Keep Restroom Clean and Other Signs of Company Health

My wife recently went to Michael’s Arts and Crafts store to buy some art supplies. She a wonderful artist and is just now getting back into art after a long hiatus. There she bought some art supplies and other arts and crafts items. Knowing that I enjoy survey design, when my wife returned home, she gave me her receipt and asked me to complete the survey. To my surprise, 3 of the 10 questions had to do with the condition of the Bathroom and Restroom.

At about question 6, I was asked: “Did you use the restroom?”.

Flip through the pages to see the online customer satisfaction survey.

So, did I use the restroom? I honestly don’t remember. I doubt it. For one, I was with my wife who likes to buy hobby and craft type stuff. I was definitely not there on my own. I was with her, so I was probably following her around trying to stay interested in craft products.

For another, I usually don’t go around using public facilities. Nevertheless, I think asking the customer this question is great and is a mark of maturity.

Even though I didn’t even visit the Michaels store, I was curious to see what the next questions would be, so I decided to select Yes to the “Did you use the restroom?” question.

That question was followed by the following question: Please rate the cleanliness of the restroom on a scale of 1 – 5, where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest.

The next survey question is the Net Promoter Question, which you can see as you flip to the next page.

I had no idea, so I selected an average score of “3”. The next question was the following: Using a scale from 1 to 5 where “1” means “not at all likely” and “5” means “extremely likely”, how likely are you to recommend this store to a family member or friend?

Most of us would recognize this question as a Net Promoter Score question, or NPS.

What is interesting is that this Net Promoter Score question came immediately after the bathroom and restroom questions. Is that a coincidence?

I don’t believe so. We know that bathroom cleanliness is a sign of the overall health of a company. So, it makes sense that the “recommend to a friend” questions would come after the bathroom questions.

What else is curious is that more and more companies are recognizing this fact. It would be interesting to see how their behavior changes as they recognize this more.