The Customer Journey

Coffee is a very subjective and emotive product, especially when YOU are tasked to make a decision that
will affect all your colleagues; what suits one person will not suit another, so a large team will have many
thoughts on the coffee taste. Most coffee suppliers can provide good coffee, at similar prices to their competitors, but what makes the difference is the quality of service and the back-up that they can provide.

Some companies just supply coffee, and some just machines. It is not always easy to find a company that
supplies both, with their interest being to provide you with the best coffee or best service provision.

There are many types of coffee machine available, but which do you choose? Remember you are in an office environment, so unless you have a dedicated Barista to make the coffee for you, then you should avoid the traditional espresso machines as they require specific skills and attention.

If its “Coffee-Shop” quality that is your preferred option, then it is a professional “Bean to Cup Espresso
Machine” that can make a variety of drinks, all at the touch of a button and will be able to produce drinks
that are close to those made by a Barista. This type of equipment is technologically sophisticated which can make repairs and ongoing maintenance costly and so it is important that the supplier is able to offer you all the servicing, built in maintenance and support, and can quickly respond if a problem occurs (the last thing you want is your
colleagues wrath, because the “most important thing in the office” is not working).

A supplier who supplies both coffee and equipment on a lease/rental basis is more likely to be an
excellent choice, as the equipment they use must be robust enough to consistently produce cup after cup,
day in and day out, without too much interruption of service. Let us face it their reputation is a stake!
Purchasing the equipment may suit your organisation better, but it may be prudent to make sure that your
coffee supplier has the capability to maintain and support the sophisticated machine and understand how
the many variables such as its grinder settings, numerous parameters and even the coffee itself will affect
the end product, and so to be able to make adjustments accordingly.

The downside of this choice is that you will be charged for callouts, labour costs and spare parts, all of
which will be extremely expensive. It is not just the coffee, but the relationship between the coffee machine, the coffee itself, and other ingredients that make the difference, and a knowledgeable supplier with national engineering support will be able to get the best out of both.
 

If you do not have experience of a good coffee supplier, try to get recommendations, ask them what other
businesses they already supply? A confident provider will be able to point you to other customers of theirs in similar working environments to yours, to enable you to see for yourself what’s on offer and talk to other consumers, or better still take you to a showroom to look at the range of machines available, and of course taste the coffee!

Why not take one or two colleagues with you, but not the “Coffee Geeks” whose tastes may not suit most
of the office team but take people who have differing coffee tastes.
Remember it is YOU who must reach a “Happy Medium.”