Lost an apartment complex to a competitor...

[Able 1]

I haven't lost one yet...

I don't charge extra for nasties (if your pre-spray doesn't work don't take it out on your custy's get a new PS)

I don't charge extra for reds and yellows, come on how long does it take to treat a stain with a helper (I think they hired you to get there spots out). :shock: Within reason, I will charge extra if they tell me to because the last tenant is paying for it. shiteatinggrin

If you provide a great service,and you are reliable there is NO reason they should go else where... Right? Why would they?

My year is up 25% because of a complex I attained, I'm kind of nervous about losing it, but why would they go somewhere else?? How I'm thinking it's ALL about service and not nickle and them diming to death....

And I never ask about the last guy,why would you? If they want to tell you thats fine and dandy, but I could care less why I am there now, I just give them my all..

 

[B&BGaryC]

Then why did acid rinsing the carpet and cleaning it work better than hitting it with flex and powerpoint? I am just going off of what I have been taught and how I have observed it to work. I know for a fact citric acid would be a terrible rinse agent and would contribute to resoiling. However, acid rinses have worked for me in the past.

Flex used to be a sledgehammer .
They changed it some years ago.
It's nowhere near the wicked potion it used to be


as far as what you were "taught" , much of it doesn't add up ('cept to juice $alesmen)
Case in point, years ago while at a seminar , we were told not to use the same sprayer or sprayer jug for protectant due to possible contamination ruining the protectant ...that makes sense to me.
He stressed how just a "couple drops" of acid rinse could spoil a gal of protectant .
This was a Prochem heavy hitter and at the time PC was pushing the max clean min residue "system"
which included acid rinse and/or misting cleaned carpet w/acid

I had to ask, well then Sparky, if just a "minuscule" amount of acid ruins the effect of protectant, why in the hell are you telling us to acid treat the carpet BEFORE protectant ??

he didn't have a good answer...at least one that added up to what he just told us an hour before about contamination





as far as observations , you said this;

never seemed to work until I acid rinsed the snot out of it. It came a little bit cleaner, but then next time I used a moderate cleaner and detergent rinse it brought it back to its proper color.

sounds to me like the "thorough" flush/rinse got much of the years of poor cleaning technique gunk out.(if it was cleaned/maintained right at all)
The second time you cleaned "right" and "brought it back to life"

if acid works for you..have at it
But you might want to check the MSDS, cause most of them use citric acid



..L.T.A.

I am speaking specifically of a restaurant that had a black carpet and NOBODY in town could get it clean. At least nobody who quoted a price they liked could. Eventually they heard from another restaurant with the exact same carpet that I had made a dramatic improvement in their carpet and they should try us out. I did exactly what I did on the last one, flex with powerpoint rinse and got an ok result but not anything stupendous. I then figured since a bunch of hacks dumped everything they had on there, I should acid rinse it to neutralize everything. I used a mild prespray and acid rinsed it and got great results. Then when I hit it with something heavy the next time it worked pretty good. Now my tech does it once a month and he switches between prolon to cut the grease, Power-Burst / Heatwave to cut the starch, and Zone Perfect / End Zone to kill the residue from the heatwave. We have just been running round robin on those three methods and keeping it clean. I would like a little freadom from it but when we just used PowerBurst/ Heatwave they started complaining that a residue was being tracked into the bathroom making the floors sticky.

Anyway, this experience has led me to believe that acid rinses are necessary especially considering that hacking everything out with a bunch of chems is the industry standard in this town and every carpet I come across is totally filled with residues by the time I get to it.

 

[B&BGaryC]

I haven't lost one yet...

I don't charge extra for nasties (if your pre-spray doesn't work don't take it out on your custy's get a new PS)

I don't charge extra for reds and yellows, come on how long does it take to treat a stain with a helper (I think they hired you to get there spots out). :shock: Within reason, I will charge extra if they tell me to because the last tenant is paying for it. shiteatinggrin

If you provide a great service,and you are reliable there is NO reason they should go else where... Right? Why would they?

My year is up 25% because of a complex I attained, I'm kind of nervous about losing it, but why would they go somewhere else?? How I'm thinking it's ALL about service and not nickle and them diming to death....

And I never ask about the last guy,why would you? If they want to tell you thats fine and dandy, but I could care less why I am there now, I just give them my all..

Great post. I will take this to heart and make my tech read this.

 

[Royal Man]

Anyone that thinks that apartment complexes put service above all other factors to determine vendor retention hasn't been around the block yet.

 

[Able 1]

Anyone that thinks that apartment complexes put service above all other factors to determine vendor retention hasn't been around the block yet.

Curious Dave what other factors?

The big one I do is the ONLY one I'm nervous about losing just because most of the time the carpet is in real good shape. One time they had me re-clean an empty unit after a month of showing it just because the carpet was a little matted from showing it (no spots nothing!!) :shock: When they took me on I touched up two units with spots that wicked, I haven't had to go back once for any of mine.. From what I hear there has been ALOT of companies in the area that have cleaned for them just hope I can hold onto it!!!

As far as the nasty ones I clean, they will never go anywhere else... !gotcha!

 

[Royal Man]

[quote="Dave Yoakum":nvnro18w]Anyone that thinks that apartment complexes put service above all other factors to determine vendor retention hasn't been around the block yet.

Curious Dave what other factors?

The big one I do is the ONLY one I'm nervous about losing just because most of the time the carpet is in real good shape. One time they had me re-clean an empty unit after a month of showing it just because the carpet was a little matted from showing it (no spots nothing!!) :shock: When they took me on I touched up two units with spots that wicked, I haven't had to go back once for any of mine.. From what I hear there has been ALOT of companies in the area that have cleaned for them just hope I can hold onto it!!!

As far as the nasty ones I clean, they will never go anywhere else... !gotcha![/quote:nvnro18w]


There are many factors that come into play for vendor retention for apartment services. many of the have already been stated previously in this post.

Service or ability to clean often can be way down on the list.

A lot of times it frankly come down to price. If corporate gets a new bean counter and /or a cleaner comes a knocking that is a nickle cheaper the old provider is history.

Often when a new manager comes in(And they can come and go quite often) they will bring in the cleaners they are familiar with.

Sometimes they get the bright idea to clean in house and carpet you could of saved are thrown away. But, the decision maker still thinks they are saving on the per man hour bottom line.

Sometimes even kickbacks to the manager can even come into play.

What I find discouraging is that with larger complexes the decision maker is not even in the same state and has never seen your cleaning.

Service is important to the local owner apartments. But, with larger complexes the bottom line can ofter trump service.

This is why apartment prices can be the same as they were decades ago.

Do a great service. Just don't be surprised when your service is not appreciated and you go bye, bye.

 

[joeynbgky]

I do over 100k a year in apartments. Great revenue

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