Business Impact of Dirty Toilet Seats

Stop Losing Your Customers From Dirty Restrooms

Nobody likes a dirty restroom. Recent data from Cintas Corp. confirms that a dirty restroom has a profoundly negative impact on customer experience, the customer’s view of the business, and the likelihood of future patronage. A clean restroom is a way to stand out from other businesses and deliver a level of customer service that your patrons will appreciate. Here is how a dirty bathroom worsens the customer experience, and what you can do about it:

Directly Worsens Customer’s Experience

When a customer is forced to use a dirty restroom, the customer experience is directly and immediately worsened. According to our survey, 88% of guests say that using a dirty toilet seat is their #1 concern when entering a bathroom, ranked even higher than running out of toilet paper (#2). Foul odors, wet floors, and dirty toilet seats put customers in an uncomfortable and unhygienic environment and degrade the overall customer experience.

Reflects Poorly on a Business’ Brand

74% of respondents from our survey say dirty restrooms would cause them to perceive a business negatively. And these days, branding is everything. Successful companies differentiate themselves from their competitors with superb customer service, and a brand tied to that performance. An establishment with a dirty restroom loses valuable brand capital, hurting long-term results.

Decreases Customer Loyalty

From our findings, at least 30% of customers would not return to a business after using a dirty toilet seat. The lifetime cost of dirty restrooms is immense, preventing valuable relationships with repeat customers. This represents a potential value that could have been captured, but was lost due to negligence.

What Business Owners Can Do About it

Thankfully, business owners have options.

1. Hiring More Custodial Staff

Business operators can hire more custodial staff to increase cleanliness in bathrooms. More staff means more cleanings, which can remove the messes which ruin the customer experience. However, more custodial staff also means increased labor costs, especially with the cost of managing and providing health insurance to more people.

2. Providing Toilet Seat Covers

Paper toilet seat covers are another option. Toilet seat covers can provide a barrier between dirty toilet seats and patrons. However, this approach has a few key drawbacks. First, this increases labor costs by adding the task of refilling individual dispensers. Material costs also increase, creating a recurring strain on the balance sheet. Most importantly, toilet seat covers don’t work for significant messes, with customers choosing to opt-out entirely instead of using a cover on a dirty toilet seat.

3. Mess Prevention Systems

Recently, new mess prevention systems have been developed that stop toilet messes from being created in the first place. The Cleana self-lifting toilet seat is one such solution. Designed for mess prevention in commercial restrooms, the specially designed mess-preventing toilet seat automatically lifts after being used, stopping patrons who otherwise wouldn’t lift the seat from urinating on the toilet seats. People who use the seat can use its antimicrobial handle to push it down, and once they are done, the seat automatically lifts for the next patron. The Cleana self-lifting commercial toilet seat is easy to use, does not require any ongoing maintenance, batteries, or electricity, and saves the labor costs of cleaning toilet seat messes.