Connect Vending
Catching up with Connect
The VI team met with Connect Vending managing director Steven Garner this month to talk social media and sustainability...
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tarting with the launch of a new brand identity in early January, Connect Vending has been overhauling the way it does business. Key to this has been an update in communication with both consumer and customer, and an intensified push to improve paper cup recycling facilities for the whole industry.
AN INDUSTRY-LEADING PARTNERSHIP Sustainability is a vitally important issue for Connect Vending. Recently making the bold decision to switch completely from plastic to paper cups, the company has embraced the opportunities this change has created to further their sustainability efforts. Connect Vending is the founding vending member of the Simply Cups scheme, and alongside heavy weights such as John Lewis and Costa Coffee, the company is working to improve collection and recycling services for the increasing number of paper coffee cups in circulation. Connect Vending is also working as an ambassador to encourage other vending companies to sign up for the scheme, which currently covers the London to Birmingham area. It hopes to help Simply Cups to be nationwide within 24 months. "The existing solutions are embryonic," said Steven. "I want to be able to go to any of our customers and offer them a collection service." It is clear from what Steven says that Connect considers this an unequivocal part of its responsibility as a vending business. Vending operators offer a service, Steven said, and Connect Vending believes that making it easy for both consumer and customer to recycle their cups should be included in that service.
CONNECTING WITH THE CONSUMER "It's essential to have a cohesive approach to communicating with your public," said Steven. Both he and Connect’s founder and Chairman Stuart Coutts became aware that in order to keep growing, the company needed to exploit social media and new communication technologies and make them part of their business strategy.
24 After taking a course at Oxford University, they engaged a
marketing executive to coordinate their rebrand - revamping their website to be more alive, alert and interactive and constructing integrated social media campaigns across Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Steven believes that in order to maintain a high standard of service,
"it is crucial to interact with the end user." Traditionally, there has been a communication void here - operators communicated with the site decision makers, but they knew nothing about consumer preferences and demands. This lack of communication and knowledge meant operators had limited ways of finding out how they could improve service. Connect Vending believes that social media and payment systems both have an important part to play in forging a relationship between operator and consumer. "The evolution of payment systems is very interesting to us,"
commented Steven. Connect Vending is moving to cashless - it considers that the future of payment is in devices, whether these are smartphones, tablets or even Apple Watches. A Connect Vending app is in the works, which will allow consumers to pay for their purchases via a closed loop system, access discounts and loyalty schemes and connect with the brand via social media. It will allow Connect to access consumers' purchase preferences, and tailor discounts and services directly to them. The long standing perception that vending is second best has
made a dramatic turnaround, Steven maintains. "There are places where a shop or restaurant is best, and there are places where an automated retail outlet is best." He believes that we are entering a new era of decision makers and consumers who are used to machines, who know they can get a great cup of coffee from them and who are familiar and comfortable with touch-screens and interfaces. Connect Vending aims to be at the forefront of the new opportunities this is creating for vending.
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