CarpetBossPro Blog — Upholstery, Rugs & Tile

Area Rug Cleaning Software: Pricing, Noting and Scheduling Rugs on Carpet Jobs

Area rugs show up on carpet jobs all the time. The rug under the coffee table, the runner in the hallway, the big one in the dining room sitting on top of hardwood. Sometimes they are the reason the customer called. Sometimes the tech only finds out about them when the furniture moves. Either way, a rug should be a planned part of the job, not a surprise.

From Sectionals to Rugs

Rugs share a lot with the furniture covered in Sectionals and Dining Chairs: Quoting the Upholstery Jobs That Don't Fit One Price: they vary in size, they need a clear rule for pricing, and they are easy to forget if they are not written on the job.

In CarpetBossPro, Area Rug is a checkbox on every job and estimate, right with the rooms and the upholstery. Check it, add the rug service from your list, and it travels from the quote to the tech's phone to the invoice.

Pricing Rugs: Flat, Tiered or by Size

There are three common ways to price rugs:

• Flat per rug. Simple and easy to quote. Example: $89 for an area rug.
• Size tiers. Small, standard and large, each with its own service and price.
• By square foot. Measure the rug and price per square foot, with a minimum.

Flat or tiered pricing works best on the phone, because customers usually know roughly how big their rug is but not its exact dimensions. Square-foot pricing is fairer for very large or unusual rugs. Many companies use tiers for most rugs and switch to square feet only for oversized ones.

Whatever you choose, put it on the service list so everybody quotes the same way.

What to Write in the Rug Notes

Rugs come with details that matter to the tech. Put them in the job notes when you build the estimate:

• Which room the rug is in and roughly how big it is
• What it sits on, such as hardwood, tile or carpet
• Whether it has fringe
• Any pets, known spots or areas the customer is worried about
• Whether furniture sits on it and who is moving it

The carpet type field even has an “Area Rug Only” option for jobs where the rug is the whole job. That is covered in the next guide. For rugs on carpet jobs, the notes do the work.

Keep cleaning method decisions with your trained techs. The software holds the information. It doesn't replace judgment about how a particular rug should be handled.

Rugs on the Tech Checklist

On the tech app, the carpet cleaning checklist includes an area rug step whenever Area Rug is on the job. That step sits in the normal flow: walk-through with the customer, furniture moved, pre-vacuum, pre-treat, carpet cleaned, area rug cleaned, groom, furniture back on blocks or tabs, final walk-through with dry time explained.

Because the step only appears when the rug was sold, it serves as a reminder. A tech finishing a three-room job won't pack up while the dining room rug is still waiting.

Before-and-after photos are especially useful on rugs, since a rug that looked fine to the customer might have stains nobody noticed until the furniture came off it. See Before-and-After Photos for Upholstery, Rugs and Tile: Proof the Customer Sees in Their App.

The Rug Nobody Mentioned

A common moment: the tech moves the couch and there is a rug under it that wasn't on the quote. The customer asks if it can be done too.

The tech should quote from your service list rather than guess, note the request on the job or text the office, and the office adds the rug as a line item. Two-way texting with customers from the office makes it easy to confirm the price in writing if the customer isn't standing right there. Then the invoice that gets created when the tech taps Complete includes the rug.

Next time that customer books, the new job fills in from the last job at that home, so the rug is already on it.

Scheduling Rug Jobs

Rugs on carpet jobs add some time. When building the day on the dispatch board, give jobs with a rug, a sofa and tile the space they actually need, and keep shorter carpet-only jobs for the gaps. Filter by van to see whose day is already heavy.

For yearly customers, a rug on the plan comes back with the plan. Repeat cleanings are set by minimum days between visits, and the home shows up on the Waiting List when it's due. For more on how rugs fit with the rest of your upholstery and add-on work, see the CarpetBossPro upholstery cleaning software page.