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Public Restroom Cleaning Schedule: How Often Should A Commercial Restroom Be Cleaned?

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Public Restroom Cleaning Schedule: How Often Should A Commercial Restroom Be Cleaned?

Your facility’s restroom can make or break the experience that your guests have in your business.

Dirty restrooms not only make for a negative bathroom experience but can lead to an increased amount of complaints about the cleanliness of your facility.

In fact, restrooms make up 5% of the space but account for 80% of complaints.

Sometimes, guests will just make a complaint to facilities maintenance, but there are times when a dirty restroom can have other consequences. For example, if your guests leave a bad review or share their poor experiences online, you may notice decreased patronage or a lower online satisfaction score.

The best way to avoid a restroom complaint is to make sure that your commercial bathrooms are clean and well-stocked when your guests go to use them. This may require you and your janitorial staff to clean your restrooms more frequently to keep your restroom well-stocked and looking its best.

You might be wondering how often you should clean your facility’s restroom to maintain a sanitary environment and minimize guest complaints.

If you’re experiencing a high number of complaints or noticing that your restrooms are very dirty when your staff begins cleaning, you may want to schedule cleaning more frequently.

While the ideal public restroom cleaning schedule depends on the specific needs of your facility, like square footage, foot traffic, budget, and available resources, you should be cleaning your restroom at least once a day.

It’s important to note that while your staff may need to perform light, spot cleaning throughout the day, full cleaning and disinfecting of the surfaces in your restroom should also be performed regularly.

In this article, we will help you determine how often you should perform a deep clean of your facility’s commercial restrooms to maintain a clean appearance.

Importance of a Clean Restroom

Clean restrooms are an important part of maintaining a sanitary environment for the people in your building. Not only will a clean restroom decrease the number of complaints your facility receives, but it’s an important part of reducing the spread of illness.

Restrooms are full of germs and bacteria that can easily be spread from one person to the next if surfaces are not being cleaned often. The restrooms in your facility should be cleaned and disinfected regularly to lower the risk of infection, boost guest and employee perception, and support customer retention.

What is the best public restroom cleaning schedule?  

Deciding on the best restroom cleaning schedule for your commercial restrooms depends on the amount of traffic that your facility’s restroom receives.

A restroom in a busy restaurant will have to be cleaned more often than one in a quiet doctor’s office.

If your restrooms aren’t being cleaned frequently enough, you may notice that you are receiving complaints and your guests are dissatisfied with the state of your restroom.

Fewer complaints will allow your staff to complete their cleaning tasks with as few interruptions as possible.

Instead of having to abandon tasks to spot clean or restock your restroom when a guest makes a complaint, your staff will be able to focus on the other cleaning procedures they’re completing.

How Often ShoULD YOU Clean Your Commercial Restroom

The ideal cleaning frequency for your facility’s commercial restrooms will depend on:

  • Square Footage/Foot Traffic
  • Budget
  • Labor/Resources

Square Footage/Foot Traffic 

Knowing the size of your facility and how much foot traffic your building gets will help you and your cleaning staff determine how often you should clean your restrooms.

Larger facilities that have a constant flow of people entering will likely need to maintain their restrooms more than smaller facilities with less traffic.

For example, facilities like hotels, airports, and restaurants are going to require more frequent cleaning than lower trafficked facilities. Small offices can be cleaned less often because the restroom doesn’t get as much foot traffic.

Your staff will also have to refill the dispensers in your facility more often when you have more people using your restrooms.

If you have a facility that often requires more frequent change-outs, you may want to consider switching to a more innovative dispensing system like:

High-Capacity Dispensing Systems

High-capacity dispensing systems are designed to deliver more dispenses per refill.

Some soap and sanitizer dispensers can provide up to 2,500 dispenses in one refill, which will allow your cleaning staff to spend less time refilling dispensers.

In a high-traffic restroom, using a high-capacity dispenser will allow you and your cleaning team to spend less time on change-outs and unnecessary restroom maintenance.

Some dispensers can also display the product levels so your cleaning staff doesn’t have to physically check the amount of product left. If your restroom has a high-capacity dispenser, you will be able to avoid having to check if your dispensers need to be refilled.

IoT or Smart Restroom Devices

High-traffic facilities may also benefit from using smart restroom devices that send notifications when product levels are low. 

These devices can also alert for maintenance or low batteries so that your staff can keep the dispensers in your commercial restrooms operating at peak condition. This will reduce the number of complaints that your staff receives about empty or broken dispensers.

Budget 

If your facility has a large budget, you may be able to clean more frequently. In some buildings, your cleaning staff may be able to clean as often as every hour if your restrooms require it.

Facilities with a smaller budget will have to choose the best times for restroom cleaning. This may be after periods of high traffic when your commercial restroom is more likely to be dirty and need additional maintenance.

Labor/Resources 

Labor is expensive, so the budget that your facility has will affect how often you can complete cleaning in your commercial restrooms.

Another consideration that will help you decide how often your restroom can be cleaned is whether or not you will have enough staff and available labor to complete cleaning tasks.

You will need to evaluate if you have enough staff and labor to allot to necessary restroom cleaning.

If your facility requires more intense cleaning and disinfection in other areas, you may not be able to dedicate as much labor and resources to cleaning your commercial restroom.


Final Thoughts

It’s important to clean your restroom frequently in order to reduce customer complaints, increase customer retention, and safeguard the health of the people in your building.

Your cleaning staff should be checking your restroom frequently enough to avoid experiencing stockouts.

The best way to determine how often your staff should clean your restroom is to look at your current program and see if you are experiencing a high number of complaints or if your restroom is visibly dirty when you go to clean it.

If you’re located in the United States, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, or Canada, Imperial Dade will help you create a unique restroom cleaning program that will help you avoid complaints.

We stock a wide range of commercial cleaning products and equipment to make cleaning your restroom the most productive and effective.

Our experts also have the knowledge to teach you and your cleaning staff the right procedures for achieving a clean facility.

Reach out to a Specialist today to find the right program for your facility.

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