Groupon Carpet & Tile Cleaning

Recently one of my competitors decided to run a Groupon ad for cleaning carpet and tile & grout. This same individual ran a Groupon ad back in February according to his Yelp reviews. If you are not familiar with Groupon you can read about by googling groupon or reading my other blogs.

Here is his ad: $59.00 whole house, one story, up to 1,100 square feet (a $200.00 value); $99.00 whole house two story up to 2,500 square feet (a $350.00 value); $39.00 for 125 square feet of tile & grout cleaning (a $150.00 value). Must be used within six months of purchase and can not be combined with any other offers. In the fine print it read NOT VALID FOR HEAVILY SOILED AREAS {bold & italics added for emphasis}.If you were to survey 100 carpet cleaners and asked the question "How many of your clients have heavily soiled areas," the answer would be ALL - 100%.

One person asked him this question. "Does this deal include pre-treatment?" His response, "Pre-treatment is EXTRA, about $10.00 a room depending on staining." In case you are wondering pre-treatment is the application of a cleaning solution before the hot water extraction or steam cleaning. When potential clients point to the low cost carpet cleaners and ask me what is the difference between me and them I always like to ask the question "Mr. Smith, what do you think they leave out in order to get their price that low?" In this case it is the SOAP. According to one Yelp review that I looked at they also DID NOT pre-vacuum the carpets which goes against his IIRC certification that he proudly displays on his website.

Another person asked this question, "I have approximately 600 square feet of tile & grout how long would it take to clean this much floor?" His answer, "About 2 hours." Folks, it usually takes me about 40-60 minutes to prepare the floor before I can start cleaning not to mention my set up time, clean up time, and touch up time. By the way, his time frame included sealing the grout lines. The question I ask again is what is he leaving out.

As I have mentioned in the past I believe that there is a place in the market for Groupon, but I do not believe the cleaning industry is a good fit. In order to make the offer look appealing the cleaning company will usually lie about their prices, services, or quality of work. I said it before "If something looks too good to be true then it probably is."

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Michael Hull