Why Providing Water Can Increase Coffee Consumption at Your Trade Counter

It might sound like two completely separate things, but having a water dispenser alongside your coffee machine can actually lead to people drinking more coffee.

Think about what happens at a busy trade counter. Someone comes in, wants to fill up their water bottle and walks over to the refreshment area. While they're there, they see the coffee machine.

They might not have come in wanting a coffee, but now they've got the option.

Getting people to the refreshment area

This is probably the biggest benefit.

A coffee machine can be sitting there all day, but if people don't have much reason to walk over to it, it can easily become part of the background.

A water dispenser gives people another reason to use the area.

Someone comes over for water. Someone else needs to fill their bottle. Another customer wants a coffee. Over time, you've got more people visiting the same area, and more people seeing that coffee is available.

For trade counters where coffee is provided free, this can be particularly useful.

Coffee and water work well together

Most people who drink coffee will also drink water during the day. Having both available in the same place makes sense.

A customer might grab a coffee while they're waiting for their order, then fill their bottle before they leave. Or they might come in for water and decide they fancy a coffee.

None of these decisions are particularly complicated. The important thing is that the coffee is there and easy to get.

It can make the coffee machine more visible

Trade counters can be busy places. Customers are thinking about what they need, staff are serving people and there's usually plenty going on.

A coffee machine tucked away in a corner isn't necessarily going to get much use.

Put it next to a water dispenser and you've created a much more obvious refreshment point.

That can be especially useful if you're trying to encourage customers to help themselves to coffee rather than having staff make every drink.

Small changes can make a difference

Of course, adding a water dispenser isn't suddenly going to double your coffee consumption.

But if you're already providing a coffee machine, it's worth thinking about how people actually find and use it.

Making the refreshment area visible, convenient and useful gives people more reasons to go over there.

And sometimes someone who walked over for a bottle of water will leave with a coffee as well.