Happy Ending
So yesterday afternoon the carpet guy sent by the chimney guy came over. Talk about a completely opposite experience. He came in, all chatty and introduced himself. Checked out the stained part of the carpet and said, “Jeez, you’re just trying to do the right thing and get your chimney inspected and then this happens to you. What a bummer.” I showed him where I bleached out the color trying to clean it and he sympathized with my efforts. Then he hooked up his steam cleaner and in seconds the soot was gone, AND SO WAS THE LIGHT SPOT. Insanity. I guess the bleaching stuff wasn’t permanent? As we talked about fireplaces and steam cleaning, he said, “Your carpet is pretty clean, actually.” I said, “Oh, there are little stains all over the place but mostly it’s pretty good.” And he said, “Uh, I have the machine out, why don’t you show me where the stains are?” So I did and while he gabbed and gabbed, he cleaned about 90% of the carpet. HELLO! Free carpet cleaning on the douchebag chimney guy! Chimney Guy may have lost me as a customer, but Carpet Guy will be invited back here to clean the upstairs.
My guess is that these stains will resurface in about six months; I’ve noticed that’s always the case with carpet cleaning. But for now I’m pretty pleased.

April 30th, 2009 - 08:12
YAY!
April 30th, 2009 - 09:14
Aw, three cheers for Carpet Guy!
April 30th, 2009 - 09:27
Y’know, there’s a school of thought in business that says that when there’s a mistake or a screw up, you can sometimes make a better impression, and gain massively increased customer satisfaction, if you handle it right. Sounds like you’ve seen both ends of that spectrum.
April 30th, 2009 - 09:49
Completely.
April 30th, 2009 - 14:04
when i saw the title of the post i expected a totally different experience with the carpet guy.
April 30th, 2009 - 14:17
wakka wakka wakka
April 30th, 2009 - 17:38
You should buy that man a pizza!
May 1st, 2009 - 17:58
Good to hear!