5 Top Tips for Cleaning in Retail Buildings

If you're managing a company which frequently cleans retails buildings, then part of the reason your clients hire you is that your professional cleaning ensures ensure their customers have a safe, clean and hygienic visit to their store.

No potential customer is happy to walk into a retail shopping centre only to realise it's unclean, cluttered and smelly. They're more likely to immediately stop thinking about the items they were interested in just seconds ago, turn around and leave.

As the cleaning company behind ensuring your client's building is clean and thoroughly disinfected you hold quite a responsibility. Retail buildings - especially the larger ones - often see thousands of visitors every day.

Here are some tips and best practices for providing a professional retail cleaning service.

Professionally train your cleaning staff

Your cleaners should posses knowledge appropriate to cleaning, disinfecting and sanitising a retail building.

There are many high-touch areas, including toilets and baby changing rooms, so it's critical your cleaning staff understand guidelines and best practices for properly sanitising specfic areas and avoiding spreading germs into other areas.

Training your cleaning staff in the safe use of cleaning equipment and chemicals is also imperative.

Many of the chemical your cleans use pose serious health risks, if mishandled. And cleaning work, in general, requires them to adopt some rather elaborate postures, putting pressures on their joints, nerves and muscles. Ensure they know the risks and what to do if they have concerns.

Ensure you implement a cleaning plan

As a commercial cleaning company, you likely provide a detailed cleaning checklist containing the services you provide. Your clients are able to pick and choose the services they needs from you.

Once you agree to your client's wishes, you can begin creating a cleaning plan for your cleaners to follow. This is likely to be an adaption of your general cleaning system.

Every cleaning plan you create should begin with performing thorough COSHH risk assessment. This allows you to identify risk or hazard in every building you clean, particularly risks your clients may have missed.

Be sure to include your cleaning chemicals in your risk assessments so you're able to choose the correct controls for each task.

Top to bottom, inside to outside

This cleaning method has been recommended for a long time because it's the only way to really simplify any clean. Ensuring you go from the very top all the way down to the bottom means you clean everything.

All of the dirt up high gets knocked down into anything below it. You then clean the next level, moving all that dirt down further. Down until it reaches the floor.

You're then able to easily remove all of that dirt - by vacuuming or sweeping - beginning in the corner that is farthest from the entrance and working your way back to the front doors.

Cleaning this way will ensure you remove all the dirt. It also means you don't track new dirt in as you're finishing up and leaving.

Pay special attention to high-touch areas

High-traffic and high-touch areas require special attention and should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. In retail buildings the toilet and changing room areas are especially important, often seeing hundreds or thousands of users per day. However, retails building also use a lot of displays, which are generally touched by everyone.

Here are a few shot tips for dealing with high-touch areas:

• Use a broad-spectrum, multi-purpose DEFRA-registered solution.
  

• Make sure you use the right chemical for the job.
  

• Different bacteria require different chemicals to remove or eliminate.
  

• Use colour-code equipment - like mops and cloths - for different areas. This will ensure your cleaners don't spread bacteria from one critical area (the toilets) to another (the changing rooms).

And here are examples of high-touch areas in retail buildings:

• Baby changing areas.
  

• Toilet seats, flushing handles and doors.
  

• Sinks, taps and dispensers.
  

• Door handles, knobs and disability aids.
  

• Windows and display cases.
  

• Changing rooms.
  

• Counter-tops.
  

• Entrances.

Only use the latest cleaning equipment

Being the owner of a commercial cleaning business, it is imperative that your cleaning staff are kept up-to-date with the latest equipment.

Your clients expect sterling results. Because of this, you should invest in top-notch quality cleaning technologies.

Ensure your clients and their customers are happy and safe from germs by using dry floor cleaners, vacuum cleaners, mops, chemicals, etc. that are capable of deep-cleaning a building which sees thousands of people every day.

Using top-notch equipment also promotes safer-working as your cleaning staff feel less strain from their work.

Ensure your cleaners safety through suitable and sufficient chemical risk assessments. The COSHH Risk Assessor Certification™ launched in March 2019 and aims to completely transform the way the chemical safety industry delivers chemical safety training.

Apply for the COSHH Risk Assessor Certification™ now and get certified in less than two hours!