Customer miffed How should I have handled this?

[Doug Cox]

Roxy- Is this the wand you have?

If so, I tried this wand on my CDS and it was an awful wand. It left the carpet too wet. Like I said, I would look for a hydra hoe wand and I think you might see alot of difference in results. You might also need some adjustments on your machine. What year machine is it and at what rpm do you run it at?

 

[gimmeagig]

I've learned a lot .... Pre-qualifying a job and a customer,using my instincts, communication with the customer about potential problems ahead of time ( in writing), not bidding a job too cheap, how to deal with re-cleans effectively and also that it's OK to walk away from plain undesirable customers.

your equipment is fine...including your wand..it ain't the meAt, it's the motion....
Whether your technique is any good or not, i don't know..."most's" aren't though .
They have more probs with berbers and loop piles cause it's less forgiving of poor wand technique.

Never the less, if it was "our" job.... AND as described..ie..new jamoke, trashed/junky rental, too cheap to pay good money... the minute I knew there were yaucks walking all over a salvage rag while it's still damp, is the minute they get nothing from us as far as a redo

I think you did the right thing.
Cash the check, move on and don't look back


..L.T.A.

Lots of answers here inspire me to ask new questions that might have already been covered here on the forum.
Like "Wand Technique". I know some people go across the room with a wet pass and then repeat that stretch with dry passes.More dwell and less work operating the valve and probably quicker overall too, right? I usually just go one ore wet pass and then a couple of dry passes straight across and if I don't see a good enough result on any particular area I pump more water through the carpet followed by a lot of dry passes.
On Olefin I just learned easy on the water and the pressure too? What if it is really dirty?
That's all I know about wand technique.
Maybe a search will turn up a previous thread.If not I'll start one.

 

[Hoody]

Slow your wand stroke down, for wet and dry pass for really dirty. At some point you might want to add some mechanic agitation with a 175 rotary machine, or even a buffer and some good carpet brushes. There is also the Rotovac 360i, and RX-20 you can use on really dirty carpet that will help clean better, and give you better flushing.

 

[Dolly Llama]

On Olefin I just learned easy on the water and the pressure too? What if it is really dirty?
That's all I know about wand technique.
Maybe a search will turn up a previous thread.If not I'll start one.

there's a few wand techniques , Roxy.
some serve well in some situations, some not so well in others.

if you're using a hole glide, get rid of it...they don't clean as deep and the "claimed" better dry times are minimal in reality..all anyone has to do is clean side by side on "same room same time" with same or identical wand to see for themselves ...there will be very little difference in "complete" dry times.

you really don't need any glide on that particular wand anyway..cause it pushes forward well unglided.

that wand iS a good cleaning wand.....but NOT at higher PSI..keep it at 300-350 psi or even less and it's a great wand...more PSI than that and you start injecting water into the backing.
put 06 flow jets in it...a pair of 11003 or 9503 if the 110's spray past the wand lip edges


be sure to let off the trigger BEFORE you stop the wand on the back stroke...otherwise you're leaving puddles at the end of each stroke
No need for a forward wet stroke "if" you're using pre-spray in sufficient quantity


I don't think much of ProChem's olefin pre-spray.
Ultrapac works better AND is easier to rinse
Powerburst is stronger than both


..L.T.A.

 

[The Great Oz]

http://www.mikeysboard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25094&p=279562&hilit=wand#p279562

Link to proper technique.

 

[sweendogg]

Listen to Meat on the wand advice. But with as many boosters you put into the carpet with your prespray, you should not have had any problems with soil removal and an olefin carpet. If you were rinsing heavy you were missing something. And from what I can tell it was the old faithful prescrub. Forget the rotary extractors. With olefin carpet you DONT want to put any more water into than what you can extract back out very effectively. Olefin will shed any and all residual moisture to the back of the carpet and pad and even when olefin feels dry on top, if it was overwet in the first place, the backing and pad could be wet for days. This is also why it has so many wickback issues. It sheds alot of the heavier spills to the back very easily and overwetting it brings it right back to the top.

When you get these heavily soiled places, find a used or new 175 rpm floor machine, use a shampoo brush or a scrubbing pad( red, or champaigne work as well). use the floor machine to agitated your cleaning solution after you have presprayed. This really does make all the world of difference. You then want to extract with the lower pressure as meat pointed out and only key on the back stroke. One slow keyed backstroke should be all it takes with good chemistry and a good scrubbing. You can do a 3 to 4 foot area and then dry stroke or dry stroke right after you complete the wet stroke. Either way you don't want to go long distances with olefin before you dry stroke or you have more potential for letting moisture penetrate the carpet. If you have a 175 floor machine in the house or on the job for prescrubbing it becomes very easy to post pad the carpet to remove excess moisture: (post padding utilizes carpet bonnet or cotton pads to absorb moisture.)

Then put some dryers on the floor. As mentioned it is definitly worth it to invest in high speed fans or airpaths.

As for this particular situation. Given the circumstances I think you made the right decision with the conditions given.

 

[Doug Cox]

DO NOT let water "puddle" at the end of your stroke. In otherwords, let off the trigger before you hit the end of your stroke. If you let water sit in the carpet like that you will surely have a wicking or resoiling problem.

 

[CarpetKING]

Bottom Line

You do a job and the customer isn't happy you go back for free no questions asked. If you do the job right you WILL NOT have any call backs. I think we may have had 2 residential call backs in the last 5 years. We take the time and do it right though and CHARGE accordingly. IMO very bad business to charge to go back and correct your own work. I would be pissed too if I only charged $100 to do that and had to go back - but you grin and bear it and do the right thing...Lesson learned. The lower your prices are the more of this you will run into. The more you charge (whether residential or commercial) the easier the work will be and the less problems you will have. Eventually cherry pick your jobs and work for who you want to. You can weed the bad ones out by raising your prices.

 

[Mike Draper]

I offer a 30 day guarantee with my cleaning. You should of gone back at no charge and charge enough so its worth your time.

You offer a 30 day guarantee on your nasty apartments? I clean some nasty crack house apartments and there is no way in hell we would offer a guarantee on carpet that should just be thrown in to an incinerator. Listen, we all start out wanting to do our best and we should keep doing this. however, like mentioned above, you will learn what type of clients to have and to not have. This dude is not the type of client you want. We all learn from these experiences and move on to bigger and better clients. You are in charge of who you fire, not him.

 

[Mike Draper]

I also agree with carpet king 100%. when we clean some of these nasty crack house apartments, we make it very clear to the owner that he shouldnt expect the carpet to look like brand spanking new. You should bring up objections or concerns before the owner has even thought of them. As well, we charge accordingly on these nasty jobs so we can do a good clean for him.

 

[gimmeagig]

Bottom Line

You do a job and the customer isn't happy you go back for free no questions asked. If you do the job right you WILL NOT have any call backs. I think we may have had 2 residential call backs in the last 5 years. We take the time and do it right though and CHARGE accordingly. IMO very bad business to charge to go back and correct your own work. I would be pissed too if I only charged $100 to do that and had to go back - but you grin and bear it and do the right thing...Lesson learned. The lower your prices are the more of this you will run into. The more you charge (whether residential or commercial) the easier the work will be and the less problems you will have. Eventually cherry pick your jobs and work for who you want to. You can weed the bad ones out by raising your prices.

Not to beat a dead horse and under normal circumstances I agree with you on all your points. Re-cleaning would have been the right thing to do.But in this case the fact that I didn't go back to re-clean it for free has nothing to do with the fact that I made the mistake to charge too little. My mistake not his.It was a combination of the owner and the worker walking right over my freshly cleaned carpet and then the trouble getting paid. He didn't have his checkbook, I agreed to have his wife mail the check, that was a lie, then when we were supposed to meet he showed total disregard for my time by not showing up at the agreed place and time, then rescheduled for a different place and then showed up waaay late.
When I did come back to the house to look at what I could do to make it right ( with my truck and on time, because I had every intention to do something ) he spend 15 minutes arguing with someone else on the phone while he had me standing there like I didn't exist. thathurts Extremely rude. I really felt like saying:" I guess you didn't want to meet me after all" and get in my truck and drive away.
I didn't because I really wanted to see the how bad the carpet looked. When I saw it ( it wasn't pretty) I actually wanted to reclean it and I would have given my all to do a better job ( not for just him but also for me) but he had shown me such disrespect on so many levels that I wanted him to pay me at least something. He said he wouldn't pay anything and he'd rather clean it with his Bissel.Which he might have done before and that's why the carpet resoiled so quickly ( I'm speculating here). Then he said "I gotta go I gotta talk to somebody" and off he went.
Anyway, that's the story one more time and I wish I had your skills,only 2 callbacks in 5 years, that's really impressive! But the again, your the Carpet King!

Back to the wand thing ( which one is best and wand technique), There is so much information here I'm still going over previous posts and threads and I'm still digesting it all. I'll try to post a picture of the wand that I'm using. Greenie send me some different jets when I bought a glide ( alternating slots and holes) from him. My stair tool is very similar. I think they work well because I get good results usually, but these are the only wands I have ever used with my machine so I have really nothing to compare it to. I know there are these big monster 2" 4 jet 15" wide wands but I was told that on my 1999 CDS 4.8 I'd be better off using a smaller 2 jet wand. I'm not trying to rush through my jobs as quickly as possible, so increased speed by using a wider wand is not a factor I'm super concerned with.
As you know I'm a musician ( electric bass) and I tweak my basses all the time. Nothing is stock. A preamps pickups hardware everything has been tweaked to my taste because I am an expert in this field and i know what I'm looking for.
Wands are probably the carpet cleaner's bass guitars and there are lots of variables.So should I maybe continue this wand thing by starting a new thread?

 

[renegade_cowboy]

I offer a 30 day guarantee with my cleaning. You should of gone back at no charge and charge enough so its worth your time.

You offer a 30 day guarantee on your nasty apartments? I clean some nasty crack house apartments and there is no way in hell we would offer a guarantee on carpet that should just be thrown in to an incinerator. Listen, we all start out wanting to do our best and we should keep doing this. however, like mentioned above, you will learn what type of clients to have and to not have. This dude is not the type of client you want. We all learn from these experiences and move on to bigger and better clients. You are in charge of who you fire, not him.

I think you are confusing me with someone else, its rare that I get a nasty job. Like you said charge enough to not have to deal with the nasties. I offer all my customers a 30 day guarantee since I started out and never got taken advantage of. Will I? Maybe, but I am not going to worry about it.
I am that confident in what I do and with the communication with the client. Im sorry you arent that confident in what you do. With my "good" clients I even tell them I will come back if they get a new stain within the 30 days, this job is more about customer service than anything else IMHO.

This customer would of never chose me to clean his carpets because I am to expensive for him. My target market is women, house wifes, moms and old women.

 

[Mike Draper]

I'm sorry Brent, I didn't realize you had no commercial work that looks like shit, on shitty carpet that will barely clean no matter what. What little commercial work you have must be on very nice high dollar nylon in nice neighborhoods. Even if you did have some commercial work in a crack house where dogs and 20 Mexicans have been living for 6 years and never vacuumed once, I'm sure you would tell the owner who wont replace the carpet that " I'll be happy to come back in 30 days if it doesn't look just perfect. :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: