The Cleaning Product You Use Could Be Costing You Customers

Whether your business has an internal staff that cleans its own facilities, or you're a BSC that cleans other companies, the cleaning products you use are critical. Customers never stop evaluating and re-evaluating the retail shops, offices, hospitals, and venues they frequent. This internal evaluation makes up their perception of your business. It’s important to remember that a customer’s perception of your business might not be the same as yours. The best that a company can do is try to influence it in a positive way.

Let's think about a specific cleaning example of this in action. Let's say you or your client have a tile floor that's looking a little dingy or dirty. Now, you might have just cleaned the floor. You know it's clean. You know your whole business is clean. But you've written off the tile as being old and just past its prime. Now, the company in question could replace the tile. But that can get expensive. And what if that tile isn't even that old? What if the tile just looked old quickly?

Customers don't know that you've just cleaned. They don't know the age of the tile in question. They just know it looks unappealing. This can have a powerful effect on their perception of the business. The customer might not even be aware that it's impacting their view of the business. It's just a "feeling" they get when they're in it. Maybe they'll think the business is out of fashion, can't pay to keep the place up, or even unhygienic.

The mental associations customers make are not always obvious, either. One study found that people actually felt less secure when staying at a hostel if it wasn’t clean.¹ In fact, research has shown that 14% of polled consumers would stop visiting a store that was not clean, and 29% would only continue visiting an unclean store if it was absolutely necessary.²

The good news here is that there is a lot that businesses can do to promote better customer perception. That tile floor we talked about above? It’s possible it just needs a good restorative cleaning. And it might look dirty or dingy just because it's got a layer of build-up after using cleaning products that leave a lot of residue behind. This is why choosing the right cleaning product is so critical. Choose a product that can be both a daily cleaner and a restorative cleaner. Choose a product that doesn't leave behind residue that can be sticky, slippery, or leave floors looking dirty.