Over the past several years, I have been lucky enough to moderate some highly successful webinars for Automatic Merchandiser. We’ve enjoyed plenty of positive feedback after many of our webinars, but nothing was like the reaction we received from our September 17 program, which reviewed the State of the OCS Industry Report. While the webinar, sponsored by Franke Coffee Systems, is available now — totally free, on demand — the content is so powerful and positive, it’s worth a deeper dive right here.
The operator panel for the webinar was what I called, “A first-team hall of fame” panel. Judson Kleinman of Corporate Essentials, Arthur Siller from Evergreen Refreshment, Kimberly Lenz from Associated Services, and Linda Saldana from Seventh Wave Refreshments rounded out the operator guests.
RTO mandates driving OCS increases
Early on in the webinar, the most positive thing I have heard about OCS in ages came from Kimberly Lenz from Associated Services, when asked to give a Bay Area perspective on this question: “To what extent is the 25% jump in OCS sales due to operator price increases, or was it due to the addition of services, or is this jump actually because of a trend toward return to office?” According to Lenz, 80% to 90% of the increase in sales is due to a definite trend of employees returning to work.
“I would say at the beginning of the year, I would go into an office, and I was lucky if I saw someone in the break room. We were providing quotes on single-cup machines and snack service, and we're not seeing anyone in the office,” Lenz said. “Then by spring, traffic picked up. The streets are busier, restaurants downtown are busier. When I was in the break room, we couldn't even get to the coffee machine when we would do site visits because there were so many people. Even now, we have customers coming to us saying that they are mandating a RTO [return to office] coming this fall, so we're working with a lot of clients to improve their program, to get ready for the increase in employee headcount and delivery frequency.”
Be prepared to go beyond OCS
The entire panel agreed that today’s OCS operator must be prepared to diversify their offerings to solidify their client relationships — and, at times, it can be challenging.
Linda Saldana of Seventh Wave Refreshments was asked about her company’s bold move to add coffee bars with baristas in major accounts. “For us, what coffee bars really do is provide the cherry on top in addition to all the other services. Where we have these coffee bars right now are locations where we are offering pantry service on five of the floors,” she explained. “If you want to go upstairs for that specialty coffee experience, then we are there. I think once we decided to take that step, it was because we knew that employers were willing to spend on the experiences.”
Saldana said that the coffee bar experience solidifies the relationship with her major clients, but she stopped short of calling the coffee bars with baristas a significant profit center. “It ties us in — it makes us a real partner,” she said.
Take advantage of the honeymoon period
In training salespeople today, Arthur Sillar of Evergreen said his company is emphasizing the importance, without blowing the deal, of pursuing every possible revenue opportunity in a location.
“We emphasize this strongly. The way our mindset is, early on is the best time to gain every piece of business and every opportunity possible,” Siller said. “If you are progressing well in the sales cycle, you clearly have their attention, and you're clearly doing something right. Whether it is the soda business, sparkling water or paper products, that is the time to explore every revenue opportunity possible in a location, not after the deal is done,” he added.
Sustainability goes beyond green products
Judson Kleinman from Corporate Essentials said sustainability has a deeper meaning today than just coffee origins and recyclable products. It’s about how you treat your employees, how you interact with the community and what you give back.
“It's important and very encouraging for me to see that people are actually caring about sustainability,” he said. “We're at a critical point for the planet. We want to influence corporate culture. We want a positive culture at our company and to influence the culture for our customers in a positive way.”
Kleinman also said that he is excited about the industry and the recent news that Amazon is bringing employees back five days a week. “Hopefully, we will see more of that because I kind of feel like we've been a little bit in a holding pattern with where we're at, with employees coming back to the office. Just imagine where we would all be if everyone was back in the office. Man, would that be a beautiful thing.”
