Internet Café Services

I thought I had already tackled this topic earlier in my blogging but when I checked the different categories and sections of this site, I realized I have  not yet enumerated or listed the different services that an Internet café can offer to its customers. Those of you who are already engaged in the business know them already. I intend to go on enumerating the various Internet café services for the benefit of my readers who want to know what services can they offer should they decide to go into the business or avail of when they go to an Internet café as a customer.

Let me start by saying that I am writing this blog straight out of my mind (not copying from any popular forum as what a critic said somewhere) so I may miss some of the services being offered by an Internet café. I request  those already in the business to add those that will not be in my list by using the comment box below.

The source of income of an Internet café or the services that it offers to the public area are as follows (take note that the services listed herein are not necessarily all found in an Internet café. Some maybe offered and some may be not available in a certain shop):

• Network and/or Online Games – the most common service in an internet café which at present, I guess, constitute 60 to 70% of overall income of most cafés.

• Internet Access – to be distinguished from online games which also need access to the Internet, this service includes surfing, chatting, emailing and the free voice over internet protocol service like skype and Yahoo Messenger voice chat.

• Offline Rental – this service refers to what a customer would do in a computer that does not require Internet access like typing, programming and other similar activity.

• Printing – the process of producing a hard copy of a document with texts and images either in black and white or in colors as the case may be.

• Scanning – can be said to be the reverse of printing because this is the process of converting text and images from hard to soft copy.

• Encoding – to differentiate form the offline rental where the customer do the job, encoding includes typing, spreadsheet processing and other things that an Internet café personnel do for a client. The service includes the printing of the job done by the café worker.

• Photocopying – some may say that this service is not computer-related but I say there are now 3-in-1 printers where this job can be done. Technically, photocopying can be said to be scanning and printing which are well within the realm of computer services.

• Online Loading – selling of prepaid loads for cellular phones and online games using the web service of another party (load distributor).

I did not include in the above list some special services that some internet cafés may be offering already like as computer learning center, Internet café by day and call center by night business model which I had already blogged about. I know there are more Internet café services that are evolving like cash remittance service and call center agent training but I want to blog about them separately in the future so watch for them.