Don't let just anyone through your door!  You owe it to yourself to answer these four questions before trusting your beautiful carpet, upholstery, rugs, or other flooring to a carpet cleaning company.   Be sure that you do not base your decisions on anything else than what is documented as you can be told virtually anything over the phone.

What makes your company unique to other carpet cleaning companies?

Look out for a company that prides itself on the lowest price.  You subject yourself to either mediocre quality as the business has to do a higher volume of work to remain profitable or you will be dealing with a cookie cut business that doesn't care about your individual needs.  We frequently uncover sloppy work or questionable practices done by firms like this when we've been asked to service an area that they have previously serviced.

Are all of your technicians licensed, certified, and insured?

Any company is only as strong as their front line employees.  Your precious carpets, rugs, upholsteries, and other flooring deserve to receive thorough, educated service that takes each unique need into consideration.   A hand woven oriental rug has a unique procedure and shouldn't receive the same service that is necessary on a living room carpet.  If you settle for an answer of no to this question, you are risking color damage, warping, fading, oversaturation, and other nightmares that do happen.

What kind of a guarantee do you provide?

This will tell a lot about the company you are considering.  If their guarantee comes with alot of confusing disclaimers or they simply don't offer one - you are gambling with even using this company.  If they do guarantee their service be sure you have it in hard documentation to ensure that you have something to stand on should something go wrong.

Any honest carpet cleaning service would be up front and tell you that even a perfect cleaning of a carpet may require a second visit due ot the nature of the soil or stain along with other factors.  You should demand to be protected from having to pay twice to solve one problem or even worse having to pay for their damage caused by ignorance.

Do you have recent customers that I can contact to ask about your quality of service?

A company telling you that they cannot provide referrals should raise flags.  It usually means they aren't proud of the level of service that they provide.  A company that prides itself on referrals as being it's main source of new business understands that every job is not only being evaluated by their customer, but many more potential customers that will witness their work after they've left.

Sometimes a company may ask to call you back with this information as they may need to confirm that their customers are still okay with being contacted.  This is a good sign as it shows a commitment to providing you with fresh referrals versus having a list of 2 to 3 customers that could be relatives or have alterior motives to provding you with feedback.