CM/Spotlight: Hard Floor Care Making Grocery Store Floor Care Signature Item By: Mike Englund Your G Identifying the issues of retail floor care and employing the ideal equipment can help you increase your sales per square foot. Grocery store chains go back and forth on how they handle their floor care needs. Some purchase their own equipment and have their staffs maintain the store’s floors; others turn it over to a building service contractor (BSC). Often, what happens is a combination of the two: The store’s employees do some floor main-tenance during the course of the day, typically sweeping and mopping, while the BSC is in charge of the actual floor scrubbing, cleaning and polish-ing in the evening. This is a similar procedure followed at other types of retail outlets such as big box wholesalers, electronics stores and the like. And, as many BSCs know, floor care for these types of facilities is often conducted in what is known as a “locked-in” situation. The cleaning workers may actually be locked in the store for the evening while they perform their floor care duties. While this may sound uncomfortable, maintain-ing the floors at grocery and large retail outlet stores can be very lucrative and, in many parts of North America, these are widely sought-after customers for BSCs. Many contractors specialize in providing floor care services to these types of customers. However, BSCs should know that floor care in for more info Test your knowledge of floor care terminology. A well-maintained floor will keep customers coming to your store, decrease the possibility of slip-and-fall accidents and can keep your bottom line elevated. 20 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • April 2013 Image courtesy of New Era Tiles & Finishes Ltd. Mike Englund has more than 30 years of experi-ence in the professional cleaning industry. He is a trainer and product manager for Powr-Flite, a leading manufacturer of professional cleaning equipment, including automatic scrubbers. For more information on all of the tools and equipment available to help you more productively clean and more safely maintain hard surface floors, visit www. Powr-Flite.com.
CMM – Archives Apr 2013: 20
