Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Matt Seymour on November 30, 2010, 06:14:19 pm
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Just had a full on stand up row with a bloke from Enterprise Cleaning.
Got home from a job this afternoon and saw one of their vans parked in a neighbour's drive. Old lady on her own (surprise surprise).
She was one of their telesales victims; promised the £8.99 for two rooms etc. Unfortunately, by the time I got there he was already nearly finished. You will no doubt be unsurprised to learn that, in her case, £8.99 had become £150.
Not only had he used their bait and switch, the way he was cleaning the capets was unbelievable. He had sprayed down Trafficlean and was then "rinsing it" (his words) with a solution tank containing huge amounts of Prochem Woolsafe, a deodoriser AND Extraction Plus. He also claimed that he was sanitising the carpet, but I had a quick look in the back of his van and he didn't even have a sanitiser in there. In fact, he had next to nothing in there.
I swear the foam in his solution tank (not waste tank) was about 3 inches thick!
He claimed his machine had a heater (which it didn't) and when I asked him what he uses to remove red wine stains, he said "trafficlean."
Just been back over to the woman's house and her carpets are absolutely full of detergent.
As for the Watchdog programme, he claimed that the BBC are paying Enterprise compensation over the comments made by the lawyer on the show. If you believe that you'll believe anything.
He also said the nipper on Watchdog was just a "bad apple" and has been sacked. He even said that it isn't company policy to upsell.
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Awful story Matt. It makes me angry.
Can you advise the lady to contact trading standards?
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I did tell her to let them know, but they already have a pretty hefty file on them anyway by all accounts.
I swear I have never seen so much foam in a solution tank.
She hadn't seen Watchdog, but I have emailed her a link to it.
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bad news.. but why didn't she use you ?
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Had no intention of getting her carpets cleaned, but fell for the £8.99 offer.
That's how the scam works.
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poor woman... thats mugging in my book
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I'm seriously giving some consideration to either a local newspaper advert/leaflet drop name dropping this crowd of sharks.
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Go for it Neil!
I've just emailed the BBC and let them know about his claims that they are paying Enterprise compensation.
If that is the line they are trotting out and it isn't true they could find themselves in even more trouble.
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Personally I wouldn’t have poked my nose in. I hate stand up rows some always tops up having a lay down row ;)
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The woman in question was a neighbour. I wasn't just going to stand by and see her get shafted without making her aware of who she had allowed into her home.
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1) If they are operating illegal then why have we not seen them brought to justice yet??
2) Why did nobody from a carpet assc appear on the programme ??
3) There are a lot of old people out there and they will continue to rip them off and give us all a bad name unless a public body brings them to justice.
It really makes my blood boil that they are still trading and even worse expanding, it just makes a complete mockery of Rogue Traders, Trading Standards etc....they have seen it as free advertising and laughing at us all...
It seems no consumer body etc has any clout
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Would be good to know who the kingpin at Enterprise is! He must surely have been a carpet cleaner at somepoint in his life.... Maybe some one on here or a lurker ;) ;)
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2) Why did nobody from a carpet assc appear on the programme ??
if he was telling the truth, the trainer at Prochem called Adam did the behind the scenes talking bit but they decided to use the lawyer instead some odd reason.
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Would be good to know who the kingpin at Enterprise is! He must surely have been a carpet cleaner at somepoint in his life.... Maybe some one on here or a lurker ;) ;)
The man at the top of Enterprise is called Andrew Briars apparently.
Anyone know him?
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Would be good to know who the kingpin at Enterprise is! He must surely have been a carpet cleaner at somepoint in his life.... Maybe some one on here or a lurker ;) ;)
The man at the top of Enterprise is called Andrew Briars apparently.
Anyone know him?
No or I would offer to go and clean his carpets for him!!! ;D
Doesn't necessarily follow that he would once have been a CC'er. Probably a chancer (rich one at that) who sees an opportunity to make money (not worried how) and goes for it....remember this sort of thing does not only happen in our industry. He probably will have loads of differing industry businesses.
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And another came to my attention today.
I'm keeping this very short.
My wifes hairdressers mother fell for the £8.99 scam. The low life wanted £139 to do the job properly (loose use of words there) and it had to be CASH
She dug her heels in for the £17.98 clean (loung diner) and all she got was wet carpets.
Have told her to report to trading standards etc particulary as they are demanding cash. Perhaps this will get the f-ckers closed down if it get's reported onto Inland Revenue etc
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I have always worked on the idea of repeats and referrals. Obviously this lot will never get either yet they are getting plenty of work. Maybe I ought to stop giving a poo. :-\
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Maybe I ought to stop giving a poo. :-\
I've had those thoughts too. The one I've just mentioned is/was one of my previous customers who thought she was getting a bargin compared to the 'mates rates' of £60 I charged her previously for doing it correctly.
I would guess there are 35,000 domestic properties around here. With the best will in the world if I enterprised ripped off 4 customers a day I would never manage to get through all the potential customers in my lifetime.
Does make you wonder who are the mugs really?
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Did the old lady pay the £150?
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Neil you can sleep sound at night though, and that's important to me too.
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Unfortunately, no matter how good a rapport you have with your clients many will have no sense of loyalty to you and are likely to give someone else a try if their timing is right when an advert or leaflet catches their eye.
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And another came to my attention today.
I'm keeping this very short.
My wifes hairdressers mother fell for the £8.99 scam. The low life wanted £139 to do the job properly (loose use of words there) and it had to be CASH
She dug her heels in for the £17.98 clean (loung diner) and all she got was wet carpets.
Have told her to report to trading standards etc particulary as they are demanding cash. Perhaps this will get the f-ckers closed down if it get's reported onto Inland Revenue etc
The Trading Standards file on these cowboys must be so thick by now that they would need a forklift to pick it up!
How they are still trading is beyond me. They really don't see anything wrong in what they are doing.
What will it take?
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Matt
The best crims are not crims in the eyes of the law. The stupid crims are the ones that don't know the law. Moral standards are not set in stone by the law.
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The boss was actually in tele-sales, not carpet cleaning...............suprise suprise!
Apparantly they work closley with trading standards so they stay within the law.
They are here to stay!
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Maybe Trading Standards need investigating ::) ::)
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This is an Offce of Fair Trading issue , not trading standards . They are not trading fairly , I know the OFT are investigating "A trading entity" close to me , it wont be Daryl, so it must be Enterprise.
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How long does that take jason to be investigated ???
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How long does that take jason to be investigated ???
long enough for them to make enough money to set up another exact company in a different name. theres no cure for cancer.
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Unfortunately, these people will carry on trading until the public become educated.
They'll simply stop using the name 'Enterprise' and start using a new name, once work dries up. They'll then carry on with the Bait and switch scam as before.
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Yes looks like it too and it will go on then.
I did aska few of my clients if they did see the watchdog programe and they had not seen it.
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Enterprise's tactics might seem like a big deal to us in our little "carpet cleaning bubble".
But as the number of people who get their carpet cleaned in this country is probably only about 10% of the population, I doubt that Enterprise has registered much on the country's radar.
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Educating the public...........
Something that's been talked about for the past twenty years in c/c circles ............." educate your customers to pay more for using a professional service " Great idea.............but how will your prospective clients know the difference ?
There are no National Standards
There are no recognised Qualifications
If c/'s want to be taken seriously I'm afraid you need that kind of stature and credibility otherwise the public will have no guidelines to judge you by, but won't get it until it's forced upon you as you won't join the two credible organisations that can give you that recognition and drive them forward.
One of the organisations has been around since 1961 and their logo can be found on almost every contract cleaners vans and adverts. They're recognised as the leading provider of training courses in the cleaning industry and have recently added carpet cleaning.
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Robert, your previous post was nearer the mark ie customers there is no loyalty.
One of my questions when quoting is
"Have these carpets been cleaned before and if so who by?"
I'm amazed when I hear "yes by x,y,z"
"So why are you choosing me"
"Right place at the right time" is the general answer.
Now today I was quoting on an estate and was equally amazed to see another carpet cleaner at a property that we have done several times before. Flip we never even got a phonecall for the regular pre xmas living room carpet clean.
You can have all the logo's, all the training, all the latest hyper suction truckmounts, fan-daby-doby websites and it all comes down to right place right time, hence why this crowd are getting it right, 'Flood the market with telemarketing and go in cheap.' Bit like fishing at a trout farm.
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I agree Neil, with the analogy and it can be disappointing when someone you thought was a loyal client goes elsewhere but I suppose it's swings and roundabouts.
Mike Halliday has illustrated this point several times on here when talking about constantly leafleting the same areas month after month so he is always in his existing or potential clients mind when they think about carpet cleaning.
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I reckon they get about 1 in 40 calls, but... they know anyone stupid enough or old enough to let someone come round with the promise of a carpet clean for that price, is sure to be a soft touch.
As for losing your own custies, yes, you have to keep in contact otherwise they will stray. Other than that the best way to keep custies is to get a glowing testimonial off them. After that they won't use anyone else unless you screw up big time.