Are You a Clean or Dirty Restroom User?

Are You a Clean or Dirty Restroom User?

Are You a Clean or Dirty Restroom User?

By Wally Habben

This is how I propose we solve the “Who gets to use which bathroom?” problem:

Dirty Bathroom Users: They go on the floor, and they certainly don’t wash their hands well, if an attempt is made at all. They touch everything before leaving (including the only handle available to open the exit door).

Clean Bathroom Users: Everything goes inside the porcelain. They always use the paper cover on the seat (no matter how difficult it is to place correctly). They flush the toilet with their shoe. They put the toilet seat down.  They wish to wash their hands with soap and hot water. Finally, they use a paper towel to touch the door handle as they leave.

With two young boys (one potty-trained & one in training) and a conscious effort to drink more than one gallon of water/day myself, I frequent public restrooms.

Until my sons get full control, they will sit down to use the bathroom.

Unfortunately, this means their soft, innocent little hands touch a lot of the seat and adjacent wall.  Disgusting!  Even worse, after completing their business, they typically struggle to reach the sinks, and I must either set them up on the dirty counter or prop them between myself and the edge of the counter to wash their hands. And wash their hands with what? Water that is usually cold to lukewarm at best, and does nothing to rid the bacteria.

Now, even if by God’s grace we managed to get all six of our hands satisfactorily washed clean and dried, how do we open a door that swings in and still keep all our hands clean?

Where on that door can I grab?

Is there a handle on that door that doesn’t contain a previous dirty bathroom user’s residue?

I challenge business owners and managers (who don’t keep a restroom attendant posted in each bathroom for 100 percent of business hours) to provide cleaning/antibacterial products for users of their facilities to clean up

after themselves (or for clean-conscious users to attempt to clean a spot before use).

Keep in mind, some of the dollars you get to count before whistling on the way to the bank will come from hands that utilized your restroom facilities.

DIRTY bathroom users or CLEAN bathroom users — that’s what the door labels will say. Which door is it that you are qualified to enter?

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JaniWrap Out of Order Urinal Covers. 

Keeping Restrooms Beautiful.

We ensure your restrooms appearance is not compromised when a urinal or toilet needs to be removed from service.

JaniWrap Website Design by Best Website Solutions 

Pilot Flying J’s Huge Commitment to Beautiful Restrooms

Pilot Flying J's Huge Commitment to Beautiful Restrooms

Pilot Flying J’s Huge Commitment to Beautiful Restrooms

 

The chain’s first major integrated campaign spotlights the travel centers’ “clean, modern bathrooms.” 3 Sons Media.

Some brands are so sexy they almost market themselves. Some brands are not. You can put truck stops in the latter category.

So when Pilot Flying J, which operates 650 travel centers along America’s interstates, was mapping out its first major integrated marketing campaign—which debuts today—it made a nervy decision. I

nstead of just touting amenities like Wi-Fi, and food and beverage choices, the company gave a starring role to its restrooms. In the brand’s new 30-second TV spot (which you can see below) and in one of its four new print ads, the commode is the best seat in the house.

According to vp of brand and consumer experience Whitney Johnson, the restroom was a necessary thing to spotlight—not that it was easy. “There’s nothing hugely sexy and glamorous about travel centers along the interstate, and restrooms are a hard thing to showcase,” she said. “But they’re important to customers and especially families.”

Ah yes, that’s the bigger idea behind this campaign…

…a print, TV and web-based effort that represents the family-owned company’s most ambitious marketing effort to date.

For years now, truck stops (sorry, travel centers) have been catering to more than just truckers, and Pilot Flying J’s campaign is clearly designed to appeal to families—customers who Johnson affectionately refers to as “four wheeled customers.”

 Anchoring the new effort is a 30-second spot created by Nashville agency 3 Sons Media. It features an all-American family languishing from the boredom and fatigue of a long road trip, then being rejuvenated by a stop at Pilot travel center (Flying J and Pilot merged in 2010) with its creature comforts including free Wi-Fi, an “amazing variety of food and drink choices,” and, of course, “clean, modern bathrooms.”

Actually, the bathrooms really are both clean and modern.

Pilot Flying J is in the process of spending a cool $100 million on upgrading its restrooms, fitting them out with LED fixtures and luxurious Italian tile. But based on the research, it’s money well spent.

According to a 2016 Survey by the National Association of Convenience Stores, not only is a restroom visit the reason 70 percent of drivers stop the car to start with, restroom cleanliness is a decisive factor in which rest stops motorists choose.

Some 41 percent of respondents said that clean facilities are a critical factor in where they stop and whether they return—putting restrooms on par with food options in terms of their importance to motorists.

Meanwhile, in addition to the new TV spot, four print ads via Erwin Penland tout the gourmet coffee and the new myPilot app, which gives members a 3-cent-per-gallon discount on gas.

The company is also sponsoring the much-anticipated college football game on Sept. 10 pitting the Virginia Tech Hokies against the Tennessee Volunteers, a game now called The Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol. 

Promoters hope to see 150,000 fans in the stands of the Bristol Motor Speedway, where the game is being played. If attendance hits that figure, it’ll break the college football attendance record of 115,109. ABC will broadcast the game, while ESPN will air Pilot Flying J’s new TV spot.

Johnson said the football game isn’t just a chance to reach a broad audience, it’s also a nod to Pilot Flying J’s history since founder Jim Haslam (Johnson’s grandfather) played for the Volunteers in 1951, a few years before opening his first truck stop in Gate City, Va. “With that history—our first store in Virginia and him playing for the University of Tennessee—we felt that this tie-in was great opportunity,” Johnson said.

And if fans driving to or from the Bristol Motor Speedway decide to stop at a Pilot Flying J, at least they’ll be guaranteed clean restrooms.

To view or purchase temporary out-of-order covers we make for public restrooms JaniWrap Products 

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Pilot Flying J’s Huge Commitment to Beautiful Restrooms

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Keeping Restrooms Beautiful.

We ensure your restrooms appearance is not compromised when a urinal or toilet needs to be removed from service.

JaniWrap Website Design by Best Website Solutions 

The Impact of a Clean Restroom on Business

Impact of Clean Restroom on Business

 

A clean bathroom can make or break a customer service experience if your company is in the hospitality or service industry.

In a restaurant, for instance, the impact of a clean restroom on a customer’s perception of your company can last through the entire dining experience, and can be a main topic of conversation when the customer tells her friends about your establishment.

Projecting a Clean Image

A clean restroom encourages positive feelings in customers about your business.

This is because customers can equate the cleanliness of your company’s bathroom with the cleanliness of your entire business.

This is especially true if you’re a restaurant owner.

As of December 2010, 86 percent of adults in the United States equated the condition of a restaurant’s bathroom with the condition of its kitchen, according to cleaning industry website CleanLink.

The site also states that 75 percent of U.S. adults wouldn’t return to a restaurant with a dirty bathroom.

This means a clean bathroom can lead to repeat business and higher earnings.

Impact of Clean Restroom on Business

Daily Cleaning Schedule

A daily cleaning schedule, including bathroom cleanup and restocking, gives employees structure and establishes a routine.

This encourages more active engagement during the workday and limits downtime when customers aren’t present in the store.

Employees who remain engaged in work tasks throughout the day can show higher levels of productivity over workers who only perform work tasks when customers or clients are in the vicinity.

A daily routine that incorporates a cleaning schedule can also eliminate the need for a professional cleaning staff to service your business bathroom.

This helps reduce your business costs over time.

If you would like to find out more information on what kind of products for restrooms we make go here JaniWrap Products 

 

Impact of Clean Restroom on Business

JaniWrap Out of Order Urinal Covers. 

Keeping Restrooms Beautiful.

We ensure your restrooms appearance is not compromised when a urinal or toilet needs to be removed from service.

JaniWrap Website Design by Best Website Solutions 

Do Women Care More About Clean Restrooms Than Men?

Do Women Care More About Clean Restrooms Than Men?

Do Women Care More About Clean Restrooms Than Men?

By: Briana Smith, Social Media & Product Branding Specialist, WAXIE Sanitary Supply

A thought occurred to me this weekend as I caught a snippet of the television program Bar Rescue, do women care more about restroom appearance than men?

Bar Rescue is a reality show highlighting a bar or nightclub that isn’t very successful. A team of professionals surveys the situation in order to diagnose & resolve the problem(s). At this point in the show, Jon Taffer, host and bar/nightclub consultant, had already pointed out sanitation issues with the main bar & food preparation areas, spotlighting the owner of the bar.

From there, he moved onto the women’s restroom to discuss the cleanliness.

I don’t remember the conversation exactly, but it was along the lines of, “You won’t get any women in your bar if the bathrooms look like this.” In response the owner just sort of stood with a blank expression on his face.

Taffer continued with disgust and irritation in his voice, “You can’t even tell that there’s something wrong with this bathroom, do you?”

Of course there are two things that can be addressed in my paraphrasing:

1) the conditions of the restrooms

2) the implication that women care about said conditions more than men.

First off, as a woman I do take public restroom cleanliness with a combination of hopefulness & trepidation. Will the restroom be clean or wretched?

I’ve covered how I feel about this subject in a couple of other blog articles: Public Toilet Seat Sanitizers – Do They Work or Is It Peace of Mind? & Would You Pay $1 to Use a Clean Public Restroom. As such, I can only imagine the general state of those restrooms if cleaning is subpar, never mind adding alcohol to the mix.

All I can think of is sticky, icky, and gross. I wouldn’t even want to touch the sink faucets with a 10-foot pole! Lots of bacteria, grime and organic material can build-up rather quickly in restrooms used by numerous people and aren’t cleaned very well or regularly.

Bar restrooms also have the potential for harboring additional organic materials associated with excess alcohol consumption that I wouldn’t exactly want to come in contact with… Restrooms can sometimes make or break a business, especially a restaurant, as Jon Taffer pointed out.

Repeat business is crucial, as is word of mouth.

No one is going to want to go spend a lot of time at a place that is not clean in general, perhaps with the exception of a dive bar. However, be aware that a dive bar also must be inspected by a state health inspector if food is served. If I were deciding where to go and someone mentioned that a place had bad bathrooms I’d definitely rule it out of the running and spend my money elsewhere.

Bad bathrooms are memorable, and not in the way you want them to be. On the flip side, a restaurant restroom can also be a selling point. I recently went to a cocktail bar for my birthday celebration with a couple of friends and we spent 5-10 minutes discussing not only the interior décor of the bar inspired by a vintage drugstore/pharmacy, which was awesome by the way, but we also talked about the floors in the restroom.

They were so unique and cool that one of my friends even went back in to take pictures of it!

The ‘tile’ of the floor consisted of nickels with some sort of epoxy coating to set them in the floor and provide a smooth surface for cleaning. One of my friends was extremely impressed that all of the nickels were perfectly spaced from one another.

Another thing that I found interesting while watching that scene on Bar Rescue was the lack of follow up in the men’s restroom; they didn’t even discuss it, not even in passing. Perhaps I missed that part, although I highly doubt it.

Men’s restrooms don’t seem to be a popular topic of daily conversation, and it made me wonder if most men care that much about restroom cleanliness. So I took a very informal & unofficial poll with a handful of my male coworkers, and while most considered restroom cleanliness to be of importance, they felt that in general it was a lot more important to women.

Some were more aware of restroom conditions due to it being an occupational hazard. One of my coworkers brought up a good point – if the restrooms are in terrible shape it makes one consider the condition the food preparation area is in.

To find out more about the products we sell for out-of-order toilet & urinal covers public restrooms JaniWrap Products.

Find us on Social Media

Do Women Care More About Clean Restrooms Than Men?

Do Women Care More About Clean Restrooms Than Men? 

JaniWrap Out of Order Urinal Covers. 

Keeping Restrooms Beautiful.

We ensure your restrooms appearance is not compromised when a urinal or toilet needs to be removed from service.

JaniWrap Website Design by Best Website Solutions 

Why Toilets?

Why Toilets?

Why Toilets?

The importance of global sanitation and toilets cannot be overemphasized. For this reason, it is JaniWrap’s  privilege to help illuminate these issues. Article curated from the World Toilet Organization.

 

We use them every day – at home, school, work, restaurants, shopping malls – yet we seldom talk about them. The silence around the issue of toilets and sanitation has deadly consequences.

At current rates of progress, the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for sanitation remains the most off-track of all, leaving one-third of the world’s population without access to improved sanitation.

Sanitation is a basic human right yet slow and insufficient progress leaves billions around the world prone to illness, poverty and abuse.

Despite compelling evidence that shows the benefits and great returns of investing in sanitation, it continues to be an ‘unglamorous’ subject for many policy-makers. The area of water (an equally important subject), on the other hand, receives more funding and attention on the global development agenda.

This needs to change.

Around one billion people in our world today face the indignity of defecating in the open. A lack of clean and safe toilets at schools leads to higher dropout among girls once they reach puberty.

Diarrhoeal diseases – a direct consequence of poor sanitation – kill more children every year than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.

Clean and safe toilets are prerequisites for health, dignity, privacy and education. The World Toilet Organization was established with the aim to break the taboo around toilets and the sanitation crisis.

Since 2001, we have lobbied governments, public and private sector stakeholders and the international community to prioritize sanitation in the development agenda.

Through our initiatives – World Toilet Day, World Toilet Summit, World Toilet College and SaniShop – we continue to mobilise an international network of partners, supporters, donors, governments and international organisations to advocate for effective sanitation policies to ensure health, dignity and well-being for everyone, everywhere.

We make temporary out-of-order covers for urinals & toilets in public restrooms, to find out more JaniWrap Products. 

Find us on Social Media

Social Distancing Labels

Why Toilets?

JaniWrap Out of Order Urinal Covers. 

Keeping Restrooms Beautiful.

We ensure your restrooms appearance is not compromised when a urinal or toilet needs to be removed from service.

JaniWrap Website Design by Best Website Solutions