Bait and switch cleaners

I had a funny conversation this morning with a new client. She told me about the last company that came round to clean her carpets and frankly I just couldn't believe what I was hearing..
The story goes that these guys rang her out of the blue to offer her carpet cleaning at £9 a room!! Now she decided to do some research and found that this was a very good price (it certainly was a low price but how good it turned out is another thing!)

So she called them back and booked them in to clean all the bedrooms. When they turned up they started to discuss 'extras' like deodorising, moving of furniture, sanitising, neutralising etc.
Well the 3 bedrooms ended up costing her £150. Now if they'd actually done a good job this would be fine (also if they hadn't decieved her about the price in the first place), however they didn't even carry out the most basic of procedures: pre-vacuuming, brushing in of the pre-spray, spot cleaning etc.

What they did was quickly set up their smelly steam-extraction machine and run over the carpet for 2 hours. After they'd gone she found they actually hadn't moved the beds atall which they had charged extra for!

Now i'm sure there are alot of you carpet cleaners out there that have heard horror stories similar to this from your own clients. Sadly, I can type 'carpet cleaning london' into a search engine now and see a few of these cowboys on the first page. Gladly, I know they also struggle to keep their businesses alive because of the lack of repeat work they recieve. Remember, you are always going to be better of running a business properly and being upfront with your clients. If you work like the company I've just described, please just leave this industry.. You're now wanted!!