NORTH SALT LAKE, Utah -- Having a clean restroom at your convenience store is serious business. It can make the difference between customers returning to the store. And it can mean the difference between customers spreading word of mouth that "the restroom was clean, well-stocked and had a fresh scent" or "the dirty restroom floor gave me a negative impression," [image-nocss] as mystery shoppers commented in the 2009 CSP-Service Intelligence Mystery Shop.
North Salt Lake, Utah-based Maverik, a newcomer to the Mystery Shop, was the winner of this year's cleanest-restroom honor. And as Roger Green, vice president of operations, puts it, "it's not an accident" that the company got 91.2% approval from mystery shoppers who were asked: "Was the public restroom clean and properly stocked with supplies?"
"It's something that we've worked hard at," Green told CSP Daily News. "We've spent money upgrading our restrooms because it's an investment we needed to make to offer the best service we can to our customers."
Green said those efforts have included refixturing and retiling a number of the company's restrooms, and including larger facilities in newer storeswith a goal of updating all 198 stores in the next year and a half.
Maverik is also integrating the company's adventure theme (with upgrades including restroom murals), of which Green said the company is very proud. While he declined to mention the cost, he did say that it varied from location to location. "It's not a cheap experience that we're undertaking, but we feel like it's an important one," he said.
Green added that the company had also undertaken a program in the last year to enhance floor cleanliness throughout the stores, including the restrooms. "We just feel like that is part of our public service, our customer service and really our employee service also," he said.
And the efforts are not going unnoticed. "I mean it's amazing how customers respond to things like that; I mean we get comments every day," he added.
Chevron's ExtraMile and Kwik Trip tied for second place for restrooms in the Mystery Shop with a score of 88.7%.
Al Norris, manager of franchise development for Chevron, said that his company follows up on restroom cleanliness in a number of ways, including mystery shops, image surveys conducted by the company's franchise business consultants, and through the ExtraMile Stars program, a comprehensive review that looks at facility cleanliness. All this in addition to ExtraMile's key operating standards.
But he said Chevron has known about the importance of clean restrooms even before the ExtraMile concept was launched more than two years ago. "I can remember focus group results from years ago that showed how impactful a negative restroom experience could be for a customer; specifically that an unpleasant restroom experience will turn a customer offnot just from the location where the incident occurred, but it will turn them off against the entire network and brand," Norris said. "So philosophically, we have always placed a lot of emphasis on restroom cleanliness and maintenance."
Steve Loehr, vice president of operations support at Kwik Trip, also said that restroom cleanliness should be a top priority, especially when you have a foodservice offering. Kwik Trip has secret shoppers visit each store an average of 2.5 times per month, with a special focus on restrooms.
And Kwik Trip restrooms have a unique feature, according to Loehr, that demonstrates the company's commitment. "In each of our restrooms, we have a framed picture of [CEO] Don and [director of petroleum operations] Steve Zietlow, telling the customer about our clean restroom pledge and that if they experience any problems, [they should] call our 800 number, and Don, himself, will call them back," Loehr said. "When we first started this program, Don would get 10 to 15 calls some weeks. Now, we go weeks on end without a call."
For more about the mystery-shop results, see the August issue of CSP magazine.
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