Your washrooms can have a significant impact on customer behavior, for better and for worse. You need to know how to you can keep your business in the clear.
When you own a business, you should be providing public washrooms for your customers to use. However, if you are going to do this, then you need to ensure that you are keeping them clean and fresh smelling throughout the day. If you don’t, this could have some seriously bad consequences that your business does not need. Customer behavior will change based on the state of your washrooms, so this is something that you really need to think about.
The Problems With Washrooms
The problem with washrooms is that they are used for a specific purpose, and sometimes that can mean they aren’t very pleasant to be in. Even though this is the case, you should ideally have someone around to head in and clean up where it’s needed. Even if this is simply walking around spraying some air freshener and wiping down the units to ensure that everything is clean. It’s not a difficult task to do, and it ensures that your washrooms stay at the same high standards as the rest of the business.
Some people might not think that a washroom is important, but a lot of people will judge you by it. If you put effort into the smallest detail such as this, you are showing off that you are detailed in every aspect of what you do, not stopping until you achieve excellence.
Keeping It Clean
The washrooms in a business should be cleaned multiple times in a day. Most companies have a timesheet on the bathroom door for the cleaner to sign and state what they have done at each interval. This helps to keep it clean as often as possible, giving people the best possible experience. Ideally, you want to have the place cleaned every hour or so to ensure maximum cleanliness, You can never be 100% sure what goes on in a cubicle at any given time, and you are much better off having them cleaned consistently and not risking anything.
You should also do this to get rid of any smells that might be lingering. Your customers are not going to be happy if they walk into a washroom provided by your business and notice that it smells horrendous in there. In fact, if it is that bad, you might just lose your customers altogether.
As such, you want to ensure that you are investing in high-quality cleaning products that leave a fresh smell behind. It doesn’t matter how much it costs, you need to ensure that when people visit your washrooms, there is no reason for them to doubt the cleanliness of your establishment.
What Happens When You Don’t?
If you don’t keep your washrooms clean, then you are going to lose customers. It’s as simple as this because your customers will wonder why they should trust you with their other business if you can’t keep a bathroom clean.
In fact, some research has been done in the matter, and it was found that washroom malodour has caused a rather significant change in purchasing behavior. 67% of people said that a bad smelling washroom is likely to make them reconsider shopping there at all, with 60% saying that they would leave immediately. This is a lot of customers that you are going to be losing to a problem that can be sorted out rather easily. It’s no secret that people associate bad smells with uncleanliness and poor hygiene, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this is the kind of impact it can have on your business.
You also need to be careful about the state of your business reputation. People are always going to share the experiences that they have had with any given business at any given time. As such, if someone encounters a bad smelling washroom in your company, they are more than likely going to tell their friends. The problem with this is that around 90% of people are willing to trust any kind of recommendation given by a friend or family member. This means you could be losing a lot of potential business, as well as the customers that you actually lost.
We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the impacts that your washrooms could have on customer behavior. As long as you make sure that you are keeping up with the washrooms on your property and you are not allowing them to become a mess, everything should be absolutely fine.
