Continually falling sales had carpet mills looking for someone to blame and the cleaning industry made an easy target. Bogus and undocumented surveys claimed that consumers were unhappy with carpet cleaning, so the CRI launched the SOA program which has a nice side benefit of extracting money from professional cleaners and their suppliers.
I believe the real purpose of SOA is to create a convenient avenue for carpet manufacturers to avoid warranty issues. The mills have gone one up on each other with warranties for years. One, two, five, ten-year and now lifetime warranties are coming home to roost and they need a way to bail out. They can't do it on their own without calling attention to some of their ridiculous claims so they enlisted the non profit CRI as an accomplice.
Here are things that really hurt carpet sales. Television ads tout whole house installation for a few dollars. Then hucksters top that with "FREE" installation. Anyone in the business knows that this hard work deserves more pay, not squeezing by employers. Consequently, installation is the most frequent carpet complaint followed by bad sales practices and the broken promises of retailers. Product substitution and taking deposits while in bankruptcy are some of the more scandalous complaints.
Cleaning related complaints are a distant third and most are from consumers and building managers doing their own cleaning. Professional cleaners' complaints are very few and mainly about bait and switch advertisers. The complaints on the internet that I found and reviewed were: Installation related - 314, Sales related - 253, Cleaning related - 131. Cleaning related complaints about professionals named franchises such as Sears® and Chem-Dry®, but not one mentioned a cleaning chemical, cleaning machine or method used to do the job.
In spite of these facts, CRI continues to punish professional carpet cleaners and their suppliers. In cleaning related matters they should be aiming at the DIY market where most of the complaints come from, not professionals.
The complaints I looked at were all real and are a matter of public record. Could it be possible that CRI has chosen to believe a bogus survey that said cleaning chemicals and equipment are responsible for the decline in carpet sales? I also wonder who was asked.
For some enlightening reading, check out the link below.
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/empire-today-c1880.html
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