Christmas is coming and you want your home looking its best. Whether you're hosting the big family dinner or just expecting guests throughout the festive period, nothing dampens the Christmas spirit like a grotty carpet.
Read on to find out more about this important part of the festive cleaning calendar.
More than any other holiday, Christmas is a time when carpets are in the spotlight. Here’s why…
With all the extended family gathered around the Christmas tree, it's common for a few people to be cross-legged on the floor. Keeping your carpet well-maintained makes sure that it is soft underfoot, perfect for a cosy evening.
Children are often found playing with new toys across the carpet, so it's important to protect them by cleaning your carpets and rugs.
In the winter, all sorts of bugs spread, from sickness to flu. This can make everyone more vulnerable to any bacteria living deep in the carpet.
The cold weather also creates the perfect conditions for mould to grow, releasing spores that impact the whole family, but particularly people with allergies. Staying on top of cleaning is the best way to prevent health issues and sniffles at Christmas dinner.
Apart from the health benefits, cleaning a carpet leaves it looking and smelling fresh. You may have grown used to any foul smells trapped in your carpet, but your guests certainly won't have!
After splashing out on the holiday season, a Christmas carpet clean may seem like an added expense, but it will actually save you money. Regular carpet cleaning increases the lifespan of your carpet and decreases the long-term impact of heavy traffic – lengthening the time before you need to find money for a whole new carpet.
Christmas is a popular time for carpet cleaning, so you should get booked in as early as you can!
November is usually a good month to start booking, but you may need to book even earlier for particularly jam-packed businesses. Once the festive adverts start appearing on TV, it's definitely time to start thinking about your Christmas carpet clean.
However, if you are reading this in December and worrying about your dirty carpet, it may not be too late! It's still worth enquiring with local carpet cleaners to see if they can squeeze you in before Christmas. Even if there are no spaces left, they may be able to keep you in mind if they have a last-minute cancellation.
You might also consider booking in for a post-Christmas clean. This is another opportune time for your annual clean, ensuring that stains from wine or even your Boxing Day curry are removed effectively. It will also prepare your carpets for next Christmas, well ahead of time.
Choosing the right company is a vital step to get the best results from Christmas carpet cleaning. The National Carpet Cleaning Association (NCCA) makes it easy with a directory of accredited carpet cleaners all over the UK. Trained and insured, every carpet cleaner in our directory follows our code of conduct to ensure a smooth experience with long-lasting results.
Find a carpet cleaner near you to get booked in for a pre- or post-Christmas clean.
If your New Year’s resolution is to grow your business, it's time to start planning. Businesses need care and attention to develop, but with the right know-how, you can foster a bigger, stronger company. Here are our top tips for scaling your carpet cleaning business in 2025.
The first step of progress is knowing where you want to get to. Think about what you have to offer and what you want to achieve, then use this to set a roadmap with short-term and long-term targets.
This will allow you to allocate your resources in accordance with these goals. Above all, planning ahead can help prevent hasty decisions that lead to losses.
Expanding your business only works if there is a demand for it. If you find yourself turning down work, then a simple way to scale up is by growing your team and taking on more jobs locally.
However, you can also expand to new locations to get more business when demand isn’t there close to home. Another option is to target more customers with different services. Take a look at what other cleaning companies offer and try to spot gaps in the market. That brings us onto…
If you identify a gap in the market or trend that you can take advantage of, you can either hire someone new or train your existing staff.
Becoming responsible for another person’s salary is not something that should be taken lightly. Do you need to hire a new person, or can you upskill an existing employee? Investing in your employees’ skillsets can boost productivity and improve staff retention.
As tempting as it can be to dream big and stretch as far as you can, this is often unwise when managing a business. Make sure that you have the cash flow to support any growth, or you could find yourself having to scale back.
It's better to expand gradually and check that your income increases accordingly than to make an oversized investment with minimal return.
Social media is a useful tool for developing any modern business. You can use your social media profiles to introduce yourself and your business, showing potential customers what you can do. With the right approach, it can generate lots of leads to help you scale up your business.
Looking at content uploaded by similar companies is a simple way to find your feet online. You’ll also find social media on any good marketing course – like the specialist marketing training offered by the NCCA.
Generating leads is the first part of the sales puzzle. But there’s still so much to do if you want to convert leads into customers, which will make it quicker and easier to scale your business:
All of this and more is covered in our exclusive one-day sales workshop, Improving Your Sales Success.
By joining the National Carpet Cleaning Association (NCCA), you gain exclusive access to invaluable training courses for yourself and your team. We can help you upskill your workforce to offer a wider range of high-quality services or just fine-tune your sales and marketing skills to make growth easier.
You've probably heard someone recommend rice to soak up moisture from places it shouldn't be. From soaked phones to wet carpet, people will recommend rice to dry all sorts of things, but is it really as good as they say? In this post, we’ll discuss whether wet rice on carpet is a helpful hack or just another piece of carpet cleaning misinformation.
Rice is very good at soaking up water – just think how much water you have to put in the pan to cook it. The logic applied by many people is that rice will therefore absorb the moisture from other places. However, you may want to think twice before trying this for yourself.
Rice doesn't instantly absorb all the moisture from your carpet, so you would need to leave it there for a few hours. In that time, mites, moths, silverfish and ants will smell the starchy snack and make a beeline for your carpet. These creatures lay eggs and breed incredibly fast, leaving you with much bigger problems than a wet carpet.
Once you pour rice onto your carpet, it doesn't magically tidy itself up - you then have to deal with picking up hundreds of mushy grains. Due to its size, it can block or damage vacuum cleaners, so you need to find a manual way to tidy it up. The starch that coats rice also spreads into surrounding water, leaving a sticky coating on your carpet.
When rice absorbs moisture, it expands to up to three times its size. This makes it harder to clean up, as it is even more likely to block a vacuum than dry rice.
We can't grow rice in the UK, so most of our rice has travelled a long distance to get to our kitchens. Using rice on wet carpet wastes these emissions and your money. There are so many alternative methods that are cheaper both financially and environmentally.
Your kitchen cupboard is likely to contain a much more helpful product – baking soda. This powder soaks up the moisture and can then be vacuumed up afterwards.
Both paper and cloth towels are a better solution than rice. Gently press towels into the wet area, making sure that you regularly change them and don't leave wet towels on your carpet for too long.
Once you have soaked up as much as you can, shutting the door and using a dehumidifier is an easy way to collect water from wet carpet. Many dehumidifiers also have a setting that warms the room, encouraging the water to evaporate faster.
For a hassle-free solution to a wet carpet, hire a professional. Instead of leaving you with the starchy mess of rice on wet carpet, a professional carpet cleaner takes care of everything. The National Carpet Cleaning Association directory is full of insured, experienced cleaners all over the UK that can dry your carpet for you.
Search our carpet cleaner directory to take the first step towards a clean, dry carpet.
What seems like a harmless everyday object can be catastrophic for your carpet. No matter how hard you try to keep pens away from your flooring, you're only one unfortunate misstep or over-enthusiastic budding artist away from a nasty stain. There's no use crying over spilt ink, so instead read on to find out how to get ink out of carpet.
There are different kinds of ink, and the best method to use depends on the ink in question. Often, the packaging will tell you what kind of ink a pen uses, but if this isn't available, the type of pen can give you a clue how to get its ink out of carpet.
This is the easiest type of ink to clean up. Washable pens and gel pens usually use water-based ink, because of its fabric-friendly nature.
The way to remove water-based ink from carpet is to mix a small amount of dish soap with some water. Use a cloth to blot the stained area, being careful not to smudge the ink further. Don't apply too much of the mixture, as your carpet can take a long time to dry and attract mould!
Often found in ballpoint pens and ink pots, oil-based ink can be a little trickier to clean. Not many people would guess how to get this kind of ink out of carpet, but a useful tool is alcohol-based hairspray.
Ensure that the area is well-ventilated by opening windows and doors. If possible, you should also wear a mask to protect your lungs. Once the room has enough airflow, lightly spray hairspray directly onto the stain.
Use a paper towel to blot the area, collecting the ink as it lifts from the carpet. Then, dry the area with a cloth. Keep repeating these steps until the stain is gone, but leave the windows open until the hairspray clears.
Permanent markers are oil-based pens that are hard to remove by design, so the safest option is to ask a professional carpet cleaner to tackle it. You can attempt either of the above methods to get permanent ink out of carpet, but they may not be very effective.
You can also try mixing one part vinegar with two parts warm water and using this mixture to blot the stain. Then, add a light cover of baking soda and leave it for a few minutes. Finally, vacuum away the baking soda.
There are more aggressive methods that you can try but be warned that they can also remove the dye from your carpet. Always do a patch test before attempting to put any substances on your carpet!
A professional carpet cleaner knows how to get ink out of carpet – without any damage! Every National Carpet Cleaning Association (NCCA) cleaner is fully trained to tackle a range of household stains. Our stamp of accreditation shows carpet cleaners who are insured and experienced at what they do.
Take a look at our UK cleaning directory to find a carpet cleaner near you.
In an ideal world, every customer would be left satisfied by every single transaction. In reality, all businesses will have a few unhappy customers, so it's important to know how to handle them. Negative opinions can be upsetting, but dealing with customer complaints doesn't have to be a dramatic experience.
If customers want to complain, something that can make them even more frustrated is not knowing how. Without a clear avenue for feedback, it's more likely that customers will turn to social media. Make sure that your contact details are clearly accessible to customers. You could also give out a physical or digital feedback form after every job, giving every customer the chance to feel heard.
Even if you disagree with a complaint, something has clearly bothered a customer enough to approach you. Give them the space to fully express their concerns before you respond. You can show that you hear their problems by repeating them back to them, which also gives you both the chance to check that you have understood correctly.
Once you have listened to a customer complaint, it's time to acknowledge their upset or inconvenience. Even if you need to follow that with an explanation of why their problem is unavoidable, recognising that the situation is distressing or not the desired outcome can make a customer more receptive to that.
Mistakes happen, but learning from them will prevent history from repeating itself. Record any customer complaints and the way you solved them. Not only will this help you avoid upsetting other customers, but it means you can be prepared if anyone else complains in the same way. Sometimes, just explaining something more clearly before a job or making your invoicing more transparent can solve disputes before they even arise.
Whether you're at fault or not, an apology can go a long way. If you are at fault, compensation can help, too. Refunds, vouchers, repairing damage and re-cleaning a carpet are all potential ways to regain trust and mend a relationship with a customer.
Dealing with customer complaints and finding reconciliation is highly dependent on the individual case – you should balance the reparations with the scale of the issue.
When a complaint seems to escalate and escalate without any resolution in sight, you can take a step back. Mediation services are designed to help your business tackle complaints through an impartial negotiator. This is one of many services offered to members of the National Carpet Cleaning Association (NCCA). It can extinguish conflict and find a solution that both parties are happy with.
Members of the NCCA gain access to advice, forums and training that helps their cleaning business develop. Whether it's dealing with customer complaints, marketing or tax, our members can access a wealth of support. Our arbitration service can also help resolve conflict with clients.
Whether you've got a big family or live alone, high-traffic areas of carpet get flattened by feet and make your carpet feel much older than it is. If you're looking to breathe some new life into your carpet, this post looks at four common methods.
Many of the methods below loosen your carpet fibres, allowing you to separate them and fluff them up. To do that, you'll need one of these tools:
When a method calls for you to fluff your carpet, use any of these. However, remember that DIY methods come with their risks. To avoid damaging your carpet even more, the best option is always to hire a professional cleaner.
Before you can fluff your carpet flattened by feet, you'll need to agitate the fibres. This will then allow you to rejuvenate it without damaging it or watching it flatten itself again straight away. There are several ways you can do this:
Just like you can use a hairdryer to style your hair, you can use it to style a carpet flattened by feet. Spray a light covering of water onto the flattened area and then blow it dry with a hairdryer. Fluff it as it dries, setting it in a better formation.
Place several ice cubes on the carpet flattened by feet and let them melt. As they melt, the moisture will dampen the fibres and make them more malleable for you to reshape them. However, keep in mind that your carpet will need to dry again afterwards. This method is better for smaller areas, to avoid saturating your entire carpet and potentially opening the door to mould.
This method is good for use on quite large areas, especially when carpet is a bit grubby as well as flattened by feet. Sprinkle bicarbonate of soda over the flattened area and use a brush to distribute it deep into the fibres. Leave it overnight, then vacuum it up. Finally, spray a solution of half white vinegar and half water onto the carpet and fluff it using one of the above tools.
Carpet flattened by feet is a common problem that professional carpet cleaners are familiar with. Hiring a professional removes the risk of damaging your carpet, allowing you to enjoy your good-as-new carpet without the stress of operating on it yourself.
The National Carpet Cleaning Association (NCCA) has a directory of accredited carpet cleaners all over the UK. Every single one is experienced in refreshing and revitalising all kinds of carpets.
Search our carpet cleaner directory to find a trusted local cleaner.