Public restrooms are convenient but can turn people away if they are dirty. The cleanliness of a company’s restroom makes a big impression on those that go in there.
As operations managers, you have an important role to oversee visitor feedback and satisfaction. Help your guests to feel welcome by taking the right steps to keep the restrooms as clean as possible.
Why it Matters
Just check the statistics below:
Hiring a Cleaner
A great way for an operations managers to stay on top of restroom feedback on bathroom cleanliness and cleanliness throughout the office is to hire someone to clean. This can be an employee who works during business hours or someone that comes in after hours.
The benefit of having an employee who works during business hours is that they can service the restrooms several times per day. This is essential for high-traffic restrooms that may need paper product refills, trash receptacles emptied, or surfaces cleaned.
A reputable outsourced cleaning service or an employee that comes after hours is better for a facility that does not have a lot of foot traffic. These services are provided after the facility has closed, and leave the restrooms restocked and refreshed for the next day.
Create a checklist for the cleaner based on general cleaning and cleanliness complaints. Clear communication with them is key, whether they need to be updated on new restroom feedback (positive or negative) or they may need to communicate something to you.
Choosing the Right Cleaning Products
There are so many invisible germs in bathrooms in addition to the filth that you can see. A regular everyday cleaner will not be effective enough to tackle this job.
To clean a public restroom you will need cleaners and disinfectants that are powerful and effective. Plenty of rubber gloves to protect the cleaner’s hands will be needed, as well.
How a Clean Restroom Promotes Cleanliness
Encourage others to keep the restroom clean by having it clean when they walk in. If there is trash on the floor, trash cans overflowing, empty paper product dispensers, bad odors, unflushed toilets, then the restroom users will continue in their behavior.
Offensive Odors
The biggest complaint of public bathrooms is usually that offensive odors are coming from inside. It is challenging to keep a restroom smelling fresh due to the nature of the facility, but it is possible.
Frequent restroom and drain cleaning is the easiest way to keep odors at bay. Using an air purifier will clean the air without putting a ton of possibly offensive or possible allergy-aggravating air freshener scents into the air.
Full Trash Bins
Overflowing trash bins in the restroom are a sign of neglect and dirtiness. Not only do bins fill up with paper products, but also other random garbage.
This complaint has limited ways in which it can be handled and avoided in the future. Handle this guest feedback issue by using larger trash receptacles more than one trash receptacle bin, and also having the cleaning staff empty the bins throughout the day.
No Paper Products
It should come as o surprise that someone would complain about there being no toilet paper in the restroom stall or the paper towel dispenser is empty so they can not dry their hands after they have washed them. It does happen and is very inconvenient, especially the toilet paper.
Another paper product complaint is that there is paper towel/ toilet paper but that the dispenser is not working and they can not get any out. Malfunctioning dispensers can be due to the paper products being improperly installed or faulty dispensers.
Dispensers can wear out over time. They can also break if people use them improperly, which is difficult to control.
Install good quality paper product dispensers so that you can limit these types of complaints coming in. Use large dispensers that fit oversized rolls of paper products or even ones that store a backup roll which makes it less likely to run out throughout the course of a day.
Have the cleaning staff check every dispenser and replace paper products when they are servicing the restroom.
Empty Hand Soap
Washing our hands is more important than ever and we need soap to kill the germs. If the restroom’s soap dispensers are empty people will complain, here are tips to avoid that:
- Install large soap dispensers
- Have cleaners replace soap every day
- Place soap dispensers in between each sink
Another thing to think about with soap dispensers is the trail that they can leave behind or drip out if they leak. Soap dispensers with a small tray to catch drips and trail can help to eliminate this and keep the sink area clean.
Faulty Toilets
Faulty plumbing does not always have an easy solution. These tips will support the septic system:
- Use toilet paper that is good for the septic system
- Put small trash cans in the women’s room for sanitary products
- Hang signs asking not to flush certain items
- Conduct routine maintenance on the septic system
- Address any septic issues right away
Keep the plumber on-call in case any visitor feedback alerts you of malfunctioning plumbing.
Stall Security
If your restroom has capacity for more than one person, properly functioning privacy dividers with locks should be provided. Should those stall locks not work properly, your guests may be exposed while using the restroom and feel uncomfortable leading to negative feedback.
Check each stall fastener when the bathrooms are cleaned to make sure that they are in good working condition. Repair or replace any broken stall locks.
Restroom Feedback
Of course, public restrooms will never be perfectly clean while people are still using them because they are leaving a mess behind them. As hard as they try to be neat, shoes track in dirt, pieces of paper products fall onto the floor, soap drips onto the sink, and water splashes on the mirror amongst other messes.
Restroom feedback comes in from those that see room for improvement in the cleanliness of the facility. This means from restroom users and of course, staff who can use the same system for asset inspection.
Responding to Complaints as Operations Managers
A professional response to visitor feedback about the cleanliness of your bathroom is expected. The worst things that can be done when a complaint is received are responding negatively, ignoring the complaint, or not taking action to resolve the issue. We think a better solution is to enable on location, immediate feedback that triggers an alert to staff so they can fix the issue and take action. The process is highlighted in the video below:
A Clean Slate
The visitor feedback, actions of the operations managers, and hard work of the cleaning staff all work together to keep the facility’s restroom in a clean state around the clock. Hold your restroom cleanliness to a high standard, and tap into getting more positive guest feedback with a review system from Opiniator.
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