ABOUT
OUR
CARPET CLEANING COMPETITORS
Part One
(And what makes us different)
There are so many
carpet cleaning companies out there. Who's good? Who's bad? Who'll help you in an emergency? Is there much of a difference
between hiring a professional or renting a machine or buying an upright steam machine? Of coarse, there's the obvious fact
that you might have to do the work yourself.
As
I always tell clients, most any kind of cleaning method will improve the look of your carpet, but will it be the best cleaning?
Will your carpets look good in several months or will they look dull in a few weeks?
The competitors that I am covering in this article will remain nameless, although you
might recognize who they are. They use a similar method to ours, known as steam cleaning or hot water extraction. This is
a wet method of carpet cleaning that can take 12-24 hours to dry, unless it's 80-90 degrees in your house (which of course
means a much faster drying time).
THE
TWO BIGGEST COMPANIES:
The national company that has the orange vans and the Bay Area company that has the black vans.
They're truly the biggest competitors since they both can spend a lot of money on advertising through TV,
radio, newspapers, etc. You'll generally get an OK to good cleaning, depending on the technician. Their biggest strength is
that they are huge and can handle an emergency or a last minute decision to get the carpets cleaned. Not that we and other
smaller companies couldn't handle these situations, it's just that the odds are in their favor. Their strength is also their
biggest weakness. They are huge and therefore may compromise in the quality of performance. You just never know which technician
they'll be sending. Will it be someone with a lot of experience or someone who has been recently trained? Generally, the technician
will not be invested in whether he'll be seeing you again. It's just a job and you're part of a list. Different from that,
we are very invested in seeing you again and therefore we are very motivated to give you great service.
For the most part, our rates are similar. Sometimes,
both these companies have great specials. Are they really special? How do you know if they just hiked up their base fees?
Different from that, we give real discounts. (You can find them in our monthly email newsletter.)
THE NEWEST FRANCHISE:
This company has been around for several years. They're heavily
advertised on radio. At one point they were claiming chemical free cleaning, which wasn't accurate. Now they are claiming
no chemical residue. They use a special powered water and claim to leave your carpet soft, clean, and fluffy. We're not saying
that they don't do that. We're saying that they aren't that special. It's marketing. Many high quality carpet cleaning companies,
including us, will leave your carpets soft, clean, and fluffy without chemical residue, by way of using special additives
in hot and steamy rinse water. They use the word technician instead of carpet cleaner. Again, not that special.
On top of that, it appears that they have these
great special rates. A couple of months ago their special discounted rate was higher than our normal rate. There are several
eco-friendly carpet cleaning companies out there, including us.
Bottom Line: These three companies are not as special as their advertising claims.
