Dyson which I knew would do a better job.  They said their equipment would work ok.  Again, I did not want to be that nagging customer, so I just let it go.  Honestly, I expected that my carpets were going to be first vacuumed using a very high end, professional vacuum-based system run out of the van, not just a standard vacuum.

I had to leave before the work was done, but upon return, I did my standard "testing".  I am not a super neat freak, but I am detail oriented.  If I am able, I will follow up on a service that I have paid for.  In this case, I did a vacuum test using my Dyson vacuum.  Dyson’s are probably the best consumer-based vacuums available (short of paying over $1000 for a Kirby…or more for a professional vacuum system).

Pictures are included here.   After getting home, I started with my main living room. I moved the furniture back into the room, then hand vacuumed any exposed areas (so less than what was cleaned) using the hose end right on the carpet.  I have been hand vacuuming my carpets about once a month as it gets a lot more of the fine dust and lint than upright vacuuming, and gets the closest to what I would expect from a professional vacuuming.  As you can see, the results show that a lot of fine dust and lint was missed, so I am disappointed in this respect.  If this much dirt was missed during vacuuming, it was just being "ground in" to the carpet during the cleaning process.   I also would have expected a second vacuuming to be done AFTER the cleaning as the cleaning process would have loosened up more dirt.

I then did a second test of the kids toy room and front room and the missed dirt is shown as the second pile in the second photo.  (I have not been motivated yet to do the upstairs and steps that were cleaned)

As I said to Denise, I am providing this information to you as a service to your company to better improve your processes.  I am not expecting anything in return. However, we will want to have our kids bedrooms cleaned shortly.  If your company can address the vacuuming issue, I would have no problem having you return….with new company uniforms, of course!  : )

Feel free to contact me at any time.

Thanks.

Signed by the customer

OUR REPLY

Hi “Customer”, (Of course we have not disclosed the name),

Denise passed this letter on to me when we received it and I wanted to respond when I could take the time to properly address your questions and concerns.

First let me say thank you for the time and detail you have given to provide us with such valuable feedback.  We say feedback is our answer to prayer. It doesn’t always feel good to hear what customers have to say even when it is constructive, but it is always beneficial.  Therefore, we are sincerely thankful.

Wow, your letter was very carefully thought out and detailed for us and I must say that I agree with you completely. These are subjects we cover plus several others on our Tuesday morning staff meetings. The two young men who came to your home are both our sons. We have five sons and two daughters. Two of our sons have their own businesses and are considered the best in their fields by their customers. I am proud to call all of these boys – my sons.

We attempt to offer the best customer service possible but there are always little adjustments that can be made to improve our service. In the case of your phone estimate, Denise usually keeps estimates for 24 hours, but your call came six weeks after the original estimate and we just are not staffed for that. We got your call and were able to squeeze you in the same day between jobs without being late for either, but our sons didn’t have normal paperwork as they took your job information by phone. This may not be an excuse, but hopefully you can understand that we chose to deliver less than perfect paper work to get to you within a couple hours of your call. I sincerely hope it was the wisest choice on our part.

As you probably know, Denise (my wife) makes a courtesy calls daily to be sure we have happy customers from the previous days cleaning. Complaints are so few that when she gets one, she usually is caught off guard. We have never had the first complaint with BBB and they have given us an A+ Rating. If you pull up carpet cleaners for York County, we are listed number one.  I do not bring this up to attempt to justify ourselves against your criticisms, but to reinforce my agreement with your suggestions.

I agree that uniforms are vital to a company’s success and allow me to push back on you a little here. It is fall and I have been telling the boys to get a replacement for the sweat shirts they lost this past spring. I bought the last ones as I do each year, but I said they would have to replace them if they left them somewhere when the weather began warming. It must have been the day after they were at your home when they came in wearing sweatshirts out of uniform and I said don’t even wear those to the door. They bought new matching ones that evening and we will get our vender to put the company logo on first chance we get as we usually do. Your letter still reinforces what I had been saying to them.

Now, concerning company shirts, they said they had them on when they were in your home. I have never known of them violating that code. They wear Dickey work pants, always navy blue with a powder blue shirt with the company logo. If you think back you will probably remember that they were in uniform after all except for the sweatshirts (no excuse on sweatshirts). Access our website and watch a video taken 3 years ago which has my sons cleaning in uniform. The second video is from another company but is a powerful testament to our system of carpet cleaning. www.Blueagle.org

Concerning the suggestion that they should remove their shoes, is not a solution because workers compensation will not pay for any injuries that happen when workers shoes have been removed. I don’t mind explaining to customers why we have this position, but we run our company to meet the needs and expectations of 99% of our customers. In six years I have received one letter like this and it is yours. This is why I value it so highly and I will be using it this Tuesday for our staff meeting to raise our son’s standards a little higher.

Two years ago Denise called a realtor to confirm her satisfaction with the carpet cleaning and she said, “I am not”. Denise didn’t know what to say for a few seconds. She never hears those responses from our customers. We sent the boys back to address the dirty stair again and found the problem to be wear and not soil. She became a happy customer referring us again and again.

Now to the vacuuming observation, I cannot express my agreement with you high enough. Yours is our first vacuum complaint in all our years in business, but I can understand totally how you feel after purchasing an expensive vacuum yourself and especially one you can see into.

The vacuum on the job was a duel motor vacuum designed for deep commercial cleaning and low noise suction. We have used that model of vacuum from our beginning. They cost $600 to purchase and we retired the first one just recently after its second motor replacement. They do a wonderful job for us and the one you saw will be scheduled for retirement at some future date. John and Daniel had a back pack vacuum that will do a terrific job in the van, but they believed the one they had was sufficient.

In addition, I teach them to never use a customer’s appliances without permission from the office and only when it is too late to keep from being embarrassed over our circumstances. Unless you made a stink over it they would do as they did- say “thanks but no thanks, we have it covered.”

The big question is the dirt that was removed after our cleaning. Wow, I am impressed to say the least and I say this sincerely! You see that as a problem and I see it as wonderful example of what we can do in a home.

I know what I say sounds confusing but please hear me out. First, I will push back on you a little:

If you have a really great vacuum, as you say, and I am totally convinced you do because everyone raves about those vacuums. Why then was there so much dirt in your carpets? Have you tracked that much dirt into your home since your last vacuuming? Or is there another possible reason for the amazing amount of dirt you got out of your carpet after your normal vacuuming, our deep vacuuming and our amazing cleaning system?

I believe there is another reason because more than a few of our customers have suggested their carpet looked better after three weeks than it did the day we cleaned it and they were blown away the first day. How can this be? The answer is fairly simple and I will explain it for you.

Our cleaning solution is designed to strip the residue from your carpets allowing the trapped soil to release. We remove a large amount of the soil the vacuum couldn’t pull out because the soil was adhering to the fiber due to body oil caused by going bear feet or sock feet or laying on the carpet or from pets, plus any cooking oils that gets into the air. (Remember, even vegetables have oil- thus Vegetable Oil for cooking) When those oils rise into the air along with steam from cooking they are carried throughout the home by the furnace fan and absorbed into the carpet, rugs and furniture.  The oils coat fibers attracting soil and it doesn’t matter if you hook your vacuum to a jet engine that soil will not release.

Our cleaning system, as I mentioned is designed to release soil from the fiber. We get out a great amount with our rotation bonnet system but the solution continues to work deep down to the base of the carpet fiber releasing soil that has adhered to the fiber. Once dry almost any vacuum will begin to extract the newly released soil the bonnet couldn’t reach. In fact, with the residue neutralized, the soil slides easily up through the fiber to be vacuumed away. We encourage replacing the worn away carpet protector once the carpet is cleaned to slow down the natural residue build up on the fiber and to protect from usual daily wear to the carpet. This allows soil to easily slide up through the fiber into your vacuum also.

If we tried to vacuum it wet it would be much heavier and the moisture factor would keep it from releasing not to mention how it would ruin any vacuum to attempt it. As our customers do their normal vacuuming and unseen by anyone the additional dirt is quietly and easily removed and their carpets will look wonderful, experience a deeper cleaning and stay clean longer because we were there. If you didn’t have a Dyson you would not have discovered how wonderful our system really works!

Now, to the one item you failed to mention and the one for which I asked my sons to apologize beforehand if it was noticed. I am speaking of the floor buffer for cleaning. It is an old work horse and I have them keep it for large jobs or emergencies. Our nice machine had a starting capacitor go out and the part has taken days to get to us. I expected a complaint about the buffer, but not the vacuum. The old buffer and the duel motor vacuum will clean carpet just as well as the new ones, but some may not come to that conclusion. Sometimes the obvious gets in the way of the actual, doesn’t it?

Dave, I will be glad to continue this conversation with you either by phone or over a cup of coffee. Friends, who tell us the truth, as they see it, are hard to come by and I assure you that I value your input and the time you took to give it. God bless you.

Please be assured that we value you as a customer and hopefully will develop a strong friendship over the next several years as we serve your carpet, furniture and hard surface cleaning needs. Our business is built by customers like you one at a time.

With highest regard,

Dennis Eagle, Owner

Blueagle Carpet Cleaning Company