Seeing we have a lot of sand here in florida, do you guys (referring to kleenstep) vacuum every job? It seems to me that even if a customer vacuums it is not very thorough and more for just a quick "once over"...I see it in almost every commercial job...It a dilemma because I feel I have to charge them .02 cents on top of the cost of cleaning to vacuum properly, but I dont think they want to pay that because they claim they "already vacuumed it". Ive cimexed over carpet that was vacuumed by the custy, and got swirls of sand come up while cleaning!!

BTW, which one of your vacuums do you recommend for a good, deep down cleaning? I'm bidding on a 14,000sqft condo hall cleaning and i'm probably going to have to vacuum it; been using my sanitaire commercial machine but thinking there must be better ones out there...

Thanks!

Joe

We try to get the client to vacuum well. We really stress the need to vacuum THOROUGHLY!!!

We sometimes even bribe them. I like to bid carpet cleaning accounts "with" and "without vacuuming". The negotiation goes like this --- "The job will cost $1200. But if you guys can do a really awesome job vacuuming, I can discount it to $900." --- You see, by attaching a dollar amount to the vacuuming it stresses the VALUE of thorough vacuuming. And everybody loves a discount. Give it a shot, you may find that it will help to improve their vacuuming.

We also educate our customers about the perils of dry soil. We inspect their vacuums and entry mats. And we provide advice on how to perform proper vacuuming. I make it a high priority to try to get them onboard with decent vacuuming.

However even with all that, I recognize that they'll probably never vacuum as well as they need to in spite of all my finagling. So I will also plan to still provide some vacuuming. But with everything that I mentioned above in place, vacuuming can now be relegated to just the high traffic areas most of the time. And that makes our job a lot easier.

As far as the BEST vacuums on the market. The X-Vac is an AWESOME Pile Lifter, capable of digging up the ground in crud! The Lindhaus is also a superb commercial vacuum. And the Koblenz is extremely efficient too. The reason we sell these models is because they represent the VERY BEST dry soil recovery machines on the market at this time.

If you can make it to EncapFest and Connections we can spend some time discussing this, and you can take a look at the X-Vac and Lindhaus and give 'em a spin. I hope to see you there!






Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com