Simplify Your Upholstery Cleaning System – [Part #1]

One of the primary reasons carpet cleaners shy away from upholstery cleaning (despite the fact that they usually call themselves “__________ Carpet and Upholstery Cleaners” is that upholstery cleaning has many more variables than carpet cleaning, and therefore making it a bit more difficult to create a simple, easy to follow cleaning system for  upholstery than it is for cleaning carpet.

And, while that is true, there are some things you can do…

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Protector Sales Declining?

In my conversations with cleaners, and my observations of current trends of protector sales and purchases, its become clear to me that the sales of protector after carpet and upholstery cleaning continue to decline.

Some industry persons point to current economic conditions, but based on what I’ve observed, I believe its much deeper than this.

Consider the events of the past decade. Could it be . . .

Health Issues?
* A “warning letter” is sent to consumers nationwide from a labor group that had a conflict with a major protector manufacturer. Regardless of the motive, it put fear and doubt into the consumers’ minds about protector safety. It also created fear and doubt in the minds of many cleaners!

Lack of Clarity From Carpet Industry?
* Carpet manufacturers state that carpet protector is no longer necessary on carpets made from their new fiber technology, and/or that they incorporate new protector technology at the manufacturing level.

Inferences were made in print, and said verbally by uninformed carpet salespeople that the application of protector might even void a carpet warranty. This obviously impacted consumer purchases of protector, and also frightened cleaners into not offering protector at all; since trying to determine what type of carpet anyone owns is nearly impossible without exhaustive research and availability of documentation.

Cable Advertorials, Pitchmen & Super Guarantees?
* The prevalence of consumer owned carpet cleaning machines and spotting machines have lessened the fear of spills and soiling between professional cleaning.

Changing Marketplace?
*The higher percentage of hard surfaces in homes, thus limiting the amount of available carpet that can have protector applied.

While many of the upscale consumers are experiencing real or imagined financial pressures, I won’t accept the “bad economy factor” as a major contributor to this trend because of increasing sales of hard surface cleaning services, rug cleaning services, and deodorization and decontamination services.

These are, of course, simply my observations and opinions gathered from my experience and perspective. I would appreciate feedback from those who read this regarding your observation of trends in your market area.

Please feel free to email me with the form below:

Not All Upholstery Is Worth Cleaning!

(Don’t Waste Time and Money on Cheap Furniture)

I recently had a discussion with a lady who was preparing to have a sofa reupholstered.  The old fabric was worn and faded, and surely not worth having cleaned.

But neither did the lady want to replace the sofa.  She rightly noted that the furniture itself was solid and well made, and only needed new fabric.   She so loved this piece of furniture that she intended to keep it for a lifetime.   She also felt, based on some shopping she had done, that she could never find another sofa so well made.

She is going to spend much more to reupholster this fabric today than the piece of furniture cost her when she originally purchased it!

Conversely, I also recently noted sofas for sale for only a few hundred dollars.

Such furniture might not last more than a few years before falling apart.  But many consumers who are price oriented and who do not think ahead when they buy are filling their homes with furnishings that cannot be described as anything other than cheap.

What does this mean to you, the “Fine Fabric Care Specialist“?

Customers who will pay a fair price for taking care of their carpet may NOT see the same value in your upholstery cleaning service!

The investment of time, products, and skill in cleaning upholstery fabrics is such that some cleaners struggle with the fact that they can’t seem to get paid enough to make upholstery cleaning as profitable as carpet cleaning.  Its easy to say that you should just “raise your prices”, but if you do so without recognizing that some furniture can be replaced for not much more than you might have to charge to clean it, you will likely become frustrated with your prospects objections to your pricing.

You need to find customers such as the lady that I know who is having her furniture reupholstered.   People who see their home furnishings as a long term investment, and who are more concerned with décor than function are very often your best prospects for “fine fabric care services”, as well as related carpet, rug, and hard surface care in their homes.

When you seek to establish your pricing for “fine fabric care”, bear in mind what your service is worth, and what profit you deserve.   That price will be one that will be very well received by the type of customer who values their belongings, and wants to preserve their investments for years to come.

MYTH : Does High Quality Always Beats Low Price

You will become frustrated, and finally, very bitter, if you believe this myth. You will waste valuable time and energy trying to convince unqualified prospects to spend more money than they expect to for a level of service they neither desire, appreciate or can afford.

If everyone bought quality over price, all restaurants would sell steak and lobster and all car dealers would sell Rolls-Royce automobiles. You’ve probably also noticed that McDonalds doesn’t sell prime rib dinners at a reduced price; they sell production line hamburgers.

If you want to sell a high value, high price service, you must market it to people who are willing to pay for it, rather than try to sell your service to those who won’t appreciate, recognize or pay a higher price for premium service. If you’re still not convinced that some people will never be prospects for your service, consider this example:

You are on vacation & your rental car has a flat tire. What good would it do the tire salesman to tell you that his highest price tire will last for several thousand miles more of use than his cheapest one? Matter of fact, his additional sales efforts will just irritate you.

In this situation does this attitude on a your part prove you to be uninformed or just plain cheap? No. You simply don’t require the highest quality product in this case. Think about this the next time you get a price objection from someone moving out of an apartment who just needs any cleaning job to get their security deposit back.

On the other hand, would you pay more for a tire for your own car? Probably. Or, what if you had the flat late at night and one store offered to send someone out to change the tire at your hotel? You would pay more for quality if it was important to you; as you would also pay more for a higher degree of service.

REMEMBER THIS:

#1. People will only pay a higher price for your service if that is their buying style and if they value their property enough to invest in high quality work.

#2. Quality is sometimes hard to measure, but service isn’t! Every one of your competitors will say that they do a quality job. The problem is that you can’t measure quality as easily as you can measure service! Make sure that you can explain all of the things that you do that your competition doesn’t do, or charges extra for.

If this extra service is meaningless to your prospect, don’t waste his or your time any further; this person simply doesn’t qualify to be one of your customers.

Preservation Vs Restoration

Over the past 20 years, consumers have begun to see the value in having their carpet cleaned on a regular basis, rather than waiting for the carpet to appear heavily soiled.

Carpet cleaners appreciate such customers, not just for their regular support to their business, but also because carpet cleaned on a regular basis releases soil more readily, and rarely had difficult stains that may be otherwise time consuming to remove.

The customer perception of textile furniture is not yet that advanced. In many cases, furniture is not cleaned in its lifetime, and if redecorating does not force them discard furniture, sometimes only when furniture becomes obviously soiled or stained is cleaning requested.

If you permit your customer to make such decisions, you are doing both you and your customer a grave disservice.

Upholstery fabrics, especially those made from delicate natural fibers, need to be cleaned when soiling is still light. Once natural fiber fine fabrics become obviously stained and soiled, the cleaning products and procedures needed to restore them might be unsafe to use.

Even with relatively safe procedures and products, “restorative cleaning” of such fabrics might involve the use of products that use mild bleaches that may damage both color and the strength of the fibers, and aggressive cleaning may also cause permanent texture damage.

Its unfortunate that the term “restorative cleaning” is likely inappropriate, as such cleaning methods do not “restore” the fabric to its new condition. They might be better called “destructive cleaning”, but such terms likely are not useful from a marketing perspective, however true in nature.

If you want to “preserve” the fabric as closely as possible to keep its original beauty, you should encourage your customer to have the furniture cleaned when soil is only apparent when you shift a cushion or arm cover and reveal an area that has not been soiled.

Such lightly soiled fabrics may be more easily cleaned with the mildest of detergents and gentlest agitation. In an upcoming article I will discuss some “preservation cleaning” techniques that will help keep your customer’s furniture beautiful and decrease both your risks and labor costs as well.

“Will I Still Have To Turn Down Upholstery Cleaning Jobs?”

I’m often asked:

“If I get the right training and have the right products and tools, will I still have to turn down any upholstery cleaning jobs?”

My answer is always . . . . YES, YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST!!

“You must turn down any job where your customer’s expectations exceed what you can deliver in the way of a result”

Think About This:

What really is the most costly event that can happen with a customer?
If you damage an individual piece of furniture through color bleeding, fading, or texture distortion, you will have a tangible cost that you will incur (a claim) and then it’s settled. But that’s not your biggest cost! The fact is that the damage claim is your smallest problem!

What happens if you consistently deliver poor results in the eyes of your customers?
You could have dozens of unhappy customers who will never call you back, and never refer you to others, or more likely will trash your reputation at the hair salon at every opportunity!

Unlike carpet, upholstery has so many variables in its fiber content and design, including consumer neglect, that it is impossible to always remove all stains and soils easily, or at least removing them without causing color or texture damage to the neglected fabric.

The problem is communication.
If your customer understands these limitations up front, they are more likely to accept a less than perfect result, or they have the option of declining your service. Either result is less costly than the alternative which usually happens to cleaners who spend hours attempting to clean something that will never be able to be restored. They lose both the money and at the same time have at minimum an unhappy customer, and more often than not lose the customer for good.

A good pre-inspection and prequalification step is NOT a list of good sounding excuses that is meant to talk the customer into accepting poor results.

On the contrary, if you understand the limitations of a specific fabric, such as the tendency of a rayon chenille to lose its texture from wear or denim to lose color, you can speak to the specific limitations imposed by the fabric and the use your customer has put it through when you explain what level of soil or stain removal that your customer might accept.

The ability to explain these limitations also should allow you to talk to your customer about the care of their furniture before it becomes heavily soiled and stained, and thus allow you to deliver results with which they will be pleased.

Learning to follow a consistent and well thought out pre-inspection and testing protocol on every job you clean will prevent this costly and frustrating problem, and will also enhance your image of professionalism in your customers eyes.

Research Reveals Key Reason Why Carpet Cleaners Don’t Clean Upholstery

“I’ve been engaged in an ongoing study about why cleaners don’t make enough money cleaning upholstery to feel that its worthwhile to position themselves as an upholstery cleaning specialist.

Much of this attitude appears to come from the fact that, unlike carpet, its difficult to predict how long it will take to clean upholstery because of the wide variety of fibers used in the constructions, as well as the differences of durability of those constructions themselves.

I recently did a study on a chair made from a blend of rayon and polyester fibers, that was both heavily soiled and stained.  The techniques used initially on this chair to clean it improved the appearance over the way it looked before professional cleaning, but the process took longer than most cleaners could afford to take on location, and results were still less than stellar.

Check my blog on Monday afternoon to see pictures of this chair, along with the improvement conventional on location techniques were able to give, and what processes were finally used to restore the chair to an almost “like new” condition.

Do You Have What it Takes to be an Upholstery Cleaning Specialist?

Response to Last Weeks FAQ

A comment on last weeks CleanTip:
From: Mark Violand
Subject: Re: Pembertons CleanTip – Customers Asking for Price Cuts?

“Some of my commercial & residential customers are starting to ask for price cuts“. So, as you suggested in your CleanTip article about reducing the service offered is excellent advice.

However if the cleaner truly does follow the S100 Standard for cleaning and truly does dry soil removal prior to cleaning and suggests to his customer that to save money — why don’t you do the pre-vacuuming?

HAHAHAHAHAHA, have you seen the vacuums people use in their homes? I can guarantee you 50% of the vacuums in our customers home do not work, ask me how I know?

I know because I inspect them every time I go into a home inspecting a carpet for shedding or loss of texture.

People don’t vacuum as they should, they are too busy. You know the rule of thumb, one time per week per occupant in the home (and that includes dogs and cats).

Either the filter is ready to blow, the brush is worn, the belt is broken or the vacuum is simply not suitable for deep, thorough dry soil removal like a good commercial vacuum that is meant to handle the heavy soil.
can do.

One idea that I would suggest (as I have done), is that the more furniture you have removed from the areas we are cleaning means the faster we can clean, and the less it will it cost you.

Mark Violand
IICRC Certified Senior Carpet Inspector
IICRC Approved Instructor
CFI Inspector/Technical Certification
ITS HardSurface Inspector (wood, laminate and resilient)
CTEF Ceramic Tile Inspector

FAQs – My Customers are Asking for Price Cuts, What Can I Do?

Q – Hey Jim,
Some of my commercial & residential customers are starting to ask for price cuts because of the current financial situation. I only factor in a modest profit margin to start with & really can’t afford to cut my price.

What can I do?

A – Trust me, you are not the only one facing the same situation. With the recession, and budgets being tight, customers, including yourself, want to find a way to get a better deal.

In this current economic climate, many of us would find to find a way to knock off a few dollars, go the extra mile and hope this would translate into more work down the line.

But this would be a serious business mistake.

Here is something I learned from surviving years in business. If you are asked to reduce your price, you need to make a corresponding reduction in the value you provide.

It is that simple! Reducing service hours will translate into cost reduction. However, cost very carefully to make sure you are reducing cost areas that are labor intensive rather than product intensive.

Only the reduction of labor costs will allow realistic price reductions.