If you run a hospitality or service-oriented business, you probably realize that the customer’s experience is the lifeblood of your success. This entails so much more than just the quality of the service you offer. Your gym might have the most state-of-the-art equipment plus a smoothie bar, but surveys show that if your customers don’t find your facilities to be clean, 71% of potential clients won’t touch the equipment at all and 88% of them will not come back.
Regardless of the type of industry you are in, one of the most pivotal factors in a customer experience is the cleanliness of your bathroom. The bathroom is one of the most important, but dirtiest and most labor-intensive sports to keep up with. Keeping your bathroom in pristine shape in addition to the many hats that a business owner has to wear to keep things running can be a daunting task. Often, business owners who don’t have the bandwidth to maintain a professional level of cleanliness on their own find that hiring office cleaning services pays for itself. Using an office cleaning service to upkeep grimey spots like the bathroom helps save business in four ways:
- If your customer’s first impression is a dirty bathroom, it will likely be their last impression. According to a study reported by USA Today, if your bathroom offends customers on their first visit, almost 30% will never return. If you crunch the numbers, the cost of losing 30% of all of your new customers is far more than paying for janitorial services and maintaining a good first impression.
- A dirty restroom will contaminate a customer’s entire experience, giving them a negative outlook at otherwise fine service. A dirty bathroom has a subliminal impact on a customer’s experience. A study conducted by Michigan State University showed that patrons were less likely to wash their hands after using the bathroom if the sink was dirty. Even if a customer doesn’t recognize that a bathroom is dirty, their brain classifies the experience as negative and their behavior throughout their visit corresponds with that assessment.
- Your ability to keep your bathrooms clean builds faith in the service you provide. Over 85% of diners equate the cleanliness of the restroom to the cleanliness of the kitchen at a restaurant. When customer confidence is shaken by the state of your restroom, they become more critical of other areas of your business. Customers are more likely to scrutinize the quality of your service, question items on their bills, and act abrasively to customer service when their faith in your business is already unstable.
- Complaints your customers have with your business could eliminate future customers. Avoiding negative customer reviews is more critical now than in the past. It used to be said that customers with negative reviews would tell 10 friends; now that customers can blast their negative experience on the world wide web, a single negative review can be seen by hundreds of potential customers. The simple act of making sure your bathroom is clean at all times could be the very reason a customer gives you 4 stars instead of posting “Avoid This Business At All Costs!” on Yelp.
How do you keep your business’ bathrooms in tip top shape? Do you scrub them yourself? Do you employ an office cleaning service? Please comment with your input below! Continue reading here.
