What to look out for when choosing a bottled water cooler company
Finding a reliable water delivery company is not as easy as it looks. Where to buy water coolers really can be an Eldorado. There are very few water dispenser reviews so below I have tried to explain some of the water cooler problems you might encounter.
The office water coolers industry has been plagued by companies offering cheap water dispensers for water for work and water at home only to subsequently fall into administration leaving their customers dry.
The two notable cases of such drinking water companies that spring to mind are Thirsty Works, a cooler company with 25 000 customers that specialized in water at work and office water coolers and more recently Pow Wow which went into liquidation (100 000 customers) shortly after being sold by Nestle at a knock down price.
The liquidation of Pow Wow had a big effect on the cooler market, as thousands of customers grappled to get a new water supplier. Why did Pow Wow fare so badly?
In a nutshell, Nestle with their array of MBA type analysts, believed they could make of the water cooler business a business like their larger water businesses – What they failed to recognize is that there is a big difference to moving a huge arctic lorry full of supplies (and money involved) to organizing a £10 water delivery.
The water delivery business is intrinsically nitty gritty and what Pow Wow should have done was divide their customers into business units running 2500 coolers each. A business unit this size, cares about and lives their customers, so when a customer doesn’t get their water on the dedicated delivery day, they will move heaven and earth to get water to them next day.
The Pow Wow model tried to centralize all the functions in a huge head office near Oxford – This just doesn’t work – They also invested in a water at home business believing the UK would follow the US market where bottles are delivered in the same way as the milkman.
Check out through Google any background info that can be found on the water cooler company – it really amazes me that we contact Cool Clear Water customers who have absolutely no idea they were found guilty of bottling tap water and passing it off as Bleinheim water. The nice thing is that in this case it was customers complaining about the water taste that alerted the Food Standards Agency and Bleinheim water that the chemical and physical properties of water were not as stated. So well done to those customers who complained and realized that the drinking water quality for which they were paying was not up to par – as so few customers seem to know about this episode, possibly they were not compensated despite the company having been caught out and fined approx £50 000.
Equally we know of another company, who’s company was dissolved on Companies House yet keeps trading now as a sole trader under exactly the same name without actually notifying its clients.
Unfortunately the Del boy type delivery company still does exist out there and the crazy UK labeling laws designed to protect the consumer, actually allow the unscrupulous supplier the opportunity to misrepresent what type of water they are really supplying.
So my advice when considering a water cooler supplier is to choose only one who truly specializes in your area and will make sure your service levels are always kept up.
