Last month I mentioned how a carpet cleaner had decided to start checking his customer’s vacuum cleaner bags and belts as a value added service on every job. This has been extremely well received by his customers, who really appreciate that he cares so much about the maintenance of their carpet.

There has always been debate among carpet cleaners about pre-vacuuming before carpet cleaning. Let’s get this out of the way: there is overwhelming evidence that pre-vacuuming dramatically improves results and makes cleaning easier for the carpet cleaner.

I've received a lot of phone calls and e-mails concerning my articles about one-man versus two-man crews. Many of the cleaners that contacted me were amazed that there were so many different factors involved in determining whether one or two-man crews were better.

Last month I explained how my on-the-job research strongly suggests that one-man crews not only have a major advantage in terms of building repeat and referral business, but that it costs less to operate two one-man crews than a single two-man crew.

In my last article I discussed one-man vs. two-man crews, and my on-the-job research running a multi-city carpet cleaning operation for a major department store strongly suggests that one-man crews have a major advantage in terms of building repeat and referral business.

There's a great study where researchers stood in front of a supermarket asking customers going into the store what they planned to buy. The customers answered and went inside to shop, thinking that was the end of the survey. They were quite surprised when, on the way out, the researchers stopped them and asked if they could see what was in their grocery bags! And as you probably guessed, what people said they were going to buy and what they did buy were two different things.