Cleanfax Survey: Customer Retention Ranks as Most Important Challenge

NORTHBROOK, Ill.—January 9, 2019—Carpet cleaning companies face numerous challenges, from recruiting and retaining both customers and staff to maintaining profit margins and financing new equipment. In the 2019 Carpet Cleaning Benchmarking Survey Report, we asked participants to rank seven challenges on a 5 point scale ranging from “very important” to “not important” in order to learn the top concerns of the carpet cleaning industry. The survey results speak loud and clear: customer retention is the most important challenge with 89% of owners surveyed ranking it as “very important.”

Following customer retention, maintaining good cash flow or working capital was the next ranked challenge with 66% of owners rating it as very important, up from 63% last year. Finding new customers jumped to the third spot this year at 61%, up from 56% in 2018. Maintaining margins held steady right around 58% in both 2018 and 2019.

Everywhere we look it seems more and more owners are talking about how to recruit and retain top-quality staff in this job market where competition for good workers is steep. The Cleanfax survey confirmed the increasing importance of this challenge, with 70% of owners ranking it as very or somewhat important, up from 66% in 2018.

Among the least important challenges, most owners agree that financing new equipment and competing with low-cost providers aren’t the issues they’re sweating. Just 10% of owners rated competing with low-cost providers as very important, and 38% rated it as not important at all. That’s encouraging as we hope it means most of your customers can already see the value in the quality of service you provide, and you aren’t stuck in a game of trying to be the lowest bidder.

As you begin implementing your business plans for 2020, check out the full results of our 2019 Carpet Cleaning Benchmarking Survey, sponsored by Legend Brands.