How Dirty Restrooms Affect Your Business

Why Clean Bathrooms Matter

Most people would agree that having access to a clean restroom in a retail store or business is important. Are yours clean? A large number of your customers will inevitably need to use the restroom at some point during their shopping trip or visit and although it’s provided as a convenience, it’s still part of their overall experience with your business. In fact, dirty restrooms can carry more weight than fast checkout times and helpful employees.

According to a survey commissioned by Cintas Corporation, 45% of retail customers would avoid a business if they encountered dirty restrooms. Another survey mentioned found that 50% of people who encounter a dirty bathroom would tell their friends and family. If this is happening to you, you’re losing customers before they even visit your store.

Word-of-mouth complaints are often taken seriously, and when someone reports on a dirty restroom, it’s unlikely to be just a matter of preferential difference.

How Customers Judge Clean and Dirty Restrooms

It’s not hard to know what customers expect in terms of cleanliness. Think about it this way. Each customer who enters your restroom should feel like it’s just been cleaned and sanitized with a fresh scent. Toilets and floors should be spotless, mirrors should be clean, soap and paper towel dispensers should be full, air hand dryers should be operational, and toilet paper should be well-stocked. Maintaining this level of cleanliness requires cleaning your bathrooms regularly, especially when your store is busy. Anything less than this could lead to customers perceiving the restroom as dirty, so for high-traffic locations, you might need to clean them every hour.

The last point about toilet paper deserves an additional note. If you have commercial toilet paper dispensers that take multiple regular rolls vertically stacked, they’re usually designed to be loaded so the paper is dispensed from under the roll. This is contrary to the way most people prefer to position their toilet paper at home. With these dispensers, pulling the paper from the bottom is the only way the rolls will move freely when the first roll is empty and the top roll falls down. When loaded to be pulled from over the top, the paper will break with the slightest pull.

It’s important for employees to know this because loading the rolls backwards (where the paper is pulled from over the top of the roll) will make it hard to use and will result in a constant state of shredded paper on the floor that will get stepped on, soggy, and end up all over the restroom. If you have an issue with random pieces of toilet paper on the floor, it’s probably caused by loading rolls incorrectly. This problem can also deter people from returning to your store.

Your restrooms make up only 5% of your space, but dirty restrooms can account for 40% of your building’s soil and bacteria load. Carlson’s specialized restroom cleaning services make it simple to prioritize the health of employees and the happiness of customers.

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Why You Need Clean Restrooms to Have Happy Customers

Dirty restrooms will negatively impact your business in many ways, like lost customers and negative reviews/online chatter. If restroom cleanliness isn’t at the top of your list, here are the most important reasons to make it a priority.

1. Clean Bathrooms Can Reduce Negative Reviews

People will judge your store based on how clean your restrooms are, and if you don’t measure up, you will get negative reviews online. You’ll probably even find negative comments on Facebook and Twitter.

Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful forms of marketing because people trust what their friends and family say. However, this can work against you when what people say is negative.

Are you getting negative reviews on Yelp, Trustpilot, or other sites that mention dirty restrooms? Do people complain about your restrooms on social media? If you aren’t sure, look for these complaints to see if it’s happening. If it is, let that be your incentive to commit to providing the cleanest facilities possible for your customers.

When you provide sparkling clean, well-stocked restrooms to your customers, many will go out of their way to comment on how clean they are to their friends. Considering how common dirty bathrooms are, a clean one is often a talking point.

2. Clean Restrooms Make Customers Feel Positively About Your Business

Public restrooms don’t exactly have a positive reputation, so when yours are exceptionally clean, people will notice. When your bathrooms are clean, your customers will perceive your entire business in a more positive light.

Clean bathrooms tell customers you care about their experience in your store. When they’re well-maintained, you’ll actually impress people because they’re used to encountering the opposite.

3. People Spend More Money When Bathrooms Are Clean

You might be surprised to learn that one in three Americans would pay to use a clean, well-stocked restroom. That should tell you the value of a clean restroom!

People are also likely to spend more money when a retail store has clean bathrooms. Customers want to know they’ll have a good experience if they need to use your facilities while shopping. After a positive trip to the restroom, they’ll feel at ease and will be more likely to keep shopping rather than abandon their shopping cart or check out as fast as possible.

Interior of a clean public toilet Interior of a clean public toilet clean public bathroom

Why Relying on Employees Leads to Dirty Restrooms

Many retail businesses make the mistake of assigning bathroom cleaning duties to employees. While some employees will clean a restroom to professional standards, those people are few and far between. Most won’t, and the task will either get postponed or be sloppily done.

If you’re wondering how to clean a bathroom professionally, the best solution is to hire commercial bathroom cleaners or get a day porter if you need services multiple times throughout the day.

Our Commercial Bathroom Cleaning Services Can Help With Dirty Restrooms

You can’t control every factor that causes customers to shop elsewhere, but having clean bathrooms is always within your control. Losing customers because of a dirty restroom is preventable with professional bathroom cleaning services. If you need someone to keep your bathrooms sparkling clean and smelling fresh, get in touch with us to learn more about how we can help.