JULY/AUGUST 2017
Largest UK Costa franchise signs up to safe WiFi
n The UK’s largest Costa Coff ee franchise has been awarded a government-recognised certifi cation that proves its free public WiFi is safe for children and young people. Goldex Investments, which runs 65
coff ee shops across the South East, wanted to reassure the community its WiFi provider, Freerunner, has the right fi ltering in place after staff spotted an increase in the number of young people using smartphones in store.
Launched in 2014, Friendly WiFi is the
government-initiated certifi cation standard for public WiFi. Jade Colfer-Coleman, new stores manager for Goldex Investments, says: “Although we take pride in the fact our public WiFi always had the right fi lters, when our managers told us more schoolchildren were using their smartphones in store, the decision to go for Friendly WiFi certifi cation was the obvious next step. “We have a lot of families using our cafés in the communities we serve and so we wanted to reassure them that the WiFi their children were using was safe. “Our customers can use our free WiFi safe in the knowledge inappropriate content is blocked.” Where the Friendly WiFi symbol is displayed the WiFi is fi ltered for inappropriate or illegal material. Freerunner’s managing director Chris Kent says: “We’re delighted to support Goldex in bringing this accreditation further into the high street, and hope one day it becomes the standard and benchmark for public WiFi.” Friendly WiFi director Bev Smith says: “Goldex is one of the UK’s leading Costa franchises so it’s brilliant to see them
It could be you!
n Husband-and-wife team Carol and Richard Waterhouse run their Extra Help franchise in East Cheshire and are based in Macclesfi eld. Prior to joining Extra Help, Carol had worked as a nurse and Richard had enjoyed a long career in IT. In 2015, however, a family bereavement prompted the couple to re-evaluate their lives. Carol and Richard wanted to provide services to their local community. As neither had run a business before, they were reluctant to start from scratch and decided to look into franchising. They attended a franchising exhibition, where they read an article in a trade magazine about Extra Help, the home-help and domestic services franchise network.
Carol says: “We could see there was a gap in our local market for Extra Help’s services and knew my experience as a nurse would be extremely useful.” Carol and Richard decided Extra Help was the ideal franchise. They attended a residential training course and, since then, have been busy promoting their business. Their immediate plan is to target the elderly with their services, due to an obvious gap in their local area. They predict that the cleaning side and general home-help side of the business will be just as lucrative. So far, Carol and Richard are pleased with their decision and are looking forward to the future.
“What I like the most is that each day
is diff erent,” says Richard. “I was used to pen-pushing and doing the same thing
every day, and I love that each client has their own unique requirements.”
Carol and Richard Waterhouse
ensuring their entire community knows that their young people can enjoy safe WiFi.”
DID YOU KNOW
DID YOU KNOW
of franchisees run multiple units
29% ? ?
Source: bfa/NatWest Franchise Survey 2015
10 |
BusinessFranchise.com | July/August 2017
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