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Impressing the cleaning managers

November 4 2006 at 7:21 AM
Jeff Cross  

Good morning, everyone:

I had to come over to this board because I'm visiting with the Rickster in sunny Florida today.

I just finished up a carpet cleaning seminar and one technician was raving about his encapsulation program he uses for commercial work.

He had one complaint, though.

Recently, he had an account of several thousand square feet of carpet he maintained. Using encapsulation. But he recently lost the account. It was because he was using encapsulation.

The problem wasn't the work or results he was getting... the problem is the cleaning manager saw him doing the work.

The facility purchased the equipment and chemicals and now the carpet cleaning is done "in-house".

How many of you see this happen?

What do you do to make your encap system seem more "complicated" than it really is, to keep those you clean for from thinking it's simple and thus can be done in-house?

Jeff Cross
Senior Editor
Cleanfax magazine
CleanPros Online

 
 
AuthorReply
Rambo

The Rickster in Sunny Florida...

November 4 2006, 8:31 AM 

Sounds great Jeff as it is 29 here in the Atlanta area this morning. I thought about this when one of the large churches we do was getting very interested in our Cimex method. I ran a 1/2" clear plastic tube from my van and attached it to the cimex tank and inserted it into the solution. On the other end I had a Workmaster ozone machine pumping ozone into the tube which gave a nice bubbling action to the Cimex solution tank on the job site. I locked the van so they could not see how I was producing the ozone (a small air compressor would also work) I had a lot of questions about it but told them it was propriatary and a creation of my own. That was several years ago and we are still doing that church. I also thought about some bells and whistles on the Cimex unit inself. We never, on any job reveal the solutions we use, but always carry MSDS sheets.

 
 
Brad Smith

Re: The Rickster in Sunny Florida...

November 4 2006, 10:22 AM 

This is an Excellent question. I look forward to others answers as I don't have any. I am working on something where I encap then quick rinse with punch through my butler for situations that require HWE.

Brad

 
 
Anonymous

Re: The Rickster in Sunny Florida...

November 4 2006, 12:44 PM 

Ray-

Do you feel the ozone is doing anything of any real value? Or is it 100% a 'dog and pony show' to make the client less likely to feel they can do this themselves?

Pretty cool idea...

Kevin

 
 
Bob Forsythe

Re: The Rickster in Sunny Florida...

November 4 2006, 1:23 PM 

I've been seeing alot of shows about haunted houses and ghosts on the Discover channel lately. It occurred to me that an Ozone machine may be a good way to get rid of ghosts in a house. This may be a good side business...

 
 
matt

Re: Impressing the cleaning managers

November 4 2006, 2:01 PM 

I had never really worried about it until recently when i did a demo for the local housing authority. They have 6 Large buildings with tons of SF of commercial carpet. The gentleman in charge started to ask all sorts of questions and seemed to know some stuff about carpet cleaning. I realized that he seemed a little Too interested. I told him my Cimex was a 5K machine, and I dont think he believed me. I am doing some work for them soon, so we will see what happens from there!

By the way Jeff, great class (CCT) in Salem NH, see you next week for the UFT!

 
 
FredGeyen

More to it

November 4 2006, 2:44 PM 

Mistake in our industry is that cleaners think it is about chemicals & Equipment.

Cleaners myself included do not provide any service that our customers cannot do themselfs. Let me repeat that NONE OF US PROVIDE A SERVICE THAT A CUSTOMER CANNOT DO THEMSELFS.

So what do we provide? Answer "It is the same as what we sell". If you sell " my chemical is the best" or "my machine is the best" a customer can easily see through our claim. Both can be duplicated.

That is why commercial carpet cleaning is ALL ABOUT SALES. It is the basics of: asking questions, pre-qualifing the sale, finding the pain, dressing the part, overcoming objections etc...

If a customer buys their own Equipment and chemical after a demo the simple "stare you in the face answer" is that you did not know the customer very well before committing to a demo.

"Commercial Only"

 
 
David Van Briggle

Re: More to it

November 6 2006, 2:40 AM 

When selling a new maintenance account, I always describe restorative HWE as a necessity. Usually I leave the interval unspecified. We'll recommend it or they can request it. Of course it is about 1/3 higher in cost. Being able to do maintenance cleaning at a low price is their savings.

Now, if and when we extract, I get paid properly for it and can afford to do it right. If the maintenance cleaning is regular enough for the soil load, extraction may be unnecessary or at least rare. But they are aware that it may be needed. I hope this approach leaves me in the position of a needed consultant but allows me to work my Cimexs regularly. Frankly, I cringe at the thought of extracting 60,000 or 90,000 ft again.

 
 

Rick Gelinas

Dealing with commercial clients

November 6 2006, 5:33 PM 

Hasn't this always been a factor with every method of commercial carpet cleaning? Going "in house" is an inevitable possiblility for any commercial account. Facilities go "in house" on a daily basis, regardless of method. Hot Water Extraction, Encap, Bonnet Cleaning, you name it - all commercial accounts are open to the possibility of going "in house".

That being said... As I've said all along, SELL CLEAN. Don't sell method. Sell them results. If you spell out every facet of the cleaning to the customer, you're in effect providing a tutorial on how to do it themselves. That's not a very bright thing to do. So keep your secrets.

When it comes to doing demos bring in the dog and pony show. Bring in multiple tools. Bring in a pile lifter if you have one. At the very least, pre-vacuum with a serious looking commercial vacuum cleaner. Bring in a pump sprayer and pre-spray the carpet. Bring in the spotting kit and pre-treat spots. Run the Cimex slowly (you might even consider doing North-South, east-West passes). You could make some extraction passes if you offer HWE too. Make it clear that you will use any and all methods required to do the job properly. In other words make it clear that this is not something so simple they could easily do it themselves.

Emphasize your qualifications. What training have you had? Are you certified? How many years in business? Then use your testimonials (you do have testimonials don't you) to provide assurance that you're all that and a box of chocolate. Back up your presentation with a rock slid customer satisfaction guarantee.

Before long the --- "we can do this ourselves" song is not going to be sung.

Here's a personal experience I had that worked the opposite of what Jeff's student experienced...

I went into a Circuit City to offer our carpet cleaning. The manager cut me off and told me firmly - "WE DO IT OURSELVES" we're NOT interested. At that time they were doing their own MEDIOCRE carpet cleaning. Well I responded by telling him that we can do it for a price that might make it worth it to consider and at the same time take all the pain away. I then told him that by the time he factored in labor for his staff, owning equipment, maintaining insurance for liability of damage or injury, stocking the right cleaning chemicals, training employees... and ultimately still not getting very good results JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. Then I told him - let me give you a price and you can factor all of that into the equation. I went ahead and worked up a fair price for his store and presented it to him. And most importantly, I assured him that if he ever had a problem - all he has to do is pick up the phone and we're on it; so he'd never have to deal with carpet problems again. Guess what? He went for it. It made more sense to have us handle it than for them to do it themselves. And to make things sweeter, after they saw what we could do, this manager referred us to other stores. Before long we picked up a few other Circuit City's in the area. I continued to service those stores until their corporation made the move to go with National Contractors = MMM's.

I think that losing a commercial account, for whatever reason, is more than likely caused by a failure on the part of the contractor to communicate and sell the client in the first place and then to follow through with a service experience that impresses. I think that claiming that a client went "in house" because the encap system is "easy" could just be a way of justifying losing the account.






Rick Gelinas
encapman


    
This message has been edited by cimex on Nov 6, 2006 8:01 PM
This message has been edited by cimex on Nov 6, 2006 6:07 PM


 
 
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