Water coolers are a common sight in offices around the world as we become more health and environmentally conscious. Providing employees and clients with water is the standard now as it’s repeatedly been proven that well-hydrated individuals are healthier – and more productive. Selecting a water cooler company can however be a long and arduous process to navigate with each company operating in a different area and quoting some items monthly while other services they provide are quoted on a quarterly basis. To simplify the process, here are the four most important things to when comparing water cooler companies.
1. The Water Cooler
Mains fed or bottled water?
When comparing water cooler companies, the first thing to consider is what type of cooler they will be providing. If you want spring water, only a bottled water water cooler will do. If it doesn’t matter to you, you will probably be able to make do with a mains fed water cooler.
Hot, ambient or cold water
Do you need your water cooler to provide hot, cold or ambient water? Or perhaps all three? Make sure your water cooler provides water at all the temperatures you will need it to.
How will the water cooler fit in your office?
If the water cooler is to be placed in a locker room, it is probably fine for it be one of the old-school white block water coolers. If however you are placing it in an office that maintains a specific look and feel, you would be well served by requesting images of the cooler and finding out whether it is customizable in any way. Most water coolers should be available in your choice of colour and ought to be quite tall – you shouldn’t have to break your back bending to dispense water.
2. Water cooler hygiene and sanitation should be a major consideration
There is no point to having a fresh, natural spring bottled water in your office if your nice, expensive water is just going to run through a unhygienic, fungus infected water cooler.
Quarterly sanitization or replaceable parts?
All water coolers should either be sanitized at least once every quarter or the parts of the cooler in contact with the water, should be replaced every three months. Every company providing a quote to you should make it clear which of the two they plan on conducting. Something to consider – the sanitization of each cooler should take about 30 minutes; if your cooler will be in a space where it be massively inconvenient to have a water cooler engineer conduct 30 minutes of sanitization per quarter, you would probably be best served getting a cooler that has replaceable parts.
Are they quoting for sanitization on a monthly or quarterly basis?
When comparing water cooler quotes, it’s important to look out for those companies that attempt to fool you with low monthly costs whereby they coincidentally exclude the quarterly sanitizations or add it as a postscript and you then receive a much higher bill, once every quarter, than you budgeted or expected. Make sure you know exactly when and where the sanitization of your water cooler will be billed.
3. The Water
Water Quality
First of all – some information on where the water the cooler company will be providing is vital – make sure you will be receiving bottled spring water and not bottled tap water at an exorbitant cost.
Cost per bottle
As most water cooler companies provide the same size 18.9l water bottles, this is a great area in which to make a direct compare. Find out how much they charge per bottle as water use frequently spikes in the Summer months – most companies and offices end up ordering much more water than anticipated or planned for in their initial standing delivery and then need to order extra bottles; make sure the cost of these extra bottles does not catch you unaware.
4. What kind of service does the water cooler company quoting for your business offer
Do they provide next day delivery or will you possible go for weeks without any water in you water cooler? Do they send out water cooler engineers to do monthly maintenance checks? Making sure the water cooler company you eventually go with has enough of a presence in your area is fairly important as you could otherwise end up languishing without water in your office water cooler or with a leaky cooler for a considerable period of time.
Don’t just take their word for it – ask for recommendations and testimonials from their other clients and make sure you would be receiving not only a high quality product, but also a high quality service.
And remember – Living-Water has all these various aspects covered! ;) To find out more about our products and service, give us a call at 0203 139 9051 or view our other contact details.
