Hi Kellie (and partner).
Having the word of mouth is essential and your right you dont want to annoy anyone, however it is quite critical to cover yourself for all eventualities and this should overide any feelings of custys poss getting annoyed.
But to be honest, you wont annoy anyone! once explained they will fully understand and will actually give you more respect if you quote correctly. You will appear more professional, and with more knowledge gained can charge accordingly.
The courses are:
http://www.iicrc.co.uk &
http://www.ncca.co.uk. The ncca is slightly more hands on whereas the iicrc is a bit more technical. Both very good. When we did ours for instance we went to Royston in Cambridgeshire, but they do them in lots of places.
With regard to the problem clean, I wouldnt re-do it if your partner felt that he did everything posiible, it would just be wasting time and effort. I would certainly go and see the chap though and explain that it is unreasonable to expect that the colour from under a rug to be the same as elsewhere. Tell him that there is no wear and no UV light getting under the rug - as it has done everywhere else. Wear and light will fade colours and these cannot be put back! I would try and explain this in a very polite manner! If I had surveyed this I would have mentioned that inground soil is sometimes impossible to remove and that we couldnt guarantee to remove all soil or stains, and further that we could improve the appearance only - and not get it to a brand new looking carpet.
With the printing we got hold of a printing company:
http://www.admiralprinters.com/print/techforms.htm we designed our own forms (survey) and the terms for the back (the ones I sent you).
Please please try and stress to your partner that carrying out a survey really will save him a lot of hassle in the future! Dont forget, some insurance companies wont pay out if you have a problem - unless you can prove that you have done a pre-survey with the custy's signature.
Hope this helps
Kev