Your New Jersey office is packed with people who give it their all, all day every day. One of the best perks you can offer in the quest to keep them all happy is fresh, delicious office coffee along with a selection of other treats and beverages that will help sustain your workforce through whatever life throws at them throughout the day.
But office coffee is a competitive industry – how do you know what sets the best office coffee service apart from the others in a crowded field? It can be hard to weed out the bad seeds, but the team of coffee experts at Corporate Essentials has put nearly twenty years of experience into a simple, seven-point plan that will help you make the best decision for your office.
1. Research
Like that pesky history paper you never really finished your second year of college, the search for the best office coffee service starts with research. Look in local service directories; ask your search engine, your neighbors, friends, colleagues and coworkers for recommendations; and then, prepare to do a lot of reading.
You will read about office coffee distribution service terms, company histories, beverage portfolios and then you will read some more. Read recommendations, read reviews, read endorsements – and not just for the office coffee distributors you are investigating, but also for the equipment and beverages they provide.
Seek out office coffee services that have portfolios packed with quality products, popular brands and a variety of local offerings that are sure to satisfy. Once you have done some digging into office coffee suppliers in your area and the products they have available, you can rank them in order of interest based on their ability to meet the demands of your office, as well as any other preferences you may have.
2. Get References
Congratulations, the hardest part of this job is behind you! Having done the initial research and made up a list of potential office coffee suppliers, you can whittle the field down to the best of the bunch by checking out their references. Start with the online testimonials most office coffee companies will have listed on their website, but bear in mind you will rarely find an office coffee company that posts negative customer comments on their own website.
Investigate other arenas where reviews, testimonials and recommendations are posted – but try and take these with a grain of salt as well, there are two sides to every story, after all.
Most important in this stage of your investigation is asking both potential office coffee vendors and those who have recommended different suppliers to you for references, reviews and referrals. The best office coffee service firms will be more than willing to provide you current clients you can contact for a reference regarding the quality and reliability of their service.
3. Compare and Contrast
Some office coffee distributors will have the products you want but not the distribution you need. Others might have a solid offering of coffees and little else. Then there are the best office coffee service companies – offering a solid blend of different coffees and the equipment that an office like yours needs to establish a successful break room atmosphere.
This is an area where there is no right or wrong answer – just a series of questions that allow you to balance the needs of your company against the offerings of a number of coffee providers to establish what the best office coffee service will be. Compare product offerings, service plans, prices and equipment maintenance services to build a picture of your company’s ideal office coffee service.
Then, rank the firms remaining on your list against that standard to further narrow the list of best office coffee service options for your New Jersey workplace.
4. Have a Tasting
Want to prove to everyone that signing up with the best office coffee service around is worth the effort? Have a tasting event.
Whether you do this at break time or have a special out-of-hours staff reception where you invite everyone who is interested to come and give the new office coffee equipment a spin, the important thing is to engage your coworkers in a conversation about their hopes and dreams for the best office coffee service – what are their expectations, and does the flavor on offer deliver?
5. Compare and Contrast Again
Because taste matters, and being receptive to feedback is a vital component of starting off on the right foot with your new office coffee culture, you should take the tasting notes your coworkers have provided and review them. Stack that feedback against your initial findings and weigh the options on your short list again.
If a clearly superior office coffee service does not seem obvious, weigh the product catalog and service portfolio of each firm very carefully, and consider running a secondary focus group that includes a selection of staff who were involved in the tasting event. Do a more detailed survey, asking about specific likes and dislikes, but also about additional services that may be of interest to the teams in your building.
6. Catalog of Products and Services
If there is one thing that truly defines the best office coffee service, it should be the portfolio of products and services they have to offer. This is not to say that there are specific coffee products, equipment or service offerings that are “the best”, but rather, to remind you that the best office coffee service for your firm might not be the best office coffee service for the competition across town.
This is because we all have different tastes, different workplace cultures and different requirements for our coffee. It is vital that you consider how the portfolio of products stacks up between the coffee services you are considering, and find the one that is the best match for the palates in your office.
7. Pick a Winner
Welcome to the home stretch! You did the research, read the reviews, examined the details, compared the competing firms and tasted their wares. You went a step further and invited your colleagues to partake in the potential office coffee offerings and went back to the comparison stage to be sure you truly had found the best office coffee services New Jersey had to offer.
Now that you have taken a final look at the equipment, products and services on offer, the true champion among office coffee services should emerge. Congratulations on finding the best office coffee service for your workplace.
If you would like to discuss your office’s coffee requirements, or simply get a feel for how working with an office coffee distributor could improve your office environment, contact the team of experts at Corporate Essentials. With going on two decades of experience in meeting office coffee demands, we are always up for a challenge.
