CM/Spotlight: Carpet Care Providing Services Beyond Carpet Cleaning You clean the carpet, but can you also maintain it? By: Rodrick Peddycoart P Providing carpet maintenance services to your current commercial janitorial custom-er base is a great way to add an additional income stream to your business. By marketing additional services to your existing customers, you already have your foot in the door. They trust your company and are obvi-ously pleased with the quality of your service. This should make it much easier to introduce them to carpet maintenance services. The opportunities to generate good profits from commercial carpet mainte-nance are huge. Nearly every commercial building has carpet in some or all of their space. This carpet represents a large dollar investment to your customer, and provid-ing regular maintenance can actually save them money in the long run by extending the life of the carpet. Additionally, a regularly maintained car-pet provides a more pleasing appearance. Furthermore, a well-maintained carpet provides for a healthier indoor environ-ment, reducing health-related lost work time. In order to provide the best possible solutions to your customers’ needs, it’s important to have a good understanding of the types of carpet you will be working on, as well as the various processes used in maintaining them. There are numerous courses available to teach you the technical aspects of provid-ing these services; the Internet can also be a good source of information. Remember not to overlook your local supplier, as they can often be a great source of information and training. Whatever route you take, just remember to educate yourself. Doing so will make you appear more knowledgeable and professional. Consider The Basics One thing to consider when contemplat-ing an additional service line is how it will impact your current production. Do you have the additional man-hours available to complete this new service? What additional equipment and sup-plies will you need? What additional training and knowl-edge will this require? Will you need additional insurance coverage? By asking yourself these questions and analyzing the results, you will know wheth-er or not a new service line will be a good fit into your current company. The good news is that you can add car-pet maintenance in three ways. 1. Subcontract the work to a carpet cleaning and repair professional 2. Train your staff to perform the ser-vices 3. Use a mixture of both. The type of carpet found in commercial settings is typically a low-loop synthetic fiber installed by gluing the carpet directly to the sub-floor, which is generally concrete. Commercial carpet is designed to with-stand the rigors of constant use and will respond nicely to a regular maintenance routine. The commercial environment exposes the carpet to soiling situations that are unique. The main soiling issue will be dry par-ticulate soil that, left in place, can quickly damage a carpet. The rest of the soiling will likely be spills from soft drinks, tea and coffee along with some unidentifiable spots of unknown origin. The majority of spot cleaning can easily be incorporated into your regular janitorial routine by simply training your staff in the proper spotting techniques and ensuring they have the appropriate spotting solu-tions on hand. Simple carpet repairs can easily be performed by the regular janitorial crew as well. The most common repair needed on commercial carpet is loose threads appear-ing at seams or other locations that were damaged by a snag. It’s important to address these as they are discovered because they are not only unsightly, but will pose a slip, trip and fall hazard and can further damage the carpet. A very simple repair can be performed using duckbill scissors and snipping the lose seam at its base. So far, we have covered situations that can easily be performed by your current 36 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • July 2011
CMM – Archives Jul 2011: 36
