[Mike Halliday]

Just sat here in Costa coffee watching a company called  ( deleted name )  bonnet clean the carpets.

16ft x16ft. 10mins. no vacuuming, pull tables & chair to one side, clean, then move across and clean the other side. all tables replaced onto damp carpet with no foils.

He's starting the next carpet  same bonnet, can see his pump up sprayer he used 1lt of prespray.

WAIT...WAIT!!! He dunked the bonnet into his bucket of water.

He's finished. Been here 25 minutes

I feel like buying him a coffee for this demonstration on professional bonnet cleaning

FANTASTIC!! He,s going to clean the chairs!!! Guess what machine he is going to use?

I will try and take a photo....

[Mike Halliday]

Got some great photos, but you can't post pics from an iPad onto CIU

He is cleaning the chairs with a steam machine that has extraction ...... about the size of a small flight suitcase.  pre spraying the chairs on the carpet he has just cleaned,

[gwrightson]

Wish you had called me over Mike from mcdons.

Not sure but i am guessing kingson .......   i did see there van there.

Geoff

[Paul Clapham]

He may have only been allocated 30mins to do the job by his employer and Costa Coffee might only be paying peanuts to have them cleaned ,

[Mike Halliday]

Geoff look at the time.... It was this tea time not when I saw you at dinner time.

This company are national with branches in Glasgow ( head office) Luton and Staffordshire.

[Craigp]

Is the company well known? Im intrigued who it is.


Just shows an employee will never do as good a job.

It can work well to tell a customer this. (if the competition is using employees)

[Mike Gwilliam]

I can't see the point in  being interested in what other companies are doing as long as you are doing it right yourself.

On a slight digression....

I walked out to get some stuff from my van today and saw a group of people perhaps 15 yards away stood behind a 4ft fence. One bloke was towering above the rest of the people perhaps 2 foot! Now I thought this bloke was perhaps stood on a small wall. I saw that in the group of people there was a bloke taller than me, maybe 6ft 3 and the tall bloke was far taller.
When these people dispersed, the very tall bloke was indeed not stood on a wall and walked off!

When I got inside the nursury I was working, i said to the caretaker.....you know I'm not sure what i just saw outside. I told him that I think I saw a very tall bloke outside who seemed to tower over even a tall bloke!

Oh yea he said.... thats Big All, he's 8 foot 4   and used to be a basket ball player and has much to do with the local schools.

[John Kelly]

Don't know why you are surprised, there are acres of commercial carpets cleaned everyday by large companies who don't know what they are doing.
One of my customers has just sold a machine to a very large facilities company. When they demoed it they were asked to do a specific area as the rest had been cleaned only days earlier. No we'll try it here, jaws dropped, but we've just done that area, we'll have to do it all again now. Yes but properly with the right kit.

[Mike Halliday]

To be honest I am surprised, just a few small changes he could have gone from a crap job to an acceptable job.

I'm sat here again looking at the carpets and they look no different.

Mike you are right why should I be bothered how other companies work, but what puts me off trying to get large contracts is knowing I will have someone who I can trust to do the job right..... so I don't get any call backs.

But if this job is an example of how other national companies work then maybe I should reconsider

[wynne jones]

The big company mentality is everyone wants to look good on paper.

Someone was responsible for assigning the contract and got a pat on the back for screwing the cheapest company to the floor.

The sales rep at the company promised them the earth and impressed them with health and safety blurb and his knowledge of key performance indicators.

The sales rep then has nothing to do with the implementation and goes off to check his commision stats.

The contract company then advertise a minimum wage job (after all its only cleaning) and drag a grateful dole waller off the street.

I was in a Costa at the weekend, the carpets were shabby, I had more throth in my cup than liquid and your the wrong side of a fiver if you want a slice of cake to go with it. The place was heaving. 

[Simon Gerrard]

Believe it or not there is an element of the market that is not so much about standards and getting things done right, but more about getting things done on the cheap just so that they can say they've been done, almost a tick box operation.
My son's law firm in Manchester get their carpets cleaned every now and then, the guy from a big firm (can't remember the name) shows up with a padding system, skips over the reception and main areas and leaves. The carpets look on slightly better but no one gives a fook - the carpets have been cleaned. Strange, but true.

[John Kelly]

Unfortunately a sympton of couldn't care less Britain. Bet this doesn't happen in Germany.

[derek west]

maybe you could tell them that they are wasting there money, might as well not bother etc.... https://www.facebook.com/CostaCoffee

[Andrew Briscoe]

There is a bakers near us who supply Costas with there cakes,
they get them for £4.50 delivered, they are pre cut into 14 slices,
and they knock it out a £3 a slice, thieving gits, but good business

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Comes down to price also if its in the cleaning spec then on paper the carpets have been cleaned, when tendering for large multi store carpets contractors are to blame as they think its a bidding war and then go and cut corners with the cleaning or the training of the staff or the machinery and products.

Shaun

[Carpet Dawg]

There is a bakers near us who supply Costas with there cakes,
they get them for £4.50 delivered, they are pre cut into 14 slices,
and they knock it out a £3 a slice, thieving gits, but good business

They probably say the same for us carpet cleaners.

a few pence in materials + one hour of graft = £100 

[Simon Gerrard]

Comes down to price also if its in the cleaning spec then on paper the carpets have been cleaned, when tendering for large multi store carpets contractors are to blame as they think its a bidding war and then go and cut corners with the cleaning or the training of the staff or the machinery and products.
Shaun

I think it is the other way round. It is a bidding war and quite deliberately so on the part of the company looking for contractors and reduce it to a sum of money and not to a specification. In fact specifications don't seem to get mentioned, which isn't surprising as the buyers don't understand what they need to specify in order to buy the correct type of cleaning for their circumstances which undermines the whole exercise and so they end up with what Mike described.

Simon

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I partially agree but at the end of the day it's the company that puts the price in that are more at fault, I've just tendered for a school at £810 they accepted another quote for £225 I wasn't going to compete with their price I was told after I had submitted my price and asked if I could better the £225.so the school are even trying to shave the lower prices, I did ask what quality they were after and they said that they wanted it clean as that is what they were paying for.

Shaun

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

The contract cleaning market is very price driven, where quality is largely neglected, look at hospitals!

This type of client looks at CC much the same, no point in worrying about it as you would not be prepared to even try it at the prices they want to pay.

Cheers

Doug

[Russ Chadd]

I walked into my local Costa... the fabric bases on the chairs were filthy dirty, lots of hot beverage spills!
I offered to clean them at a really low price which included fabric guard.
The manager fed me a load of pony saying they were going to have a re fit and all the furniture would be replaced... that was 8 months ago.
It seems large multi national companies such as Costa's see the general maintenance of their seating and carpets as a bit of non priority !