Marketing

RestaurantU: Sanitation is Marketing

When Roy MacNaughton sent over this feature, I thought it a bit odd a marketing guy would be sending over a piece on sanitation. Also, he describes a situation at a hospital? What could that have to do with foodservice and hospitality? Well, think how family and friends feel when they come to visit a patient at a hospital and the restroom is not up to par. Doesn't that immediately translate into skepticism of the entire medical staff, including the doctors? How like a dirty restaurant bathroom saying the same about our chefs, our kitchen staff and the facilities as well. Sanitation is indeed a primary charge in our business that transcends the mere act of cleaning. It’s marketing at its most basic level.
-- Peter (Langlois)

EATING OFF THE FLOOR
By Roy MacNaughton

I walked into the men's room, flicked on the light and stopped dead in my tracks.

This was the cleanest restroom I had ever seen anywhere in the entire world! I'm serious. The linoleum floor was so sparkling clean; I just had to test it. I knelt down and wiped the floor with two different fingers. Nothing. I looked at my fingers. I smelled them. I looked at the floor again; and just 'knew' that I could literally lick the floor without fear.

I looked around me. The ceiling, walls, sinks, commodes, all surfaces just sparkled. Even the mirrors had no fingerprints. I looked at my watch. It was 9:30 a.m. and the facility had been open for hours. Even if it had just been cleaned, which was not the case; no normal daily cleaning could do this kind of job, unless it was cleaned this way everyday, since the day it was built. After all my years in the operations side of the hotel and restaurant business, I knew this was indeed in a class by itself.

I did what I had to do and walked back out to the front desk opposite the small sitting room where I had been waiting for my friend who was starting his series of chemotherapy sessions for cancer. I was in the Madrona Medical Group in Bellingham, Washington.

I said to the woman behind the desk: "Do you know you have the cleanest men's room I have ever seen anywhere in six different countries?" Understandably rather askance, she said cautiously: "No, I was not aware of that, but thanks for telling me." I think she half expected me to jump over the counter, or launch into hysterical laughter while she called the men in the white coats. Seeing this look on her face, I moved to calm her fears, continuing: "Seriously, I have lived and worked all over the world, and I have never seen a restroom as clean and sparkling as this…and I just wanted to let you know, and ask you to tell management." Still somewhat shocked by this comment, she said she would tell management and the cleaning company that did the daily restroom maintenance.

Then I asked her: "Do you have any idea how much better that restroom will make my friend -- or anyone else who first sees it -- feel? Especially in view of why they're here?"

Now she understood.

It's about first impressions. Wherever you encounter them: The lighted entrance, tidy parking lot, employee nametags that can be read – even the restroom. It's the fact that you only get one chance. It's about building credibility and setting standards that are noticed immediately and appreciated. Here, it's about making the patients – those whose very life is hanging in the balance – based on the competence of the medical staff at this facility – feel confident that they are getting the very best in expertise and care.

It's about building the necessary expectation.

Have you taken a look at the first impressions your business makes? Have you thought about how important such encounters are to the public? Have you realized that such first encounters, when extremely positive, will be actively spoken about over and over again to others? The very essence of your business and reputation depends on the constant repetition of that very positive 'story'. It differentiates you from all the other 'has beens' out there.

Before we left that building, I took my friend into the men's room to show him what I had seen.

He just smiled.

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Bio:

Roy W. MacNaughton

Roy W. MacNaughton is an operator, marketer and journalist with over thirty years of international hospitality and foodservice experience. He is president of his own firm that specializes in “niche markets,” while writing for several industry on and offline publications. He has taught hospitality courses at the university level in the U.S., Canada and the West Indies. As an employee or consultant, Roy has worked with McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Wendy’s, American Express, Four Seasons Hotels, Hyatt, Hilton International, Johnson & Johnson, H.J.Heinz, John Denver’s Windstar Foundation and the Aspen Highlands Ski company, among others. He is a graduate of Ryerson University’s School of Hospitality in Toronto; and he holds an MBA from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. He may be reached at: roymac@winning.com