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Know Thy Competitor
or...Disneyland is Looking Pretty Good These Days
© 2002 Brian Martell
You are on your way to work,
driving down a busy boulevard dotted with various businesses. At a main
intersection, you see a long line up of vehicles waiting their turn at the drive
through…to get what? Coffee. Coffee that could be had at the office for free.
Coffee that forces people to leave home earlier to accommodate the “Java Jam.”
As you pass this urban
tableau, you shake your head in bewilderment as to why someone would go through
all that hassle; after all, you are in the OCS/vending business. Walking into
the main entrance of your shop, you can’t believe that one of your own
employees is walking around with a coffee—bought at a drive through!
This is not a new phenomenon;
indeed it has been going on for some time. The Coffee Association of Canada
shows statistics indicating a full 50% of all coffee consumed in the office was
acquired outside, in spite of the fact that most offices have a coffee service.
This fact bears looking at for all OCS operators.
The general perception out
there is that the coffee in offices is less desirable than what could be had in
the various coffee shops down the road or even in the same building. Why is it
some consumers are willing to spend as much as $1,000.00 a year to buy a product
that is relatively inconvenient to get, when it’s free at the office?
In some instances, smoking
laws can be seen as the culprit. If people are going out of the building for a
smoke anyways, why not go the extra step and grab a coffee? For those who bring
their coffee in from the drive through, it could be a case of a morning ritual
not to be tampered with lest the whole day goes awry. Finally, it could be a
perception issue where the office worker perceives the $1.75 cup of coffee down
the street to have more value than the free stuff in the lunchroom (ouch!).
In recent ads on Canadian
national TV, this perception has been exploited by the image of two fellows in
an office debating whether it’s worth it to have a cup of coffee while looking
at a suspect coffee bowl. From behind them walks a woman with a cup of Tim
Hortons and declares she made the coffee in the bowl…yesterday.
So what do we do about these
issues? If perception is your problem then it is absolutely necessary to change
the way your customer sees your service. If there are legitimate beefs about
coffee quality, cleanliness or the level of service you provide, then address
them pronto. If the smoking crowd is opting to not only walk a mile for a Camel
but also a coffee, then put a sign on the machine in the lunch room to remind
the staff that not only is the coffee good (nay, excellent), but that it travels
downstairs and out the door pretty well too. You may even want to have your
paper/foam cups printed with a whimsical character saying “Take me with you!!”
For those customers who are
stuck in an expensive ritual, perhaps the solution could be as easy as the
following promotion: “Drink our Coffee, and fly to Disneyland!”
Beyond the fact that some people will think the coffee is spiked with some
illicit drug, the promotion can be simply stated for all those drive-through
denizens:
Every time you think of
going to the coffee shop, but instead enjoy our terrific coffee for free, drop
two bucks into a jar. By the end of the year, you’ll have enough money to
fly to Florida.
If you’re really keen on
this idea, you may even want to give away “Florida or Bust” jars with your
logo on the other side.
In the end, not only will you
be doing a great service to your customers (by keeping their employees put), to
your customers’ coffee-drinking employees (nice tan!), you will also be
rewarding your own business by increasing sales without putting on any new
accounts.
Have you seen my suntan
lotion? | 
