The Ultimate Pre-Opening Cleaning Checklist
All over the UK, the shutters will be lifted and the doors unbolted on thousands of stores and venues in the coming days. Retailers who’ve been categorised as ‘non essential’ will be particularly keen to see the whites of their customers’ eyes again once more.
While the list of pre-opening obligations upon such business owners will doubtless feel long and complex, it’s the issue of cleanliness and hygiene which should rank as the highest priority for all concerned. But where to start? What more should a major ‘pre opening’ clean regime feature beyond normal times?
Here’s our go-to checklist:
A culture of clean
Approach this new era with a determined commitment to have all staff engaged in a culture which continually considers cleaning standards. Consider issuing everyone with a list of reminders about personal responsibilities, and ideally involve them in your pre-opening deep clean as a way of reinforcing your intentions. You can also emphasise the culture by issuing staff with a personal protection hygiene pack, and perhaps spare masks and hand sanitisers.
Floors and walls
It would be easy to underestimate the need to deep cleanse these larger expanses, particularly when you might imagine that hands are less likely to touch walls and floors. But think about the scope for people dropping face masks, wipes and their personal effects on the floor, or touching your walls as they pass between rails. We would always suggest using something like our concentrate surface disinfectant, or our surface disinfectant spray (which also comes in an alcohol free version).
Tackling touch points
Door handles, hanging rails, till points and other areas likely to be touched more regularly, should be given extra attention. Products like our disinfectant wipes are perfect for this, and our disinfectant aerosol spray would also be useful to have as part of your continual cleaning approach in these areas.
Bathrooms and baby changing
Those retailers who provide toilets and changing facilities will want to put special effort into these spaces. Use disinfectant sprays regularly, and encourage customers to wipe down baby changing tables by having some water-based disinfectant wipes available.
Reinforcing healthy habits
From the moment you open, you’ll want your customers to be reminded that they play a part in keeping themselves and others virus-free. Having accessible sanitising stations is the perfect visual cue for this. Our stations are easy to refill, simple to position, and certainly encourage customers to pause and clean as they enter a venue.
Communicating clean
It’s not only important to do the cleaning, but to communicate with your customers what you’re doing, why and how. Think about reiterating your in-store commitment to cleaning by displaying pinned signs or notices which tell customers how regularly you clean, when toilets were last checked, and how they can report issues of concern. You might also want to use social media in the days ahead of re-opening, to post about your cleaning and hygiene approach.
Think Forward
Just as you wouldn’t want to run out of the key product lines you stock, make sure you’ve thought through your supply chain and re-ordering approach for cleaning items. Companies like Orca will be happy to discuss your bulk-order requirements and to look at plans for replenishing your stock before you are too low on a particular item.