First impressions count!

IN THE competitive business realm, first impressions reign supreme, regardless of the establishment - be it a bustling office, a cosy hotel, a university, an entertainment hotspot, or any commercial space. These pivotal moments wield the potential to win over a customer or client, deciding whether they choose to forge a connection with the business or not. 

Understanding the weight of these initial encounters is vital, ensuring that whether you cater to corporate partners, students or leisure enthusiasts, you create an unforgettable and positive impression that sets the stage for lasting success. 

This makes it an essential aspect that businesses cannot overlook. A clean reception area goes beyond just projecting professionalism and competence; it creates a welcoming ambiance that uplifts the moods of both employees and guests. What’s more, it champions health and safety, contributing to a safer and more pleasant environment for everyone involved. 

How to maintain a hygienic reception area 

When it comes to reception areas, each one is unique, especially across diverse industries. What truly matters is creating a welcoming environment where hygiene takes precedence, ensuring that everyone who uses the space feels comfortable and at ease.

It's important to have a clear understanding of all aspects when it comes to cleanliness and hygiene, including anticipated footfall, average occupancy rates, and areas that may require extra attention, such as high-traffic touchpoints like door handles, front desks, and lift call buttons. 

By gaining this comprehensive insight, businesses can develop cleaning strategies that focus on the areas that are most significant to both customers and staff, ensuring a superior experience for all.

Any cleaning strategy should begin with a detailed assessment of business operations and priorities. Only then can organisations choose the appropriate solutions and cleaning services to meet the requirements of their business. 

How innovation is enhancing reception area cleanliness

By staying on the cutting edge of innovation and investing appropriately, organisations can use the latest systems and technology to create complete schematic floor plans, quickly identify the main issues on site, and develop accurate cleaning strategies for any building. 

In the pursuit of finely tuned staff scheduling and enhanced cleaning operations, leading soft facilities management providers are harnessing the power of advanced footfall analytics and data insights. These leading-edge tools enable them to gauge building occupancy levels with unparalleled accuracy throughout each moment. 

By gaining a deep understanding of foot traffic trends in reception areas, the cleaning teams can align staff and resources to meet customer demands and operational needs.

Sophisticated footfall technologies not only count individuals entering and exiting a facility but also meticulously track occupant behaviours within the reception. This provides crucial insights that can be used to reshape cleaning strategies and schedules. 

The data gathered becomes a source for predicting traffic patterns, identifying peak periods, and pinpointing high footfall zones. This knowledge empowers the establishment of efficient cleaning schedules precisely when they are most needed.

The versatility of occupancy sensors extends to seating areas, washrooms, and open plan zones. This broader coverage enriches the data available to facility managers, enabling meticulous monitoring of cleaning routines. 

This enables FM providers to refine their services, enhancing space use, elevating visitor and employee experiences, and reducing cleaning costs. Cleaning schedules can be fine-tuned to reach an unmatched level of efficiency, precisely targeting every crucial zone of the reception area, from the floors and walls to the furniture and décor, and much more.

Critical areas for cleaning

Among these areas, the floors stand out as highly susceptible to dirtiness and contamination, especially with foot traffic inadvertently bringing in dirt, particularly during damp weather. This vulnerability is especially true for spaces with direct outdoor access.

Effective solutions like dirt trap zones and entrance mats play a vital role by preventing dirt from entering and limiting moisture and snow infiltration. These mats require regular maintenance using wet and dry vacuum cleaners, electric brooms, or upright brush-type vacuum cleaners, which can also extend to adjacent areas.

Despite these efforts, regular and comprehensive floor cleaning remains essential. For resilient surfaces like tiles or lino, manual wiping systems are commonly employed for daily upkeep. Dry and wet-dry vacuum cleaners are versatile options, adapting well to various flooring types. 

In more expansive spaces, technology once again takes centre stage. Here, the agility of a manoeuvrable scrubber drier becomes an asset, ensuring a comprehensive and hygienic clean by promptly suctioning away soiled water.

Machinery not only speeds up the cleaning process, boosting efficiency, but it also presents a clear route to reducing labour expenses for both commercial cleaning companies and their clients. Testing shows that certain floor scrubber driers, with twin counter-rotating brushes, deliver surfaces 90% cleaner than traditional mopping.

The surge in the integration of advanced industrial floor scrubber technology serves as a prime illustration of the innovative strides being made in the realm of reception area cleaning. But remember, the real perks of using these innovations in a commercial cleaning contract really shine when you think about how they fit into the actual environment.

For example, different floor coverings in reception areas necessitate distinct cleaning approaches. It's crucial to tailor cleaning processes to the nature of the floor coverings to ensure optimal results and maintain cleanliness standards. 

Level up your surface cleanliness 

Another area that requires special attention is surface cleanliness. Given heightened hygiene standards, the reception desk, a central point of human interaction, reassumes a pivotal role. While high-touch surfaces such as doorknobs, elevator buttons, and counters must be regularly disinfected.

Given that the average person touches surfaces that expose them to 840,000 germs every 30 minutes, some 80% of communicable disease is spread by touch, and lift and elevator buttons contain around 22% more bacteria than toilet seats, the need to have an effective surface cleaning schedule is of the utmost importance.

For manual surface cleaning, the use of microfibre cloths and spray bottles with a cleaner – disinfectant cleaner if necessary – is recommended.

Two methods can make the work process more practical and safer: The colour method, for example, in which blue cloths are used for surfaces and red cloths for toilets and urinals, so that there is no risk of cross-contamination. 

While the eight-fold or 16-fold method for cloths can be used to ensure that surfaces are always cleaned with a clean side of the cloth and germs are not carried over from one surface to the next. 

For those seeking an alternative, a professional steam cleaner stands as an effective and time-saving solution. Its high cleaning temperature not only ensures optimal hygiene but also combats germs and viruses efficiently.

Yet, when it comes to surface cleaning there's a new innovation on the market – electrostatic sprayers. These cutting-edge tools are already making waves in the FM space. They have the potential to revolutionise the disinfection process across various surfaces, including walls, floors, counters, chairs, tables, fabrics, and plastics. 

Used correctly they can save disinfectant and cut cleaning time by 50%, compared with spray-and-wipe methods. Outperforming traditional methods like wipes, trigger sprayers, or mops, they also boast a potential 50% increase in surface coverage. These sprayers ensure efficient and controlled chemical application, eliminating the dreaded liquid pooling of trigger sprayers.

A proactive approach to hygiene 

Whether you're in the business of corporate offices, hospitality, or leisure and entertainment, reception areas are always bustling with activity, experiencing a constant flow of people and ever-changing needs.

That's why it's crucial for facility services to be adaptable enough to handle these daily challenges. The key lies in building the ability to keep things running smoothly even during tough times, and the flexibility to handle sudden increases in demand without a hitch.

By effectively using the latest innovations and data, those in charge of facilities can quickly capture and share what's happening on site, ensuring that the right people on the facilities management team are notified promptly. This way, any issues can be resolved swiftly, and everyone involved knows what's going on.

Instead of just reacting when issues arise, focusing on keeping things clean and hygienic before problems occur can set companies apart from their rivals. Making good use of data lets teams dig into the real causes of problems, figure out where attention might be needed beforehand, and keep improving how services are provided.

When it comes to taking care of facilities, data can point out which places need a little extra attention, which ones are consistently doing great, and which ones are either getting better or could use some improvement.

Using tech-powered solutions to collect accurate data on cleaning performance isn't just about making places cleaner and healthier. It's also about making sure things are consistent across the board and everyone knows what's going on.

Investing in professional services

A well-kept reception area reflects a business's dedication to excellence and leaves a lasting impression on all who enter. It embodies company values and commitment to exceptional experiences.

Regular cleaning and prompt maintenance create an inviting reception that fosters positive interactions. Outsourcing cleaning to experts is a smart choice for busy or resource-limited businesses. Professionals have the expertise, equipment, and technology to ensure consistent cleanliness, leading to cost savings and efficiencies.

Katie Westerman is chief marketing & development officer at SBFM, a privately-owned soft facilities management company in the UK and Ireland.

For more information, visit: www.sb-fm.co.uk