IICRC… Clean Trust… IICRC?

By Jeff Cross, senior editor

April 27, 2012

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By now you have all heard the news. Last October, The Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) decided to rebrand with The Clean Trust as the organization''s name. But then, on March 17, a press release announced that the board of directors voted to reverse that decision and return to the original IICRC.

The Clean Trust will remain as the "service mark" for the organization, as a way to continue to better reach the consumer marketplace.

What does all this mean to you, this reversal? Some of you, upon hearing the news, posted on the Cleanfax bulletin board and on the Cleanfax Facebook page how you were upset because you had made logo and name changes in your marketing materials.

But that''s okay, as The Clean Trust name and logo can continue to be used for consumer marketing. The IICRC will be for you, the business owner who relies on practical certification training the organization has provided for many years in the way of approved courses and schools.

Thinking back to the negative response to The Clean Trust name and logo, I figured a decision would be made that would address concerns. That''s what happened here. I applaud the IICRC board of directors for making a tough decision, basically admitting it was a bad move in the first place.

A word about guarantees

No matter how much technical training or the certifications you may hold, what The Clean Trust or IICRC does for you, what really matters is how you treat your customers. And a strong guarantee is one way to do this.

I don''t know of any carpet cleaning or restoration companies that don''t have some form of guarantee for the work they do, whether it is a "satisfaction guaranteed" statement or a "100 percent money-back" promise…

But what does that really mean? If everyone offers a guarantee, does that mean anything to your customers?

I bring this up because of an experience recently that made quite the impression on me, something that was a potential bad situation that turned positive.

What happened is my wife and I called in an order to a sushi restaurant and picked it up and drove home. We live outside of Columbus, OH, approximately 10 miles from the restaurant.

We get home and discover we had someone else''s order, something not at all to our liking. If you do sushi, you know what I mean. The restaurant picked up on this mistake as well because they called us, asking if we wanted to come back and pick up the correct order. It was too far, we were too tired and we told the restaurant we would just get something another time.

The restaurant did the unthinkable. They don''t deliver, but they said they would be right out with the correct order. They showed up 30 minutes later, and even tried to give us a complete refund. I was flabbergasted. What a great way to make sure we became faithful customers and a referral source.

Now, sushi is a far cry from carpet cleaning, but I think you get the point. No matter what, make the customer happy and watch your business grow from powerful referrals — and repeat work as well. Make your guarantees mean something.