That’s right. We are not the best carpet cleaning company. We are not the best rug cleaning company either. We may not even be the best marble polishing company.
How do I know this?
Recently Appleby Cleaning and Restoration decided to see if we could become a Diamond Certified company. I know what you’re thinking. Anyone can become Diamond Certified if they pay for it. That’s what I thought too.
Not true.
These folks are for real. They took a random 100 Appleby customers and interviewed them. Each customer was asked a number of questions about our company. We needed at least a 90% approval rating to qualify for Diamond Certification. We scored a 93%-not a perfect 100%-but a 93%. That’s how I know we are not the best carpet cleaners, the best rug cleaners or the best marble polishers. When I asked Chris, our Diamond Certified representative if anyone scores 100%, she explained “Rarely–and certainly not in your category.” Chris recommended that I look for a common thread among the 7 customers that gave us low scores. If the complaints were mainly about price, then we had an excellent score. She explained that every vender gets a few customers who aren’t happy about paying. It’s impossible to avoid. I went through the negative comments and they read, “Could have been cheaper”, “They could have done it for less” and “Too pricey”. To my surprise she was absolutely correct. The negative comments were in fact price-related. Not one, thankfully, was about our quality of work.
So I don’t think we will ever be the best carpet cleaner, best area rug cleaner or best marble polisher. We will however please 93% of our clients.
And a full 100% of our customers will get what they pay for.