Free Public WiFi More Important to Customers than the Drinks in UK Cafes
A new survey conducted by Samsung UK has found that 37% will choose coffee shops based on the availability of free WiFi rather the quality of the tea or coffee being served. So it’s no surprise to find that 69% of Brits work remotely from coffee shops at least twice a week. But apparently what cafes really need is.. a printer.
Indeed 24% of respondents said they wanted Printers to be available when they’re working away from the office and 42% would like to see a dedicated area for workers because 47% are put off by the noisy atmosphere in most venues. Sadly only 8% of coffee shops offer dedicated working areas.
Mark Ash, Samsung UK’s General Manager of Print, said:
“Through this research we wanted to get to the bottom of the technology issues of mobile working. The trend of working remotely in coffee shops has been steadily increasing for a while now, but our research found the availability of WiFi is no longer enough to satisfy customers. Despite it being important, customers want a more complete working experience.”
So there you have it, what that Starbucks down your local high street really needs is a Printer and guess what.. Samsung just so happens to make a whole bunch of those (read: vested interest). On the other hand if a lot of these suddenly started cropping up at coffee shops then before long it would start feeling exactly like your office.
The study also revealed that only 9% of mobile workers are currently using 4G (what about 3G?), relying instead on Wi-Fi available in coffee shops (90%) or public roaming Wi-Fi (15%). Also, Smartphones are the most popular device for mobile working according to the survey, with 71% of workers saying they use the device to work, while only 50% use a laptop and 49% a tablet.
Still we’ve always found Smartphones to be somewhat less productive than a Laptop for writing anything substantive. Unless “work” means checking Facebook and Twitter?
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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“…then before long it would start feeling exactly like your office.”
Until that very line in the story i thought it may have been just me that believed others thought process of working away from the office but wanting to turn where they work back in to their office was a bit fubar.