| rev:text
| - I posted a not-so-glowing 2-star review about Brimley's recently based on my experience with a field tech that lacked as much training as he should have had. You never know if that is the fault of the employee or of the company's management but I have always believed in including both parties ... whether it be for blame or for credit when an employee does an outstanding job. In other words I am an equal opportunity reviewer when it comes to both praise and criticism. And I always believe in giving someone a second chance.
The owner of Brimley's contacted me and asked for a second chance after reading my review and to use it as an opportunity to coach his staff. He didn't offer a "freebie" to bribe me into giving them a glowing review (because I wouldn't do it anyway) but he offered to clean my well-worn and soiled carpeted stairs (a task it seems carpet cleaning companies aren't too fond of) at a price which met my budget (frankly if it were to cost any more I would have considered just replacing the carpeting). He also offered to include a relatively large upstairs landing which is almost large enough to be considered a room for no additional charge.
I discovered in communicating with him that their website was misleading. Not in a malicious way, but it listed several cities they say they "service" and that's what I quoted in my review. I learned that Brimley's pretty much covers the entire Phoenix Valley, not just those listed cities; it seems they do that to help the search engines optimize their advertising.
My time was flexible and, knowing that Brimley's is located in Mesa, I let them pretty much pick the date when they would already be working nearby. I will admit my "standards meter" was set high for them because I already started off on the wrong foot with them, and because carpet cleaners in general have such shady reputations. I ended up basing a lot on the question whether a local mom & pop was a better choice than a nationally-advertised chain. I was secretly rooting for the mom & pop because I try to choose local companies whenever I can. So I had my own checklist ready looking for such things as if they showed up on time, if they looked and acted professional, if they took reasonable care about not breaking things and marring the walls, and of course if the result was a job worth paying for.
Result 1: Did they show up on time? The appointment window was between 10AM - Noon. The tech showed up at 9:50 AM after a confirming email from their office, a text message to confirm and a phone call from him that he was on the way.
Result 2: Did they look and act professional? Dressed clean, acted professionally, didn't slam doors, didn't bang into walls, closed the door behind him as he entered and left the house. He even closed the bedroom doors to limit the "smell" from the cleaning process.
Result 3: Did they do any damage? None. I was sitting nearby and never heard him bang in to the walls or bump against anything.
Result 4: Is my carpet acceptably clean? I watched the tech work. He definitely put some hard sweat labor into scrubbing the carpet clean. Since most of the job was stairs, the area that gets walked on was dark and grimy while the crevices were, let's be accurate, downright ugly. If you take away nothing else in this review let it be that the end result after he finished was MORE than acceptably clean. I attached "before/after" photos to illustrate what I consider acceptable.
Bottom line: Would I recommend them to my friends and family? Unqualified yes. He made only the slightest effort at an upsell (Scotchguard) and there was no hard sell. That sort of oversell is what gives a lot of service companies a bad reputation and this tech only offered what he did in a friendly helpful manner. Brimley's earns a positive rating pretty much across the board.
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