Let's push the carpet cleaner !

So my biggest commercial account is acting up, been with me for a few years now and they keep adding stuffs to be cleaned, now it's worth roughly almost $ 2500 / month, that's after I gave them 10% discount that's valid for 12 months ( the discount that is ), now they are trying to eliminate one floor of carpets from monthly work, worth about $ 735 bucks ( before the 10% discount ), I told them if they eliminate that floor, they would lose the discount that's worth almost $ 300 / month, I finally had a talk with the manager yesterday and although she was nice, she told me that she doesn't really care about the discount but it's more like if they need the cleaning once a month or not, I told her yes, the carpet is black so it doesn't show dirt but when we dump, the waste water is pretty dark, she said okay let's keep it monthly but please let me know if it gets to the point where we don't need that floor to be done monthly.
This company really likes me, they stated that quite a few times on emails because I always respond within minutes if not hours to their questions or concerns, I really don't want to lose them but I feel like they are trying to push me further and further, I know for a fact if they use someone else, they would not be happy with them but I don't want to take the chance, this is a $ 30 k / year business we're talking.

I have gone through that many times Dp, so let me offer what worked for me. Make certain that somebody is inspecting your cleaning every time. Results have to be something that they value or else they will just lose interest in cleaning or decide to go with a cheaper company when they look at their budget.

IF they are not inspecting the results now, they will easily replace you since they don't really care about the results. Even a bad cleaner can half-ass their way to a paycheck with a customer like that.

I even go as far to show the filter bag to the customer to show what was removed from the "clean-looking" carpet. That is always a show-stopper and one that I strongly recommend.

Bottom line is that you want them to care about the cleaning as much as you and that takes some tugging of their reins at times. When they look at the budget and see that they are spending 30k for cleaning, you want them to remember those filter bags.

At the theater that I clean, the employees give me free sodas and thank me when I show up to clean as they often comment that the carpet is disgusting when they vacuum nightly.

You want to be that important to them.

Exactly, let your work speak for you. Have to agree over the fact of work inspection mentioned by milspec. And no woories, if you are doing it right this deal won't go anywhere.

So if I understand this right. One of the floors, they want to stop doing it monthly? But when you clean it monthly, the water comes out dark? And sound like it should be done monthly.
This one of those; you tell her if it dosnt need to be done, you won't do it. But, you do it, because it needs it. Video the dumping of water, show her how dark it is.
And I would imagine some puckering up to keep the account is in order? LOL

Maybe offer to clean half of that floor and challenge them to spend the day wearing white socks without shoes. The results would likely be dramatic.

It gets difficult keeping large contracts happy as they are always looking for a budget cut somewhere and they forget how things were before you started to clean for them. They get so used to the present that they start to think that cleaning isn't such a priority any more since the floor doesn't look and smell like crap.

If that floor really needs cleaned every month, then offer to skip once and see what happens. If you are correct, they will find a dirty and smelly carpet again and end their desire to cut that part of the budget.

Thanks guys, I actually already told them that I might record a short video when I dump the waste water, the problem is we do 1st floor last and due to my machine bypassing some hot water, the waste water had been diluted by clean water, I just have to stop working and dump the water before I do that 1st floor, I'm also going to shoot that filter, thanks Bob, that's a great idea.
I just am not going to give them any more break in prices, even though I have to admit the profit is still great currently even after all the discounts I give them, we're still making almost $ 300 / hour with 3 techs including myself working and usually 1 TM running and 1 portable being used for 7th floor.
Matt, what's weird is when I went to that 1st floor yesterday to get some cushions to be cleaned, I was surprised to see the color of the carpet, even though it is dark ( almost black ), it has patterns of some lighter grey in it, and the reason why I was surprised is the lighter grey patterns looks really clean, we've been cleaning that for a few months now and when we first started they look like black patterns on black carpet, that's how dirty it was and as we all know sometimes one cleaning is not going to cut it when they were that dirty, but now it seems like it's really clean.
I told them already 2 days ago that I'm going to evaluate the condition on the next cleaning and let them know. We'll see how it goes next month I guess.

Wow, that's actually a really good idea Bob, I'll offer that to them for June's cleaning and I'm pretty sure they will bite, thank you.

I ran into carpet like that a couple of years ago. The customer told me that they had all-black carpet when they called for the estimate. We were both surprised to discover that there was gray in there.

That filter is just such a great selling point. Not only will it contain a lot of soil and sand, but it will smell terrible. Unlike the waste tank water, the filter has had water flowing through it the entire time and yet it smells horrible......that is what is being removed from the carpet, soil and odors.

Another way to show empathy towards the customers view;
Mrs. I understand what your saying. I'll keep in mind any adjustments to the cleaning schedule, to see if we can save you a little money; without letting soiling conditions get away from us.
So you let her know YOU are on Her side, but that you are about maintaining the clean level of the carpets,.

Great way to respond to that one Matt, Your showing empathy to their concern with a dose of reality of the situation.

Let them know (indirectly & politely) that the current price is at your lowest limit where it can be.

That's a great insight Matt !! Thanks.