CarpetBossPro Blog — Upholstery, Rugs & Tile

Add-On Steps in the Tech Checklist: Making Sure Paid Add-Ons Actually Get Done

Selling an add-on and forgetting to do it is worse than never selling it. The customer paid for stain protector on the sofa. The tech cleaned the carpet, groomed it, and left. Three months later a spill soaks right into the sofa, and the customer remembers exactly what they paid for. A good checklist exists to make sure that never happens.

Selling It Is Only Half

Offering add-ons on site is covered in Selling Carpet Add-Ons at the Door Without Making the Customer Feel Sold. Whether an add-on came from the quote or from the door, it ends up in the same place: on the job, and on the tech's checklist.

CarpetBossPro's tech app includes a carpet cleaning checklist built for the way carpet jobs actually run. The add-on steps are the part that changes from job to job.

The Standard Steps

Every job walks through the same core steps:

• Walk-through with the customer
• Small furniture moved
• Pre-vacuumed
• Pre-treated traffic lanes
• Spots and stains treated
• Carpet cleaned
• Carpet groomed
• Furniture back on blocks or tabs
• Final walk-through with dry time explained

These are the steps every carpet job needs. A tech working through them in order doesn't skip the pre-vacuum on a busy day or forget to put the blocks under the dresser legs.

Add-On Steps Appear Only When They're on the Job

The add-on steps are conditional. They show up only when the matching item is on the job:

• Pet odor treatment, when Pet Odor Treatment is on the job
• Upholstery, area rug or tile cleaned, when those are on the job
• Stain protector or deodorizer, when those are on the job

This matters in two ways. First, a tech can't finish the checklist on a job with stain protector without seeing the protector step. Second, a job without add-ons stays short. Techs don't learn to tap past irrelevant steps, which is how checklists usually stop being read.

It also keeps the tech honest with themselves on a long day. The fourth house of the afternoon is when small things slip. A step sitting unchecked on the screen is a quiet reminder that the deodorizer in the back bedroom still needs to happen before the van door closes.

The add-on checkboxes on the job, set when the estimate is built or when the office adds a request from the door, are what drive these steps. Get the job right, and the checklist follows.

Recording What Actually Happened

Along with the steps, the checklist records the details the office and the customer will want later:

• Rooms cleaned
• Estimated dry time
• Stains that did not come out
• A condition: Good, Needs attention or Repair recommended
• A note for the customer

If an add-on was sold but couldn't be done, such as protector on a sofa the customer decided not to have treated after all, the note is where to say so. The office then removes the line before billing, and the customer is charged for what happened. The note for the customer is covered in When a Stain Won't Come Out: Recording It on the Job and Writing the Customer Note.

What the Office Sees

When the tech finishes, the office sees the completed checklist on the job. That gives the office a quick answer to the questions customers ask later: Was the protector applied? Which rooms got the pet odor treatment? What did the tech say about the stain by the fireplace?

Before-and-after photos from the tech app are saved with the same job, so the checklist, the photos and the customer note all sit together. When the tech taps Complete, the invoice is created and the card on file can be charged.

For an owner, the finished checklist is also a training tool. If one tech's checklists keep showing stains that didn't come out and another's rarely do, that's worth a ride-along.

Making the Checklist Stick With Your Crew

Checklists only work if they're used. A few habits help:

• Read the job card and its add-ons before unloading the van, not after.
• Check steps off as they happen, not all at once in the van.
• Write the customer note in plain language, as if talking to them.
• Treat the final walk-through as part of the job, not an extra.

The tech app runs in the browser on iPhone and Android, installs to the home screen and doesn't need an app store. Techs log in with the company login and a personal PIN, so every checklist belongs to the tech who did the work. For how the checklist fits with upholstery, rugs, tile and billing, see the CarpetBossPro upholstery cleaning software page.