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Have any of you ever come across traffic stains that FAE could barely budge? If so, how do you evaluate this before you start the job? Thanks.
Dan,
Remember what Cody taught in training – be sure to set expectations lower than you expect you can deliver. Promise low/medium results, but deliver good/great results.So far, I haven’t run into any areas I couldn’t improve significantly with FAE. However, you need to be careful to distinguish between ground in dirt and dark traffic areas which look bad and can be improved as compared to wear in the traffic lanes which can’t be improved. Most traffic lanes that are bad enough to be fairly dark will have some of each. Make sure your customer understands that you can probably get rid of most of the dirt, but the wear may still affect the appearance.
If I were to see FAE’s match, I’m not sure I would know ahead of time. It would have to be pretty bad though. The worse a job looks, the lower I set the expectations.
Worn areas are missing the tops of many of the fibers and are also missing entire fibers. This makes those areas appear darker due to shadow effect in the larger spaces between the fibers and the dips/valleys from the wear.
Are you asking out of curiosity or have you met FAE’s match?
Mike
Well, a little of both. I had a customer who had absolutely horrific traffic areas and grime in the carpeting. It was REALLY bad, but I’ve taken on the filthy ones before and been absolutely astounded with the results. I did set their expectations really low before hand and almost didn’t take the job, but I did with a little pressure. I probably should have walked, but when you’re new you’re a little hungry too. 😉 Anyways, the FAE did make a difference in the carpet, but not a big one. Well, after the fact the customer told me that they had cleaned it perfectly just a few months ago. Yeah right. They maybe cleaned it several years ago. Several very rough, ugly, and filthy years ago. They said they did it with a rental steam unit (not Rug Doctor) with some home made Oxi-Clean concoction they made up. This was after I had already discussed with the customer before I started the work about the way that products like Resolve and Oxi-Clean can sometimes bond stains permanently to carpeting. I was thinking that maybe a second treatment of FAE might get it out a little more seeing that it at least made a dent the first time. After all of the really dirty jobs that FAE has worked miracles on I have to believe that it can’t be our product meeting it’s match. They did something to literally bond the filth to the carpeting and created some kind of impenetrable dirt force field blocking my efforts. I know that this situation could probably have been avoided by me. I guess it’s better to learn a lesson like this early on so I can grow from it.
Dan,
Several of the bad places I’ve seen had been cleaned by rug doctors or equivalent units. I believe they leave a LOT of residue. The place may look alright when they finish, but the residue can attract lots of grime – sometimes fairly quickly, especially if they have used the rug doctor multiple times and have built up a lot of residue. It they were so happy with their previous results, why did they call you?I’m not sure I can recognize such a situation just by looking, however, I can see when a place is really dirty – whatever the cause. For future reference, consider quoting a much higher price when you see a place like the one you just finished. I once quoted well over $300 for a small BR, a very short hall, and an average sized LR for an apartment. I wrote something like “Additional fee for extremely soiled” and just wrote a large extra dollar amount in addition to my normal sq. ft. price. It was probably the worst place I’ve seen. I thought I would throw them such a high price that they would decline my services. To my surprise, the man didn’t question my quote and he wanted to schedule as quickly as possible. I kind of dreaded the job, but I made good money from it even though I had to spend extra time to get it clean. With the high price, I didn’t mind taking the time to go over and over and over the place.
Also, sometimes when a room is very dirty, it can be a bit discouraging after the first or second pass. It probably is better, but it still looks bad. It may help you to isolate an area of the room and really work hard on it for a while. Then you can compare it to the rest of the room to see if you are making progress.
Best of all from the job you just finished – you surely learned from it! You need a few of these to give you a challenge and to frustrate you enough so that you charge accordingly when you see it again.
Hang in there!
Mike
You’re absolutely right about learning from it Mike. I do charge top dollar for my area, but I still feel that I can and should take a page from you and charge extra if the carpet filth is that extreme. You make a good point about them asking for my services though. Why would they call me if the job they did was so good? It’s so obvious and I never thought about it from that angle. I charge 30 cents a square foot, but next time I’ll charge 50 cents and even much higher if it’s even near that kind of soiling again. I’ll include protectant in the pricing too. Either I’ll make it worth my time or I’ll price myself out of that sort of job. One thing I’ve already learned is that no matter how much you try to evaluate a job beforehand customers will still try to throw you with little after-the-fact surprises. Thanks Mike.
Right Gary…like Kenny sang years ago…”know when to hold them, know when to fold them and when to run away….” or words to that effect.
Three days ago I came to a job that I should have run from. BLACK trail up steps and the LR all but black on a light beige carpet. I refused the steps and should have refused the rest of the job….
Live and learn. I will not waste my back, time and equipment like that again.
Just my 2 cents n the subject…
Part of those lyrics are “walk away”. Lower the expectation level and pray a little. In a perfect world, every stain and dirt particle would come right out, but that’s not reality. Some customers just don’t understand the meaning of a permanent stain. We always tell them up front “educating” and some say go ahead and do it, which is fine for getting the job. It sometimes makes you feel inadequite or like you didn’t do a good job or something but hey, that still dark high traffic area might be permanently stained, but it IS clean.
Mike
You’re right about that Mike. Even though you inform the customer some of them still expect a miracle and are very disappointed when you don’t deliver on their own expectations. With time I imagine I’ll be able to read my customers a lot better.
Your doing fine Kemp. Some people are just hard to deal with. You can’t make everybody happy. Trust your gut. You can get a lot more with sugar. My wife always says anyways. People are hard to read. I have a degree in Sociology, so it helps. Look around the house from time to time. If the floor is nasty as well as the house, most likely, anything that remotely looks better they will be happy with. If your doing your best, then that’s all you can do. I pray for all of us on a daily basis. Sometimes you just have to tell the Lord, “Lord, I give it all to you”. Your doing great!!!!
God Bless,
Mike
Thanks Mike. I appreciate the support. I agree with you regarding people. You never know what personality types or expectations you’re up against. This is even true when you’ve done everything you can to set the proper expectations in your customers. As long as I know that I’ve been honest with my customers and done my best I can always live with my successes and failures. Later.
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