Choosing a Professional Carpet Cleaner: Five Things to Look For
If you take care of your carpets properly, you’ll be rewarded with many years of beautiful flooring. Part of good carpet care includes getting your floors professionally cleaned about once per year. How do you know which professional carpet cleaner is the right one for you?
Here are five things to look for when choosing a professional carpet cleaner:
- What kind of certification do they have? Did you know that NASA has created a series of tests for carpet cleaners? If your carpet cleaner is a true professional, they’ll be ranked by The Carpet and Rug Institute, a national independent lab that rates and ranks carpet cleaning companies. They use NASA’s guidelines to vet professional carpet cleaners. That’s a certification that—dare we say it—is out of this world.
- What kind of tools do they use? Your professional carpet cleaner should have a variety of carpet cleaning tools available. The best tool around is a hot extraction wand, which agitates the carpets before cleaning, then sucks the dirt, grime and stains out before your eyes. Steam cleaners are a nice option, but they can soak your carpets. That takes forever to dry. A dry carpet cleaner may also be an option. This type of carpet cleaning gets your carpet wet, then buffs the stains out with a pad to soak up the moisture. Neither of these alternatives is as effective as a hot extraction wand, however. Be sure to ask your potential cleaner what kind of tools they use.
- Which carpet cleaning products do they use? Chemicals, soap and detergent are less than ideal choices for cleaning carpets—at least in less careful hands. Harsh chemicals can leave your carpets looking nice for a short period of time, but they may also make your carpets feel stiff and crunchy. Similarly, if soap and detergent are used, you need to find out how the carpet cleaner plans to remove the detergent from the floors. If they don’t, it will leave a film on your carpet than neither looks nor feels good.
- Do you like their customer support? How is the customer service when you call the carpet cleaning company? Are they pleasant? Do they answer your questions, or do they make you feel silly for asking? Customer support might not be the top priority when it comes to clean carpets, but a truly great company will value your business, and that should be obvious when you interact with them. When choosing between two good options, pick the one that demonstrates they care more about their customers.
- What have previous customers said about them? Finally, check your carpet cleaner’s reviews. Look for an overall pattern—while there might be some disgruntled customers or a spate of five-star reviews with no other information, you should take it on a holistic level. If the average review indicates satisfaction, you can feel safe entrusting your carpets to these cleaners.
Are you looking for quality professional carpet cleaning? Call Lov ‘N Kare Carpet Center today to learn more about our services.