The best business relationships rarely begin with a sales pitch. Sometimes they begin with a complaint about a coffee machine, a photograph of a pasty or a conversation at an inconvenient hour. At H2O Vend, there's a belief that looking after people properly has a useful side effect: they remember. And occasionally, they tell somebody else.
There is a small room at the back of an old council depot in rural Norfolk which, by general agreement, is probably the least desirable office in the building. It has a modest window, a desk that rarely seems to have enough space and an assortment of brochures that arrive from suppliers with admirable enthusiasm. Coffee machines, vending equipment, replacement parts, frozen food, ice creams; if somebody manufactures it or believes it might conceivably be sold through a machine, there's a reasonable chance some literature about it will eventually find its way into the room.
Add a monitor, a telephone, several ongoing projects and a laptop that frequently isn't there, and you have H2O Vend's sales office. It isn't especially glamorous, although Darren has spent enough years in sales and business development to know that an impressive office has very little bearing on whether a customer decides to trust you. Proposals and product information are handled digitally these days, which makes the continued arrival of supplier brochures something of a mystery. Nevertheless, they accumulate, providing a constantly changing record of an industry determined to invent new ways of dispensing things.
The more interesting conversations, however, frequently take place somewhere else entirely. A manufacturing manager might respond to an email at half past six in the morning, sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast before leaving for work. A restaurant owner might finally find time to discuss a new machine at eleven o'clock at night, after the last customer has gone home. Occasionally, a message arrives at the weekend because somebody has been out with their family, spotted a particularly appealing pasty and remembered a conversation about installing a smart fridge at work. Could it sell something like that? Would it fit? Would people buy it?
These aren't questions that appear on most formal sales qualification forms, but they're often more revealing than the ones that do. The restaurant owner thinking about cups and mugs before ordering a coffee machine is already imagining how it might fit into the business. The facilities manager asking about a particular energy drink has probably been listening to employees discussing what they'd like to see available. The person sending a photograph of a pasty on a Sunday afternoon isn't necessarily expecting an immediate answer; they're simply continuing a conversation.
Business relationships don't develop exclusively between nine and five, particularly when the people involved spend most of those hours running their own businesses. Being approachable doesn't mean promising to answer every message immediately. It means recognising that a useful conversation might begin at an inconvenient moment and being willing to pick it up when circumstances allow.
For a business offering everything from water coolers and coffee machines to vending equipment and smart fridges, there's always a temptation to begin by explaining what can be supplied. Yet the more useful starting point is often to forget about the equipment and ask why the customer is considering a change.
Quite often, they've simply had enough.
The Enquiry Is Rarely About the Machine
A local mid-sized engineering company that approached H2O Vend had reached precisely that point. Its employees were thoroughly unimpressed with the coffee machines provided by the existing supplier, and their nickname for the equipment was wonderfully unflattering. They called them the one-armed bandits, because putting money into one involved much the same element of chance as playing a fruit machine. You might get a drink, you might not, or you might get one but not the one you expected.
The company had grown increasingly frustrated with both the equipment and the service supporting it. Eventually, in an unusual twist, an employee of the existing supplier suggested contacting H2O Vend, having heard positive things about the business. It wasn't the result of a carefully targeted advertising campaign or a persuasive cold call. Somebody had heard something good, remembered it at the right moment and passed it on.
Discussions followed, the customer's requirements and budget were considered, and a practical alternative was proposed. The new equipment was installed and, over subsequent visits, H2O Vend's operators began hearing encouraging comments from the people using it.
There was no elaborate ceremony to mark the improvement. Nobody unveiled a plaque commemorating the retirement of the one-armed bandits. The feedback came through ordinary exchanges when an operator was replenishing a machine and somebody stopped for a drink. Yet those comments mattered because they came from the people whose experience mattered most. The management team had agreed the contract, but the employees were the ones living with the result.
H2O Vend encounters similar frustrations regularly. Sometimes it's the condition of the equipment, sometimes the replenishment, cleaning or repeated need to chase service visits and water deliveries. Occasionally, the machinery itself is perfectly adequate, but the arrangements around it have deteriorated. Whatever the explanation, something that was supposed to make life easier has become another thing to worry about.
And that's a rather poor outcome for something as unremarkable as providing refreshments.
The enquiry might be about a coffee machine. The problem usually isn't.
There is an interesting difference between a customer who wants to buy something and a customer who wants to solve something. A company expanding its workforce might ask about another vending machine when the more useful question is how many people are working on each shift and what food is available nearby. A hospitality business considering a new coffee machine might be thinking about drink quality, but the answer could depend just as much on how many drinks are served at busy times and who will operate the equipment.
This is where a little curiosity goes a long way. Asking what prompted the enquiry can reveal considerably more than immediately opening a product catalogue. Sometimes the recommendation is straightforward, sometimes it takes several visits and considerable discussion, and occasionally the conclusion is that the customer doesn't need to change very much at all.
The company has always been practical rather than particularly theatrical, and there's little enthusiasm for selling somebody an expensive solution to a problem they don't have. Most customers would quite reasonably lose patience if ordering a water cooler became an exercise in corporate strategy. But taking enough time to understand their circumstances matters, particularly when those conversations lead to promises about what can be delivered.
A quotation can describe the equipment, the price and the services included. What it cannot easily convey is whether the people making those promises will still be interested in keeping them once the excitement of winning the business has passed.
There is a peculiar moment when an installation is complete and everybody begins using the equipment. From the outside, this might appear to be the end of the sales process. Except that customers rarely see things in such neatly divided stages. If something goes wrong shortly afterwards, the person they call is often the one they've been dealing with throughout.
At H2O Vend, those calls can lead to conversations between sales, the main office and the people responsible for resolving the problem. But looking after one customer doesn't happen in isolation from looking after everybody else. An engineer redirected to attend a new installation was probably supposed to be doing something somewhere else, and a delivery route changed at short notice may inconvenience another customer.
These are the moments when commercial promises meet operational reality. There's always a temptation to tell a customer exactly what they want to hear, particularly when the relationship is new. But an unrealistic assurance is rarely improved by being delivered enthusiastically.
Sometimes the Right Answer Is No
It might be a prospective customer expecting a level of service that simply isn't practical. It might be commercial terms that leave too little room to provide the support being requested. Or it might be a customer with a perfectly reasonable budget but expectations belonging to an entirely different price bracket.
There's always a temptation to find a way to say yes when a contract is within reach. A little more discount here, an extra commitment there, perhaps a promise that something can be accommodated even though nobody has quite established how. Taken together, those concessions can create an agreement that neither party is likely to enjoy.
H2O Vend doesn't believe every enquiry must become a sale. Sometimes an alternative arrangement can be found; sometimes the sensible decision is to walk away. Nobody particularly enjoys declining business, especially after spending time developing a relationship. But there's little value in winning a customer today if the agreement makes it almost inevitable they'll be disappointed tomorrow.
A deal needs to work for both businesses. The customer deserves the service they've been promised, and the supplier needs an arrangement that allows it to provide that service properly. Knowing when to say no isn't the opposite of good customer service. Sometimes it's the beginning of it.
Sometimes the most valuable thing we can offer a prospective customer is an honest no.
There is another consequence of working this way that is rather difficult to measure.
People talk.
The Conversations That Matter Most
They talk about their jobs, their suppliers, the things that annoy them and the occasional pleasant surprise. Anybody who has spent time around a factory canteen will know that a malfunctioning coffee machine is quite capable of becoming a major topic of conversation. Few pieces of equipment attract quite so much criticism for failing to perform such a modest task.
When things are going badly, people notice. And when things improve, they often notice that too.
That is how reputations develop. Not exclusively through marketing, and certainly not through a single successful installation, but through experiences that gradually form an impression of a business. Reputation can travel in either direction, of course. One particularly poor experience can undo considerable goodwill.
H2O Vend has a long-standing belief that it would rather be remembered for the right reasons than be the cheapest. It's a philosophy that influences decisions about pricing, service commitments and the relationships worth pursuing. It doesn't mean mistakes won't happen. It means recognising that how a business responds when something goes wrong may be remembered long after the problem itself has been forgotten.
For a regional family business, there is little advantage in trying to imitate the marketing machinery of a multinational organisation. H2O Vend doesn't need to be known to every business in Britain. It needs to be known and trusted by the businesses it can realistically serve.
That doesn't mean waiting for the telephone to ring. Researching prospective customers, making introductions and developing new relationships remain important. But there's a world of difference between contacting somebody because you believe you can help and sending the same sales pitch to several hundred businesses in the hope that somebody replies.
The first suggests you've taken an interest. The second suggests you've found a mailing list.
Sometimes a prospective customer is perfectly happy with its existing supplier. Sometimes an agreement has another two years to run. Sometimes the timing simply isn't right. Those conversations can still be worthwhile, provided they're genuine rather than a thinly disguised attempt to keep selling.
And sometimes a customer who's been pleased with the service mentions H2O Vend to somebody facing a problem of their own.
Reputation isn't what a business says about itself. It's what people say about it when nobody from the business is in the room.
Imagine two old colleagues catching up on a Saturday afternoon over a coffee. They haven't worked together for several years, but their paths still cross occasionally. One now works for a manufacturing company where the vending arrangements have become a source of mounting frustration. The machines are frequently empty, the coffee equipment is unreliable and getting hold of somebody to resolve a problem seems to require an increasingly elaborate series of telephone calls.
The other listens with recognition. Their own company had been in a similar position not so long ago.
“We had exactly the same problem,” they say.
“What did you do?”
“Changed suppliers.”
“Any better?”
“Much. We went with H2O Vend. They've been really good, actually.”
The conversation moves on, as conversations do. There are other things to discuss, and nobody spends the afternoon analysing the finer points of vending machine maintenance. But later, perhaps while sitting at a desk or waiting for a meeting to begin, the colleague remembers what was said.
They look up the company. Maybe they send an email. Maybe they pick up the phone. Or perhaps they forward the details to the person responsible for facilities and suggest making contact.
And back at the old council depot in Norfolk, in a small office with a modest window and rather more supplier brochures than available desk space, another enquiry eventually arrives.
It doesn't begin with a request for a particular model of coffee machine, a list of specifications or a demand for the cheapest possible price.
It begins with something much simpler.
“A friend of mine suggested I give you a call. We're having a few problems with our current supplier. I wondered whether you might be able to help.”
