The overshoe. It might seem like a fairly straightforward and modest piece of kit, but an effective reusable shoe or boot cover can have a huge range of benefits which extend far beyond keeping customers’ carpets clean.
The main point of an overshoe is to stop mud or debris being brought into customers’ properties from outside due to dirty boots. But keeping residents’ floors clean isn’t just an isolated benefit – it can be the difference between an unhappy customer who won’t want to see you or your muddy footprints again and a loyal customer who’ll want you around ASAP when new work is required. Turning up at a customer’s property with a clean, professional-looking pair of branded overshoes conveys to your customers that you care enough to protect their biggest investment – their home.
And when it comes to reputation, you should do what you can to protect it, because people talk. In fact, according to a survey conducted by Dimensional Research:
In other words, if you leave muddy footprints through a customer’s house, you’ll also be stomping all over your chances of getting business elsewhere.
If a floor or carpet is soiled or damaged from mud or debris from outside, the damage might not always be covered by your customer’s buildings or contents insurance. They could also come directly to you for reimbursement or request that you reduce your bill – both bad for business. And if there’s a disagreement regarding who was responsible for the damage or the extent of it, this can end up in the small claims court. Bad PR, lost business - and lots of stress.
But if you’re wearing durable overshoes, you won’t be walking over this minefield – in fact, the only thing you’ll be walking on is a clean, muck-free floor.
If your preferred method of keeping customers’ floors clean has historically been to remove your footwear, then you’re already 2-3 minutes behind once you've factored in undoing your laces, taking your footwear off and then putting them back on again. Also, taking your shoes off might mean you can keep customers’ floors clean, but who wants to deal with the awkward silence while your customer waits for you to unlace and prize off your boots?
So, what if you keep your work boots on but use plastic overshoes? Well, they can still be a time-consuming business. These cheap plastic overshoes have to be retrieved from your bag and then extracted from their box, and worse than this fiddly business, disposable boot covers are one size fits all. This means they have to be stretched over already large boots, often made larger by scuff caps, heel caps and chunky soles. Not only can stretching them over boots be a faff, but they can easily get ripped, leading to more fuss and more wasted time as the search for a new pair begins.
While it might not be top of everybody’s agenda, there’s no denying that the world is still producing too much plastic. 320 million tonnes of it is produced globally each year – and 40% of that is used only once, then thrown away to pollute for centuries on ever-growing landfill. With a reusable cover, you won’t have to rely on single-use disposable overshoes again, so you can make your own easy but meaningful reduction to pollution and emissions.
Don’t think the odd tradesman using a few disposable overshoes amounts to much plastic use? Watch below.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to reduce plastic use at work, everything you need to know is in our blog here.
And as the previous video showed, if a tradesperson is using hundreds of pairs of plastic overshoes per year, this will end up costing between £20 – £30 anyway, which is actually more expensive than a pair of far superior reusable overshoes.
Don’t be too quick to think that a good overshoe is just for keeping floors clean – it can also be an essential safety product to stop slips and falls. Afterall, linoleum or ceramic flooring can be extremely slippery, and with the tread of your boots no longer in contact with the ground, slip-safety can be vastly reduced when wearing boot covers. So, an effective overshoe can also keep the wearer firm-footed with a specially developed sole grip.
Waide Griffin, MukGuard wearer"It’s a lot grippier… you’re not slipping all the time and obviously when you've got heavy products, that's not something you want to be doing."
"They are 10x, if not 100x better than your standard overshoe."
Ben Braine, MukGuard wearer
Check out the video below to see some very satisfied MukGuard wearers.
Want to find out more about the innovative and award-winning MukGuard? Click below and see what they can do for your business.
MukGuard now features a new and improved design. Firstly, its printed rubber composite pattern has been enlarged, covering more surface area of the sole to make the product more robust and further enhancing the wearer’s grip.
We also listened to the tradespeople wearing MukGuard, who told us they spent a lot of time kneeling whilst working in properties, which applies added strain and pressure onto the toe area. So, we ensured that this pattern has been extended to the top of the neoprene, adding a further layer of strength and durability.