Facilities invest more in flooring and carpet care than they do in most other areas of building maintenance. For that reason, end users are constantly searching for ways to maintain and clean carpets effectively while minimizing the need for restoration or replacement. To avoid mistakes — and cement relationships — many distributors make sure customers are well-trained in using carpet care products before a purchase is finalized.

When talking to sanitary supply distributors, it’s difficult to concretely define what “training” is. For some, training is explaining how to use a product after closing on a sale. For others, it means an elaborate curriculum of education that takes place on a regular basis. However it’s defined, most distributors know that quality training can do wonders for customer relations.

Learning and Earning
Jerry Elkine and others in upper management at Empire Cleaning Supply, Los Angeles, have done informal training in carpet care for three years, but last year they began a regular schedule of educational workshops. “We had a person come into our building once, and he wanted to buy a really high-end extractor,” says Elkine. “He had never done any kind of cleaning before, and he was just starting out with a new business. I told him, ‘I promise that I’m willing to take your money, but I won’t sell you this extractor unless you come to one of our classes first.’”

After attending one of these workshops and seeing exactly what was involved with carpet extraction, the customer realized that a 12-inch upright vacuum was a much better fit for his young business. Eventually, the same customer upgraded to a high-quality buffer. And just recently, he was ready to purchase an extractor — the same model that he had wanted to buy months before.

“Our philosophy is that you won’t be successful by trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes just to make a one-time sale,” says Elkine. “This way, I’ll hopefully have a customer for the next 20 years.”

Proper training can lead not only to long-term gain for distributors, but also short-term benefits. David Hebert, owner of Reliable Cleaning Systems, Indian Orchard, Mass., is one distributor who landed a huge account due, in part, to his educational programs.

Reliable’s customer, The University of Massachusetts (UMASS) was using a carpet-cleaning machine with a very low rate of gallon-per-minute, according to Hebert. When representatives from UMASS attended Reliable’s carpet care educational programs, they realized they could clean all the carpets on campus with significantly less interruption if they used a cleaning machine that hooks up to facility faucets.

UMASS subsequently bought new machines from Reliable that employ the hook-up technology.

“The dealer has the opportunity to show customers how to save time and money,” says Hebert of his company’s training programs. “That’s especially important to in-house cleaners with tight budgets.”

Although the majority of students in a carpet-cleaning educational seminar are customers, distributors do use seminars as a way to reach out to potential customers, and build a good name for themselves. A few distributors even collect significant revenue from hosting the events.

“Typically, a two-day course on carpet care would cost a distributor between $2,000 and $3,000 to hire a qualified independent educator,” says Jeff Bishop, head of standards for the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC). “They usually charge their customers around $300 to come, and most seminars draw more than 30 people; if they do that, they can make some money.”

Of course there are many additional costs associated with facilitating a successful carpet-cleaning workshop. The hosting company usually provides food and must secure an appropriate venue. Multimedia is another possibility. However, most carpet care training is most effective if it involves hands-on interaction with students.

Whether the training takes the form of a formal seminar or a casual demonstration, carpet care education must always be applicable to the end user’s job.

“Hands-on training is very practical and, therefore, very popular,” says Bishop. “Every time a major piece of equipment has the potential to be sold, you must demonstrate operational procedures. Distributors must show how to operate the machine, maintain it, and fix it when problems arise. So, in a sense, training occurs whenever there is a sale.”

Shelley Riley-Kraus, owner of Maintenance Mart, Phoenix, agrees. End-user training in carpet care is all about walking through the specific processes that are required, she says.

“We’ve found that really the only way for end users to learn is through hands-on instruction,” she says. “If you put people in a classroom and just talk at them, they won’t have the necessary tools to perform. The training has to be very practical.”

Educating the people who will actually be doing the cleaning is preferable to educating managers, says Ed Lynch, sales manager for Northern Chemical & Janitorial Supply in Glendale, Ariz. “There is often a lack of communication when you train supervisors,” he says. “Information gets lost when it’s passed on to the workers.”

But when cleaning professionals attend educational events, they ask the right questions and they’re more likely to retain the presented information.

“It’s great when we have the actual cleaners attending because they really want to know what will work on carpets and what won’t. The problem, however, is that cleaners are sometimes too hesitant to speak up in a discussion,” he says.

Learning the right buttons to push to motivate students doesn’t take exceptional talent, says Elkine. “It has its challenges, but the real key is to keep everyone interested. Some people are stuck in their ways and are less apt to learn methods, but if they’re willing to come to a cleaning seminar, they are probably willing to learn some new things.”

Carpet Chemistry 101
Carpet care educators also face recurrent problems when teaching end users proper cleaning and maintenance. The problems are usually a result of janitorial professionals using the wrong kind of chemical on a carpet or using too much chemical.

“Carpet cleaning chemicals must have a certain pH level to effectively remove the stain without damaging the carpet,” says Elkine. “We like to get everyone in the classroom and have them observe how different chemicals affect different stains.”

Most manufacturers offer stain-resistant carpets. But one thing end users need to realize is that certain cleaning chemicals will remove the carpet’s resistant coating.

“When you get a new carpet, it contains a repellent,” says Riley-Kraus. “If you don’t reapply that repellent, you have a vulnerable carpet. Every time, after the carpet is extracted, end users should put the protectant back on. It’s a step that often gets left out, and it’s something we have to address when we educate. Most cleaning contractors don’t even think about it.”

Riley-Kraus and other distributors carefully demonstrate how to reapply a carpet repellent for their students. Maintenance Mart’s employees recommend spraying the repellent back on the carpet and giving it enough time to set and regain its protective properties.

Most fresh water has a neutral pH of 7. Chemicals with a pH higher than 7 have a higher base concentration, and anything with a lower pH is acidic. Distributors dedicate much of their educational seminars to helping end users understand the characteristics of acids and bases.

Although reapplying carpet protection is a good idea, using a cleaning chemical with a milder pH can also eliminate the problem, says Lynch. “We’ve found that chemicals with a pH of 10 are usually fine for carpets, but anything higher than that is usually too harsh. I have all my salespeople bring a piece of litmus paper with them when they visit a customer, so they can clearly explain what the cleaning chemical is doing to the carpet.”

If a cleaning chemical is too harsh, Lynch suggests that end users run a pannin, or carpet neutralizer, through their extractor so that chemical isn’t left on the carpet. Neutralizing carpet after cleaning can be important, but it still doesn’t solve the problem of reapplying stain protection.

“The carpet neutralizer is like how Downey works for your laundry,” says Riley-Kraus. “In Arizona, we always have to use it because the water tends to be too harsh.”

Lynch and Riley-Kraus have differing opinions in how they teach end users to apply the carpet neutralizer. While Lynch recommends running it through the extractor, Riley-Kraus teaches end users not to run any chemical, even neutralizer, through an extractor because chemical build-up in carpet machines can cause damage over time.

Distributors are wise to check with manufacturers of floor-cleaning equipment to see if a chemical is likely to damage the machines mechanics.

“If you read the labels on carpet neutralizers, most of them are pretty safe to use in a machine because that’s what they’re designed for,” says Robert Parker of G&B Janitorial Supply, Bound Brook, N.J.

“The biggest area that distributors can help end users in is just using the right amount of chemical,” says Parker. “If you’re doing that correctly, then you won’t have to go back and lessen the effects of the cleaning as much.”

End users want universal solutions for solving carpet care problems, rather than having to buy a certain product.

“Unfortunately, the problem with some distributor-led training is that they only want to push their own carpet care products,” says Bishop. “We get a lot of feedback from end users who say, ‘I really enjoyed the education part of your seminar, but I didn’t want to be pressured by the distributor into using a particular product.”

In order to be a valuable resource to end users, distributors must continue their own education. They must keep up dialogue with manufacturers about new product developments and learn how each product line differs.

“A lot of times janitorial companies just go grab a machine and call themselves carpet cleaners,” says Hebert. “But really, they need someone to take time with them and explain things. Even a video can be a help, as long as they’re willing to make use of it.”

pH Scale
The pH scale is an important tool in carpet cleaning and restoration training. Cleaning chemicals usually have an alkaline composition and can be found on the base side. Educators talk about the importance of neutralizing the carpet after cleaning with harsh chemicals. They often say that the carpet must be brought back down to zero, but in actuality, the carpet must regain its neutral pH of 7.

GRAPHIC SOURCE: WATER ON THE WEB




POSTED ON: 10/1/2002