Looking Out For Customer Comfort

With cold and flu season right on schedule, kids will be shuffling home with a cornucopia of sniffles, sneezes, fevers and other ailments. Parents often pick up the bug from their kids — or their own workplace environments — it’s hard to tell which. It’s times like this we often ask: what and who isn’t contagious?

Truth is, hand washing could prevent much of the transfer of illness. It won’t render absolute immunity, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. For that reason, it’s important for facility managers to purchase soap and other cleaning and drying supplies that make their restrooms comfortable for users and therefore conducive to cleanliness and good hygiene.

“Post-9/11, there has been a lot more attention and a lot more marketing of products — especially soaps — that evoke the feeling of security and the comfort of home,” says Brian Sansoni, vice president of communication and membership for the Soap & Detergent Association (SDA), Washington D.C.

And comfort is a concern for users. Employees are more than willing to tell facility managers if they take issue with certain bathroom products, says Mark Armstrong, Boise district manager for Gem State Paper & Supply Co., Boise, Idaho.

“You may not have the best copy paper in the world and the employees aren’t going to complain about that, but if you have the wrong toilet paper or hand soap, they’re going to tell you about it,” he says. “It’s a personal area. When they walk from their office to the restroom, they’re now in their personal realm. It’s a comfort zone, and they want to be comfortable.”

Comfort comes in a variety of forms. When it comes to soap, scent, color, feel, germ-killing ability and cost are among the criteria customers consider when selecting products.

“The biggest thing we hear on soap is, believe it or not, how it smells, and No. 2 is how it lathers,” says Armstrong.

Overall, however, decisions hinge on the type of facility customers are stocking when they make their soap purchases, he adds.

“What works at Joe’s Diner doesn’t work at the law firm downtown,” he explains. Hospitals and food-service areas require soaps with greater germ-killing ability, for instance, while posh business offices or hospitality venues might opt for the foamy, scented sort.

The Cost Issue
For Karen Adams’ company, cost is the main issue for customers, she says. Adams is president of the Kansas City, Mo.-based distributor The Mop Bucket. If customers are willing to listen, however, distributors can show them other ways to achieve cost savings beyond price.

“Customers really can’t understand the difference in pricing until you sit down with them to explain the differences in soap and quality,” she says.

“Here’s the difference: if you have a good quality soap, you’re going to use a minimal amount,” she says. If a soap isn’t lathering to a user’s satisfaction, they’ll simply pump more.

“If they start using more of something, they’re not saving,” Adams says.

This realization has been more widespread in recent years, as more customers concluded that the large, bulk containers of soap they were buying were literally like washing their money down the drain.

Only larger, commodity-driven customers (like schools) still buy the large containers used to refill dispensers, according to Armstrong. Most customers now buy into the “system” sell — a soap and dispenser combination — where there are premeasured, boxed soap refills, he explains. When customers bought bulk containers, he says, cleaners spent more time filling dispensers, not to mention cleaning up the leaky, dripping messes they created.

“Soap is very corrosive, and the dispensers tend to leak. When you go with the packaged soap, you eliminate that problem,” says Armstrong. Packaged soaps require only a quarter of the maintenance, they’re cleaner, and the controlled dispense actually provides a cheaper alternative, he adds.

Schools often stick with the bulk product to protect their ability to bid out large quantities each year.

“They don’t want to get tied into a system where other people can’t bid,” Armstrong explains.

Most customers, however, are not likely to change soaps based on cost, he says. Customers often stick to a brand or type once they find it and like it.

“Ninety percent of the time people change soaps because they don’t like it,” says Armstrong. “They want something that smells better, feels better or looks nicer. Soap is a strange thing. People won’t buy it because it’s green instead of pink, or it smells like pineapple instead of coconuts. It’s generally aesthetic things.”

New Innovations
While some facility types stick to their tried-and-true (or cheapest) brands and types of soap, other facilities are willing to experiment with the newest innovations that enter the marketplace.

Soaps that release a burst of scent when they are pumped are quite popular with her customers, says Adams.

“It’s a clean, fresh smell. Yes, they cost a little bit more, but they’re sort of getting two things in one.”

Foam soap, and soap’s handy sister, gel hand sanitizers, are big among Armstrong’s customers.

Foam soap has the luxurious feel many customers crave, and the cost per use is generally comparable with other soap types, says Armstrong.

“Industry predictions are that [foam soap] is going to control 10 to 15 percent of the market, and I think it’s going to be a lot bigger than that. I have 60 percent of my customers asking for foam soap right now,” he adds.

Other products are also getting more attention these days. The newly improved hand sanitizers are ideal for facilities where people don’t have a lot of time — hospitals, for instance. In the past, multiple washings and alcohol-heavy hand sanitizers wreaked havoc on health care workers’ skin, but new moisturizer-infused formulas are getting rave reviews from users, according to Armstrong. And with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently releasing guidelines advocating the use of hand sanitizers in health care settings, it’s a product category that will continue to grow in popularity, he says. (See CDC guidelines below.)

These buying trends make perfect sense to Sansoni. Customers are consumed with the quick and easy, he says.

“Clearly, what we’re seeing in the cleaning products industry is that the type of cleaning products with the most appeal are those that are fast, effective and easy to use,” he explains.

Sales of wipes for applications from hand washing to cleaning, for instance, are growing four to five times faster than the overall marketplace, says Sansoni.

Wipes and gels also are more portable, he adds, adding to the quick-and-easy appeal.

“You don’t have to have a hot and cold water faucet around to clean your hands.” But, he adds, soap and water is still a necessity in removing soil and dirt from hands.

Variety, the Spice of Life
When it comes to soaps, customers have different needs that call for a variety of products, says Adams. They appreciate having a number of items from which to choose.

A facility might have an office and a warehouse. Or a facility might have a kitchen or an in-house cafeteria. Each area calls for soaps specific to users’ needs.

“I’m always hunting for the newest of what’s out there — what some of the larger vendors don’t have,” she says.

“Consumers and customers alike are truly kings out there right now. They have a wealth of choices as far as cleaning products. The marketplace is a battlefield right now, so you want to have a wide range of choices,” says Sansoni.

One Step At A Time
Getting people to wash is, of course, the first step to a safer environment. Studies show only about 65 percent of people wash their hands after using the restroom. There are reasons, one of which is the patron’s perception that the restroom itself is dirty. It can perpetuate a vicious cycle, says Armstrong.

“If people could be trained to wash their hands, the soap industry would boom,” he adds.

But inciting them to wash is easier said than done. Distributors have access to the stickers and signs that promote hand-washing, but those only go so far in reminding people, especially if it’s their perception that’s clouding their judgment.

One of the few things that can make a dent in the germ-carrying 35 percent is access to touch-free fixtures, Armstrong adds, but they’re not common right now and can be cost-prohibitive. He’s confident, however, that the cost will come down.

“The more kinds of systems you have, the more likely people are to wash their hands, eliminating sick time and the diseases passed from hand to hand,” he says.