The carpet cleaning equipment you choose affects how well your staff cleans — and your cleaning and maintenance budget.

Follow these steps to keep standards high and costs low:

1. Choose easy-to-use equipment. Employees will feel more confident and spend less time learning how to use machines.
2. Buy for productivity. Purchasing equipment that completes tasks quicker and better is often more cost-effective than buying the most expensive machines.
3. Evaluate your cleaning tasks. Ask your equipment dealer to use the manufacturer’s software program to calculate productivity and savings when comparing cleaning systems.
4. Maintain your equipment. To minimize downtime, easy access to components, easy maintenance, and a local parts and service supplier should influence any purchase.
5. Buy value. If you don’t need the bells and whistles available on higher-end equipment, don’t buy them.

Complex machines can also mean more maintenance, training and downtime.