While exiting the bathroom during a recent pit stop at a local coffee shop, I reached for the door and saw a big sign that said
“ALL employee’s must wash their hands!” It wasn’t very elegant and it didn’t look very polite. However, the sign made me wonder: why is it there? It doesn’t really make for a wonderful customer experience in the bathroom (i.e. thinking that you’re in a fancy place because a fancy restaurant wouldn’t have a sign like that).
Don’t they train their employee’s to wash their hands? Isn’t that a prerequisite for the job because they are serving bagels and coffee with their hands? 
Then it hit me…
That big sign was really for customers – it communicated that it was an important part of their training and service commitment.
In that regard, it actually made me realize that many companies don’t make enough of a point of leveraging their training and policies as part of their marketing message. This is a subtle move. You would never put a tag-line ‘Our employee’s wash their hands’ on a sign to advertise your store but putting up the sign in the bathroom does get the point across.
So how else can you communicate the various things you are doing to make your employee’s the best they can be for your customers? These can be subtle ways or they can be explicit ways that translate into increased customer value. I know that washing your hands is “table stakes” and not a “value add”, but it’s nice to know that these bagels were prepared with clean hands and people with rubber gloves.
