Carpet cleaning associations, what do they really mean?
One of our technicians was asked this question today, he was also asked why MASTERCLEAN ® being such a well established company were not members of a particular ‘association’ which for the purpose of this article will remain nameless, but needless to say, if you are reading this article with interest you will know which ‘associations’ our customer was referring to.
The reason this particular client asked this question was because he had called us in to put right what one of the ‘associations’ members had done.
Unfortunately his carpets had been left sopping wet for nearly 3 days, fortunately they were well fitted and no shrinkage had occured, but once dry they still looked almost as dirty as before they had been cleaned. He was quite upset as you can imagine, especially as he thought he was doing the right thing by hiring a member of the said ‘association’.
He did contact the tradesman in question and was told in a round about way what to do with his complaint, not very satisfactory at all.
We told the client that he should complain to the ‘association’ that this tradesman belonged to, which he tried to do, but to no avail. A scenario that over our many years of trading seems to occur time and time again.
This is when he turned to us, we re-cleaned the carpets in question and made sure they would be dry in a matter of a couple of hours rather than days, and the client was very satisfied with the job done.
In amongst all this is when our technician was asked the question, his response was simply this, MASTERCLEAN ® has been in business for more than 20 years and is the most highly recommended upholstery, curtain and carpet cleaning specialists in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, and beyond, all our upholstery and carpet cleaners are trained by MASTERCLEAN ® to the highest standards, not given a 2 day course and a test thats not worth the paper it’s written on, then let loose on the consumer who of course is completely unaware of what is really going on behind the scenes in the carpet and upholstery cleaning world.
Of course all non-members are aware of these problems with being ‘associated’ and indeed there are many more reasons why some of the best carpet cleaners in Britain choose not to join. Ourselves and many other non-recipricators are also aware that these associations do actually do some good, but their practices in recent years has created an undesirable situation purely for financial gain, Masterclean ® and many other excellent professionals across the country disagree with these practices.
The client responded by saying that the ‘associations’ logo’s were on all the traders stationary even on the side of his van, he even told the client not to trust any company who was not a member, as they would not be qualified enough to do the job properly.
Our techinician apparantly burst out laughing and told the client that as he has seen by the job we have done, this mans statements were totally untrue. He went on to explain that the ‘associations’ members and that includes there associate members have to pay a fee each year in order to stay a member, and from this they benefit from national advertising campaigns, being able to use the associations logos on their vans and stationary, but they do not actually regulate the work that is going on across the country by these so called ‘experts’ they seem to be producing by the hundreds each year.
Somebody is doing very well, thank you very much from all the renewed memberships each year, but the poor cleaners are like lambs to the slaughter, with very little initial experience in the field, questionable knowledge of what they are actually doing, and worst still no idea of running a succesful enterprise. So after purchasing thousands of pounds worth of equipment on the recommendation of these ‘associations’ they are left with a huge deficit, they need turnover and quick, so you will find many of them are new start ups and also charging ridiculously low prices, this usually means a poor job, if your lucky, or disaster if you are unlucky.
This is why MASTERCLEAN ® and many other reputable, experienced honest, trustworthy carpet cleaning companies, amongst many other reasons, beyond the scope of this particular article are not members of any carpet cleaning ‘association’ and whats more we will never be any part of a national body that runs itself in this improper manner.
The client was quite astonished at the explanation, but thankful that now all had been made very clear to him, he told our cleaner that the next time he had any kind of job done in his home that he would get a recommendation from his friends and neighbours first.
So in answer to, what do these associations really mean? In the words of our technician, it means that the person they are hiring has the most basic training and understanding required to clean upholstery and carpets, and thats it, it does not guarantee a good job, or good customer service.
We agree.
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