Safe Workplace Checklist: Prevent the Spread of Coronavirus at Work

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many shops, restaurants and stores had to close for an indefinite period. However, there still are some services that remain open and do their best to safely serve customers and visitors.

To make serving your customers safer, faster and more efficient we have compiled essential information for protecting your visitors from the coronavirus threat at your service location.

Get information from trusted sources

Before you read our article any further, we want you to always keep in mind the importance of checking the information from a reliable source.

Everybody is writing about COVID-19 nowadays, but you have to curate what you read very carefully. Nothing is more harmful than getting false and incorrect information about the current pandemic.

Here are the trusted sources that you can, and should, follow:

1. World Health Organization (WHO)
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
3. National Institutes of Health (NIH)

• Get information and instructions about COVID-19 from reliable sources

Promote hygiene among visitors and staff

Providing the means to sanitize hands is one of the steps many companies took to combat the spread of the virus at their facilities.

NB: A hand sanitizer below 60% alcohol is not effective against COVID-19, so if you also decide to install hand sanitizers look for the ones with an alcohol percentage of above 60%.

Hand sanitizers are in scarcity right now. If that is the case for you as well, put signs that encourage your customers to wash their hands and ask them to not touch surfaces at your service location.

• If possible, place hand sanitizers at your facility.
• Remind your visitors to thoroughly wash their hands.
• Ask your customers to avoid touching objects and surfaces at your location.

Urge social distancing

You might have seen various pictures of stores or pharmacies with special signage of “wait here”. It would be a good idea to do the same at your facility.

Placing signages near the checkout area far away enough from each other that help people to maintain the safe distance will decrease the risk of the virus spread.

Some locations are taking it a step further and are limiting the number of on-site customers at their facility. Taking into consideration your facility’s square footage, you can estimate the number of customers that can enter your store while still being able to maintain safe distance from one another.

• Indicate safe, two-meter distances with special “wait here” signages.
• Calculate the maximum number of visitors able to practice social distancing while indoors.

Enable safe queuing

Above we briefly talked about creating a safe space between visitors . However, when it comes to queuing during the coronavirus pandemic there are many things one can do to minimize the risk of spread at their location.

Help your customers to plan their visit ahead - one of the things you want to avoid the most is crowding your facility. Showing your customers peak hours and visitor capacity will help them to adjust accordingly and avoid crowding your store.

Make queues virtual - The best way to practice social distancing is getting rid of the physical queues. Making queues virtual by letting your customers sign in by a call, online or by scanning a QR code, and then wait from the safety of their homes or cars can be the best solution to minimize the risk of coronavirus.

• Provide your customers with queuing information at your facility so they can plan their visit ahead.
• Get rid of physical queues and let your customers wait remotely using their phones.

Qminder provides the safest queuing solution to fit your needs. With Visit Planner, your customers can plan their visit in advance and wait safely outside your location, receiving SMS updates from you.

For more information, visit our COVID-19 queuing page.

Clean your facility

One of the most important aspects of minimizing the Coronavirus risk is keeping your facility clean. Asking your visitors and employees to sanitize and wash their hands is great but it is not enough to keep the place clean.

The duration of how long can coronavirus remain on surfaces depends on humidity and the type of the material. So, if you have visitors at your facility there is a chance of the virus staying at some of the surfaces and you should get rid of that possibility.

Even though you should minimize the touch points at your location, sometimes it is impossible to fully get rid of all. So, the first thing to do is to identify the remaining high-touch points at your store. Those can be:

1. Door knobs
2. Staff counters
3. Bathroom counters
4. Toilet handle
5. Checkout counters
6. Self-service kiosk screen

Clean those high-touch points with soapy water or cleaning sprays and later apply disinfection spray for maximum safety.

It is also important to clean the floors as shoes can transmit germs and viruses. According to the CDC, one cup of regular unscented 5%—6% household bleach mixed with 5 gallons of water can be used for mopping the floor. You can find detailed instructions on their website.

• Identify high touch points at your facility.
• Clean the surfaces with soapy water.
• After cleaning, disinfect the area.

Rinse and repeat, literally

It goes without saying that the things on our checklist are not a one-time recommendation. They should become the new norm for the nearest future.

The frequency depends on the amount of visitors. However, aspects like cleaning and disinfecting should be done several times a day.

Staying home is by far the best way to protect yourself from the virus. All of the tips above will not be able to offer 100% protection, so advise your visitors to only visit your facility when required.

• Repeat the steps regularly.
• Some aspects (cleaning and disinfecting) need to be repeated more frequently than others.
• Keep your visitors informed and advise them to visit you only in case of high necessity.

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To combat the adverse effects of the coronavirus outbreak, digital queue management systems like Qminder now offer safe, remote queuing.

Customers visit businesses’ sign-in webpages, check into queues, provide all the info needed, and are then updated on their progress via SMS messaging.

The flexibility of virtual queues, coupled with SMS communication with clients, builds a solid foundation for a safe queuing experience. With SMS messaging, your business can request additional info from customers, inform them about delays or changes, and ask for feedback.

All of that, and more, while they can stay safely at home or in their cars.

Staying in touch, even when social distancing, is what businesses should be striving for. Remote sign-in, safe waiting experience and SMS communication — this is what customer service in 2020 should be all about.

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