One of the best things we ever did was tell our pub customers we DON'T remove chewing gum. At first glance that might seem like a silly thing to say, but we lost not one of many Breweries that gave us work.
The reason we did is this. One day we were cleaning a pub in in Wirrall and the manager insisted that remove every single chewing gum deposit of which there were hundreds, which we duly did. Low and behold at nine o'clock the cleaners show up and open their cleaning cupboard to reveal a shelf full of Chewing Gum Freezer, which obviously they had never used.
We rang the Area Manager and told him from now on we were no longer doing it. 'Why?' he asked, 'Because we only clean the carpet every few years and so apart from the day it is cleaned, all the rest of the time there is chewing gum on it. But if the cleaners did it on a daily basis then there would be NO chewing gum on it ALL of the time!' He thanked me saying I had done him a favour because now he could solve the chewing gum problem, not just in that pub, but in all of the pubs in the chain.
You're not solving the chewing gum problem by removing it for them, but by telling them you don't do it and that it is something that should be done on a daily, not bi-annual basis, you actually help them solve the whole problem, not just some it.
Simon
