Cleanliness (or the lack of) can make or break a customer’s impression of your restaurant. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 66% of customers rated hygiene as more influential than customer service when it came to their perception of a restaurant. Keeping the most commonly used surfaces visibly clean isn’t only an effective way to ensure your business is making a favorable impression on customers. It also helps prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
One of these most used restaurant items are interactive kiosks. As they’ve become integrated into many QSRs across the country, the question of effective and consistent hygiene routines has become a hot topic of discussion. We’ll walk you through the steps your business can take to keep your interactive kiosks clean.
Make Staff Aware of Latest Cleaning Protocols
Like the guidelines surrounding COVID itself, the CDC’s directions regarding sanitization have been ever-changing. Regardless, restaurants are required to comply with these–and other strict food-related–standards. Failing to do so can result in harsh fines or even legal ramifications. Decreased customer approval of your business is also a potential risk.
Therefore, it’s vital to make sure that your staff is not only aware of sanitization regulations, but that they can carry them out. Your business can do so by:
- Displaying the most recent requirements prominently on employee-facing digital signage in your restaurant.
- Posting notices and reminders on high employee traffic areas.
- Sending reminders to their devices when they access your restaurant’s WiFi.
With this knowledge, your staff will be able to effectively and efficiently keep your interactive kiosks clean, no matter how many customers have used them. Even more importantly, regularly sanitized high-touch areas are a guaranteed boost for customer approval.
Have a Stock of Cleaning Supplies On Hand
This may seem like an obvious suggestion but given the latest struggles with the international supply chain and pandemic-influenced panic buying, it remains an important one. Your restaurant should always have the relevant cleaning supplies on hand. Common items are readily available at most local retailers. Amazon and other online shopping options may also be a quick solution if stores are out of the items your business needs.
Additionally, properly storing these items will help ensure they don’t contaminate your menu items or cause accidents.
Set a Schedule to Keep Your Interactive Kiosks Clean
Much like cleaning your restaurant’s bathrooms, setting an interactive kiosk cleaning schedule can help ensure that your screens are routinely sanitized. Assigning this duty at certain times to certain employees is an easy way to keep your kiosks clean.
This schedule can be simply and effectively displayed by:
- Using a paper chart with employees’ names, time to clean, and a place to mark when the cleaning took place.
- Setting reminders on your digital signage, such as who cleaned the screens last and who is up next for sanitization.
- Incentivize employees to remember to clean with morale boosting awards, like “Most Tidy Employee”.
Involve Your Customers in Your Cleanliness Efforts
Customers can play their part, too. By providing customers with hand sanitizer or wipes, they’ll be able to clean their hands or the screens themselves before (and after!) using them. 77% of customers reported that the presence of hand sanitizer makes them “much more comfortable”. Given that interactive kiosks are high-touch items, making customers feel that they’re routinely cleaned is vital, pandemic or no pandemic.
The Overall Importance of Keeping Your Interactive Kiosks Clean
Cleanliness is important across numerous industries. For QSRs and other restaurants, it’s not only important but necessary. By keeping high-touch areas like interactive kiosks clean, your business decreases the risk of spreading germs AND keeps customers happy during their visit to your location.
Interactive kiosks can serve as both contactless options and great points of sales. If your restaurant isn’t already using them, you should be! Schedule a demo with Spectrio today to see how interactive kiosks can play a vital role in your business.