By Michael Parkinson
When Devine Carpet Care identified a shift in the trend from carpets to hard floors in homes, it decided to set up a separate business to capture the demand for cleaning floor rugs. Having established a successful carpet cleaning business on Sydney’s northern beaches, keeping pace with changing trends in floor coverings seemed a logical next step.
“Back in 1985, I had been working with partners in the carpet cleaning industry when I met Raja who had a leather cleaning and rejuvenation business. We decided our complementary skills were ideal and Devine Carpet Care was the result,” principal Frank Devine recalls.
“The decision to specialise in rug cleaning was partly driven by (wife) Raja’s skills. Her background and attention to fine detail through her many years’ experience with inspection of imported leather furniture were ideal assets for this venture,” notes Devine.
A steady growth of loyal carpet cleaning customers, coupled with the success of energetic and enthusiastic younger family members in that market helped convince the Devines the time was right to add a rug cleaning business.
“The plan was for the boys to continue in mobile carpet care, while Raja and I would concentrate on building the rug cleaning business channel. This meant we wouldn’t have to travel to job sites and could handle administration of both businesses more easily.
“We noticed that people were using very high value hand-made Persian tribal rugs as well as rugs made of unique or challenging materials. Many were quite old and faded, antique and often valued at many thousands of dollars,” Devine explains.
The Devines immersed themselves in studying everything about rug history, natural dyes, weaving techniques and regional origin. This highly specialised knowledge enabled them to offer rug cleaning services that would satisfy extremely discerning clients who were confident their rugs would receive totally professional care.
As Devine points out, rug cleaning is aimed at the drop-in market. “Most carpet cleaners won’t touch tribal and oriental rugs as they don’t know how to handle the vegetable dyes.”
In October 2009 the Devines bought their current factory premises – a highly visible shop front on a busy thoroughfare in Cromer in Sydney’s northern suburbs. They quickly discovered that location is very critical to success in the rug cleaning business.
The locale is a well-used traffic short cut so signage for a rug cleaning and drop-off centre was erected and the business has been busy since that first day.
The same Devine philosophy was applied to rug cleaning as the carpet business; ‘do the best work possible in an expert and professional manner’.
“When we started the business we decided to be the best, not the cheapest – and this philosophy has paid dividends. Most customers don’t even ask the price; they know the service is absolutely professional and represents good value,” Devine says.
“We still have most of our original customers who come back to us regularly. Our mobile service teams are polite, considerate of people’s homes and furnishings, well groomed and professionally presented. Importantly, as the majority of our customers are women, the boys know how to communicate in a manner that will be appreciated.”
Reputation in carpet cleaning and a combination of reputation, skills and location of the rug cleaning business has driven Devine’s customer volume. Apart from our web page, the business has not needed to advertise by mail outs, brochures, print advertising or email campaigns. The three year old web site yields very little new business and it is fundamentally used as a brochure. Both businesses are constant, year-round enterprises.
“Our next stage of development is to prepare the business for management by the younger members of the family. This will involve opening shopfront rug drop-off centres within our market area.
“To stay in front, our training, technology and materials are always up to the industry’s latest and we’re continually updating our training in carpet care and rug cleaning. We work with major chemical suppliers to evaluate the latest techniques by helping them test new products and preparing reports on some of the latest fully biodegradable carpet cleaning products,” Devine relates.
Devine believes that it’s important to share he and Rajah’s knowledge and skills to encourage people in the industry. “As one of the founding members of Individual Cleaners Association Australia New Zealand (ICAN) we take pride in being able to mentor and assist new operators.
“ICAN trade days are held at our premises as part of the organisation’s charter to raise the standard of training of industry members; to help each other through networking opportunities,” enthuses Devine.