As we approach the hectic shopping periods of Black Friday and the holiday season, retailers are gearing up to accommodate an influx of customers. It’s predicted that in-person retail sales will amount to £54.01bn this holiday season, a 3.5% year-on-year increase.
Whilst an increase in shoppers is beneficial for business, it increases the cleaning requirements of your premises as your business becomes subject to a higher number of bacteria and dirt. One of the most pressing concerns during the Black Friday and holiday season is the increased risk of virus transmission. Given the ongoing public health concern since the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to maintain robust hygiene practices to protect staff and customers.
The increase in customers also raises the likelihood of accidents like spillages and breakages, which can create not only safety hazards but also leave a poor first impression for shoppers.
Amid this retail frenzy, store staff are under immense pressure to meet higher customer demand, process sales efficiently, and provide exceptional service. Unfortunately, this surge in responsibilities leaves them with limited time for essential cleaning duties.
This is where professional cleaning providers like Vanguard step in throughout the Black Friday and holiday season. By hiring professional cleaning services, retailers can ensure that their premises remain spotless, safe, and inviting for customers. This reduces the burden on your staff, allowing them to focus on the essential tasks of customer assistance.
In this article, we will explore the advantages that retailers can gain from investing in the services of professional cleaning companies during the hectic Black Friday and holiday season. By the end of this article, you will have a comprehensive understanding of why turning to professional cleaning providers like Vanguard can benefit your retail business during this critical time of the year.
In 2022, customer footfall over the holiday season was the highest since the beginning of the pandemic according to data from the British Retail Consortium. This indicates the return of shoppers to UK high streets for their Black Friday and holiday shopping.
As we have explored, the harsh winter weather, together with an increase in shopping crowds, results in the easier spread of viruses. Research has highlighted the correlation between temperature drops and the heightened risk of COVID-19 spread. For each degree Celsius the temperature drops below 10°C, there is an increase in the reproduction rate of the virus. This means that even without the end-of-year shopping frenzy, keeping your retail premises clean is crucial for the health of all.
The need to invest time and resources into your retail cleaning is further increased with the rising footfall in shops, increasing the number of bacteria in your business. In 2022, high streets saw a 15.1% year-on-year increase in footfall, indicating a return to busy shopping crowds following the pandemic.
This is why particularly enhanced cleaning is needed for retail businesses during the Black Friday and holiday season, to tackle the increased transmission of viruses. By doing this, you not only ensure the well-being of your staff but also mitigate the risk of staff absences, aiding your ability to manage the surge in consumer activity effectively.
Additionally, a cleaner and more sanitary retail environment allows your staff to perform their roles more efficiently. With cleaning responsibilities taken care of by Vanguard’s professionals, your staff place their focus on delivering customer service and driving retail sales.
Below, we have outlined 7 key benefits of using a professional cleaning company like Vanguard for your retail business over the Black Friday and holiday shopping season.
Commercial cleaning is crucial in establishing a lasting impression on customers this holiday season, as your business competes with the abundance of retailer competition both offline and online.
When shoppers step into a spotless environment, they are more likely to feel comfortable, stay longer, and make purchases. After all, no one enjoys spending time in a dirty environment! Moreover, unhappy customers are unlikely to buy from your store.
Data indicates that there is a 91% chance that customers will not return to your business if they are not happy. What’s more, this can have a knock-on impact on potential customers, as dissatisfied customers typically tell between 9 and 15 people about their bad experience, deterring customers from making sales at your business.
Dirty premises create the impression that your store is poorly maintained. A poorly maintained store can make customers question the quality of your products and reduce trust in your brand. A sanitised store, on the other hand, can enhance your reputation as a retailer, and enhance customers’ impression of your products. If customers trust your brand, they are more likely to make purchases.
With professional cleaning services from Vanguard Cleaning, your shoppers will gain a positive impression of your business throughout the Black Friday and holiday season, by always providing a stunning cleaning solution. Whatever your business size, our experts are equipped to provide a pristine clean that leaves your retail business ready for the winter shopping season.
With the surge in customer traffic during the Black Friday and holiday season, employees find themselves under heightened pressure to cater to a larger number of customers. Shop floors can quickly become overcrowded, and many more customers will require assistance from staff. As a result, staff members experience an increased workload towards the end of the year, making it challenging for them to allocate time for cleaning.
To cope with the intense demands of Black Friday and the holiday season, many businesses opt to expand their workforce. Research indicates that 63% of UK businesses had planned to increase their staff numbers at the end of 2022 to cope with the Black Friday and holiday surge.
While increasing your staff can aid in managing the rush of customers, it often involves significant financial investment, including recruitment, training, and salary costs. The recruitment process for just one new employee in the UK costs an average of £3000! The process of finding and training new employees can be time-consuming too, eating up your crucial time over the critical end-of-year sales period.
Hiring a professional cleaning company like Vanguard offers a more effective long-term solution that ensures your business is meticulously cleaned, without eating into your valuable time. Vanguard Cleaning provides retail businesses with comprehensive cleaning services, taking the pressure off your staff.
This enables your staff to fully focus on delivering exceptional customer service, while our team of experts deliver a gold-standard cleaning service for your business. This saves you and your staff time, so you can focus purely on delivering customer service, without the stress of cleaning your premises or hiring and training additional staff.
Plus, Vanguard offers completely customised cleaning schedules, so our staff can sanitise your premises at whatever time works best for you. That’s because our People First virtue ensures we always work with you in mind, working with minimal disruption for an effective cleaning service that works alongside your business.
Retail cleaning is particularly important to minimise the risk of accidents caused by slips, trips, and breakages. This proactive approach is crucial for safeguarding the health and safety of both your customers and staff and for reducing potential hazards within your premises.
Accidents in retail settings, such as breakages and spillages, are all too common throughout the year. These incidents tend to become even more prevalent during periods of heightened footfall, such as Black Friday and the holiday season.
This poses a significant health and safety risk, as amidst the hustle and bustle of crowded and noisy shopping environments, many accidental breakages may go unnoticed. This creates a hidden danger that could result in slips and falls, potentially causing harm to customers and staff.
This risk can be easily mitigated with regular cleaning, particularly floor cleaning. Professional cleaning and facilities management companies like Vanguard utilise the appropriate products and tools to perform a pristine floor clean, leaving your floors clear of hazards. This includes ensuring that floors are left dry, as well as free from any sharp objects or debris that could cause harm.
In addition to regular cleaning duties, Vanguard offers professional floor cleaning as a specialised service. This includes carpeted, tiled, and laminate flooring. We use state-of-the-art equipment to ensure your floors are left sparkling and safe, using the appropriate tools so that your flooring lasts longer too.
During the winter months, rain, snow, and slush are common, and these elements can easily be tracked into the store by customers and employees. The resulting moisture on the floor surfaces can create slippery conditions, increasing the risk of slips and falls.
These accidents not only jeopardise the safety and wellbeing of your valued customers and staff, but can also lead to costly liability issues for the retail business. Proper cleaning and maintenance from a professional cleaning company can significantly reduce these risks and create a safer shopping environment for Black Friday and holiday shoppers.
Moreover, the accumulation of dirt, grime, and moisture on various surfaces can result in damage. Flooring, for example, can become damaged over time if not cleaned regularly, and this can result in the need for costly repairs or replacements. Furthermore, dampness and dirt brought in from outside can impact the cleanliness and condition of walls, shelves, and display fixtures.
To prevent this damage, retailers can hire professional cleaning companies for the regular upkeep and cleaning of flooring and other surfaces. Investing in Vanguard’s services helps you maximise the lifespan of your surfaces, reducing long-term maintenance costs and helping to keep your store looking its best throughout the busy Black Friday and holiday shopping season.
Our cleaners are trained with our robust program, which is accredited by The British Institute Of Cleaning Science. With Vanguard’s professional services, your retail business is prepared for whatever the weather brings, minimising the internal impact on your premises.
Investing in a professional cleaning service like Vanguard serves as preventative maintenance for your retail business, which can save on long-term costs.
Professional cleaners are trained to identify and address potential maintenance issues as part of our facilities management. By identifying and rectifying problems before they escalate, you can save money on major repairs or replacements down the line. Moreover, regular cleaning of fixtures, displays, and surfaces can extend the lifespan of these. When your equipment and interior elements are well-maintained, you’ll need to make replacements less often.
With Vanguard’s cleaning and facilities management solutions, the lifespan of your fixtures can be extended. Our daily cleaning solutions are an effective way to care for your retail business, ensuring your equipment gets the regular cleaning care it needs. On top of this, we offer deeper cleaning solutions, which can provide an all-encompassing clean to ensure your business enters the New Year spotless and sanitised.
Professional retail cleaning is crucial in curbing the transmission of viruses within commercial settings, particularly in retail stores. In a previous article, we explored virus transmission and the fact that a whopping 80% of infections spread via contaminated surfaces. Over Black Friday and the holiday season, shop shelving, products, and pin pads are surfaces that encounter a high number of shoppers, meaning they can harbour a large amount of bacteria. These are high-touch surfaces that make them a huge potential point for virus transmission to take place, endangering both staff and customers.
With professional cleaning companies like Vanguard, our staff are trained to target these high-touch areas with disinfection techniques, employing industry-standard cleaning agents to sanitize frequently touched areas like door handles, shopping carts, counters, and card machines. Our proactive cleaning measures substantially minimise the presence of viruses on these surfaces.
The prevention of cross-contamination through separate cleaning materials and equipment in different areas is essential for an effective cleaning solution. Vanguard’s experts ensure that your premises are carefully cleaned to minimise the risk of virus transmission and contamination, using industry-leading products to ensure an effective clean.
Another key benefit of investing in professional cleaning services is the fact that their training protocols ensure a more comprehensive cleaning for your retail business. At Vanguard, our cleaning staff are all subject to our robust training protocols, which are accredited by The British Institute Of Cleaning Science, hallmarking our excellence.
We offer not only daily cleaning services, but bespoke cleaning packages that help maintain the professional images of your retail business, safeguard all who enter, and minimise virus transmission. We can even offer window cleaning services, to help keep your shop window display looking stunning for the winter.
Professional cleaning companies like Vanguard can offer a more comprehensive cleaning for your business, using the best cleaning products and industry-leading materials to ensure the highest possible standards of cleaning for your retail business.
As this article has explored, having an exceptional cleaning service over Black Friday and the holiday season is of critical importance for health and safety, as well as to boost your business’s appeal and profits.
Vanguard Cleaning offers professional cleaning services to retail businesses across the United Kingdom. We’re fully compliant with the most recent health and safety guidelines and employ a detailed training system to ensure that all of our staff members can clean your retail business to the highest standards.
We know that retail environments present their own unique cleaning challenges, which is why we are experts at dealing with frequent stains and spillages Some of the services we can offer your retail business over the Black Friday and holiday season include:
Unlike most other UK cleaning companies, Vanguard offers completely customised cleaning schedules and audits to suit your business needs. With our tailor-made contracts, we work with you in mind to provide a cleaning and facilities management solution that fits around your business schedule over Black Friday and the holiday season.
To learn more about our cleaning packages available to retail businesses, you can speak to a member of our team to discuss any queries and receive a free, no-obligation quote.
