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UK cooler company Water for Work is investing heavily in boosting the hydration message to customers both in the office and at home. Following a busy summer period, cooler innovation Editor Hannah Oakman took a trip to the company’s Kent headquarters to find out more from founder and Director Ben McGannan. Water for Work, which is in the process of changing its name to Water for Work and Home to reflect the dual approach of the business today, is what you would describe as a pretty large cooler company. In fact, with around 9,500 coolers out in the field, it is the UK’s largest independent company. With just over 100 employees, the modern day business is now firmly focused on its core mission to be drinking water specialists, servicing customers with whichever hydration solution they are looking for. Rather than a home and office delivery company, Water for Work actually began as family engineering business, George S Clayton, making plant machinery and lines for the bottled water industry. The company worked extensively with Perrier UK, then Buxton Mineral Water, and when Buxton launched its water cooler business in 1990, George S Clayton manufactured its purpose built plant. At the time, the idea of starting up a cooler business was still rather a niche one, but with hindsight, things were set to change rapidly in the UK water cooler landscape. Unlike his father, Ben McGannon, while involved in the engineering and supplier side of the business, was not an engineer by trade and realised the company might need a new focus in the future. A water cooler industry colleague and friend, Alan Cornford, had started a company called Water at Work, based in London and a fortuitous meeting between Ben, Alan and his wife Pauline, sparked the idea of setting up in the cooler industry. With Water at Work’s help with a business plan, and following a six month period spent persuading the family that going into water coolers was a good idea, the company Water for Work was founded. The company has been based in Marden, Kent ever since. starting out of the engineering office, sitting on the phone making calls for trials with the noise of banging and machinery in the background. Ben admits this was not ideal, but a start. The company then relocated to small premises and began to focus on the new Water for Work business, which has gradually grown to its current size. Ben’s wife Liz also worked for the business for over 12 years before taking a step out to concentrate on other ventures. The Marden depot is the company’s main servicing location, but with customers in London as an increasing focus, due to potential for growth, there are plans to open a second depot in Hadlow in 2008, closer to one of the company’s water sources. Two further depots in Melton Mowbray and Brandon, Suffolk, cover the rest of the deliveries. On this particular rainy October morning, the Water for Work plant is still managing to looking cheerful, thanks to an almost complete make over to brighten up the offices and reflect the hydration theme for employees and visitors to the plant. While Ben admits that the company has kept a somewhat low profile over the last few years, they now feel ready to open up the business a little more to visitors and spread the news about what direction it is headed in. The bright blue walls are soon to be decorated with artwork from a local college, commissioned to design canvases which reflect the healthy hydration message. Although Water for Work is a large company, there is a friendly, informal buzz in the air, part of what Ben tells me is the key to the business and its success - its people. Regular pub quiz nights, staff training, even white water rafting trips, keep employees on their toes and involved in the communication process. Ben recognises that the business has moved a long way from its beginnings in the 1990s. He explained more about the journey to the present and what the next phase involves. cooler innovation interview Which areas of the water cooler business do you mainly focus on? “Our main focus is still bottled water coolers. We do offer point of use, and it is an area we obviously have to take more seriously as the industry has grown. One of the shifts we have made as a business recently is to be more driven by giving choice to customers. We’ve moved from a simple 19 litre, cold cooler, cups or cones offering to responding to customer’s needs in terms of water, coolers and other choices. We also now deliver small pack glass bottled water, sports bottles and other items to people in their homes and offices.” You already offer a range of coolers - but are you always looking for the next breakthrough model? “Yes, definitely. Long term, I think the residential market is going to need something more. Ebac have done some good work here with the Slimcool. I think this area will still need more research as there is always room to improve the domestic offering, although we realise this is a big investment for manufacturers too. “We are planning a research project this November specifically to look at how people drink water in the home. We want to understand people’s usage better. If you put them in an environment with a fridge tap, water cooler, bottle of water and a filter, which age and gender will chose which product? Hopefully, this information will be useful in the future.” Do you think people are more open now to the idea of a water cooler in the home due to their proliferation in the workplace, certainly in the UK? “I think there is still catching up to do between how nice a water cooler can look and what the majority of them do look like. The traditional white box water cooler serves its purpose but it doesn’t look great. I think the general public still need educating about the great looking coolers we can now offer.” “When we started out, we had to educate people in the workplace about what exactly a water cooler is - and now we are having to do the same in the residential sector.” “The water cooler is also still something people take for granted. If you ask someone with a water cooler who their supplier is, they wouldn’t have a clue. It’s only when the cooler is empty or has a problem, that people find out who their supplier is!” How important is the home side of your business? “Water for Home is still very much a project. We believe there is massive potential out there and we are trying to get our offering right. Each year we do some new research into this. We have tried hosting stands in shopping centres and direct mail campaigns to attract the residential customer. “We now have around 2,500 domestic customers and we see it as a totally different marketplace in terms of how we operate. We offer both 12 litre and 19 litre bottles - surprisingly the 19 litre bottle has proved more popular. “The feedback we have from people with a cooler in the home is fantastic. They tell us their children are drinking lots of water and it is so convenient. But making residential customers realise they would like a cooler in the first place is the tough bit. “We estimate there are around 100,000 customers drinking from our water coolers in the workplace, so cross selling to these people in the home is a vital part of growing the residential side.” Do you offer any other products in the home? “We did have a link with English Wines which was quite successful but when we looked at our key hydration message, this was a bit at odds with it! We do deliver the small pack water, sports bottles and apple juice to customers.” Will this residential sector be profitable enough? “The potential is massive. We don’t see it as a rental market, it’s more about how efficiently you can distribute. It’s also not such a price sensitive market. The historical price cutting which goes on in the office sector does not really apply. I think you need a minimum of 10,000 residential customers to make it really profitable.” As the hydration message and importance of water becomes more mainstream, will this will help the home delivery side? “We took a long look at our business last year and conducted a complete review regarding this. The hydration issue is still an area which we feel is not taken seriously enough. People pay lip service to hydration but are not really that passionate about it. This in an area where we have even commissioned scientific research to prove the benefits of hydration. We really want to know what we are talking about and building our fact base. There is a huge amount of information about water and cancer, heart disease, benefits for the elderly and children and so on.” Are you favouring bottled water in your focus on healthy hydration? “Not at all. We would never knock tap water. At the end of the day, people need to be hydrated full stop. The message is more important than where the water comes from.” Do you work at all in the hospital and schools sector? “We do a lot of work with schools and hospitals here in Kent, with both bottled coolers and point of use. We also have several research projects underway looking at the tangible benefits of hydrating children in the classroom. As a major player in the UK market, how do you compete? “We have always focused heavily on customer service. We must not let our customers down. If they see our messages about healthy hydration and then we don’t deliver water on time, this is deadly for the business.” “Good service really pays off - around 70% of our new business is recommendations or additions from existing customers. “One of the best things about our company is the people. We have route drivers who have been here since the very beginning and a lot of key people who have been here for over ten years. I would say we are all quite passionate about the business.” Do you think the UK cooler market is in a healthy position now? “I would like to think there is a less of a focus on slashing prices to win business in today’s market. There will be companies who have done this and are not making money as a consequence. “The frustrating thing is that to give good service costs money - and companies need to make a profit. We try to invest a lot of money back into the business to improve service, but when we are competing with silly pricing, it is difficult. Are you involved in any other businesses today? “We do have a series of joint ventures - Edgars Cool Water, just outside Brighton, Office Watercoolers South West and Waterline London, based in North London - which came more out of friendships and desire to help others in the industry, than financial gains. We chose to set up joint ventures rather than have franchises because it’s all about the people; each business is run by people who are passionate about what they are doing.”