There are a lot of pieces that need to come together to make a successful restaurant. Good food satisfies your customers. Good service makes sure they have a great experience. An important piece that can get overlooked in the fast-paced environment is your restaurant’s restrooms.
Out of all the different types of retailers, restrooms matter the most to patrons of restaurants. Customers who feel a restroom is dirty are far more unlikely to return no matter how well the rest of their experience goes.
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Customers Eat With Their Eyes
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A Zogby International survey found that over 80% of those surveyed would avoid a restaurant with a dirty restroom. That’s over double the 34% who would avoid a retail location with a bad restroom. A customer returning from a dirty restroom might have just lost their appetite. Taking the time to make sure your food looks good on the plate and is served in a timely matter will not matter if your restroom is full of debris, strange smells and streaked mirrors. A dirty restroom could mean a customer never orders anything based on their experience there, never comes back and tells everyone they know about their bad experience.
The state of the restroom is the first test of customer loyalty. A dirty restroom will likely inspire negative word-of-mouth. Nearly half of people contacted in the survey said they would tell family and friends about a bad restroom experience. Nearly the same amount said they might choose a different restaurant if they heard such a tale from someone they trust. It’s easy to chalk up a bad meal to different tastes or bad service to a server’s off night. Unclean restrooms, however, can be a reputation killer across the board.
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Keeping a restroom clean is a difficult challenge. It often becomes something of a forgotten work station, since most employees are busy doing other jobs to make sure the trash is emptied and any messes inside are handled in a timely manner. Most customers are more than happy to report any issues with the restroom to employees, but taking the time to train them reduces the chance that customers will see anything wrong with the restrooms in the first place.
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Being aware of the restrooms also keep their own hygiene in mind when washing their hands. Good hygiene reduces the spread of foodborne illnesses and reduces absenteeism because employees get sick less frequently.
All The Small Things
Restrooms do their part to anchor a restaurant’s concept. Whether going all out in a theme restaurant or simply having appropriate signs for the men’s and women’s restroom, a restaurant’s décor should extend into the restrooms as well.
JOMOO Commercial Restroom
Bathrooms get renovated and redone during home remodeling. Restrooms should be no different. Making sure that a restroom has the right colors, lighting and fixtures keep the customer’s experience consistent, which will make them more likely to return. Customers pay for the experience beyond the food and the service. It doesn’t matter if the experience is a late-night hot dog stand or a five star downtown steak house. Consistency is what matters.
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Not only do restrooms matter as part of retaining customers, they can also complete your concept and save your money.
In the next article, we will give you some advices on how to update restrooms to impress customers and save money.
Source: reliablewater247.com
