I have not been in the carpet cleaning business long. I have a nice truck mount that works great and I'm starting to get a fair amount of business. I advertise, network and cold call so I'm growing at a fair pace. I'm not sure how to deal with furnature in my marketing and pricing. I'm neck and neck with my competition and I can clean an ave room in 20 miin then price things that way. I tell my customers I move only light furnature and clean up to the rest doing mainly traffic areas for the prices we advertise. I don't move beds, dressers, entertainment centers and bookcases. That shouldn't leave much to have to move, but when I get there sometimes they have a lot of clutter furnature like end tables with lots of pics on them, gym equip, plastic bins and chairs and stuff. I can get bogged down with to much moving if I get into all that and I loose money or I charge them up front and apear like a high priced carpet guy or charge them more when I come out but that doesn't always set well. At this point I just work around the stuff move a little, keep to my 20 min and get out and hope they are ok with it. Any ideas out there? how do you handle furnature with your pricing and service. Oh by the way I hate moving the stuff so if I can avoid it I will. Is that bad?

 

Or........as a marketing point of view advertise that your company moves all furniture FREE of charge...........that might give you an edge of your competition.

 

                                                     Nightrider

 

If a customer is undecided on whether he wants me to move or not to move, I will simply tell him the above, along with the fact that most of my customers don't want it moved, and usually he will say to leave everything where it is and just go around it (thus becoming part of the majority!).

 

I hate moving furniture, too, and while I accept it as a necessary part of our business, I am always glad to avoid the extra work. I can lead a customer to tell me  to leave the furniture where it is by giving him the two choices, with the last one being leave the furniture and go around.  Whichever option I say last remains in the customer's mind longer, and I think influences him to that choice.  If I say leave it and go around last, this almost always becomes what he asks me to do.

 

I tell the ones that want me to move furnitire beforehand what I will move (armchairs, sofas, loveseats) and will not move (most everything else, with some exceptions), and they are usually OK with it. I do not charge extra to move furnitire, unless there is a huge amount to move.

 

It is appreciated when people can respond with intelligent posts unlike "Doug" who would rather insult than really read the question. I imagine with that kind of personallity he has to be rather unsuccesful and unfulfilled in what he does and gets enjoyment out of offending others.  Good luck with that Doug.