Telemetry and IoT solutions, such as the vBox and Vendon Cloud, are already a staple of the vending industry. Managing a machine fleet is challenging and difficult to compete with other operators without real-time product, sales, and technical data.
In the coffee industry, the question is still often in the air – how will my automatic coffee machines benefit from telemetry? End users can refill the bean canisters themselves, and appliances will rinse the milk tubes automatically after a specific number of dispensed drinks. However, there are actually impressive benefits that a telemetry solution can bring to an OCS operator.
Read on to discover how telemetry can help optimize your OCS business!
Find the right machines for sites
Would you drive a truck through the old town or a coupé on an off-road? Probably, no. The same principle applies to coffee machines – there’s no need to place an industrial machine in low-volume sites, and vice versa. But how do you know if the machine actually reaches its potential or even exceeds it by a mile?
Well, that’s the beauty of telemetry – aggregate sales data can actually tell you everything.
If you expect a certain coffee machine to produce 200 cups a day but it’s only making 50, that’s a telling sign you should consider swapping it out for a smaller model and place your powerhouse in a site where the machine can get a real workout every single day. That way, you will match your machines with the right locations, which in turn will help you achieve your sales goals.
Track beans sold vs. cups made
For many OCS operators, bean sales are their main revenue stream, with machines either rented free of charge or sold to the end customer. While the pay-per-cup model is great, it possesses certain risks for the operator, namely, end customers using beans sourced from another supplier, which in turn leads to revenue loss.
With the Vendon solution in place, operators can easily track how much product has been delivered to a location and compare it to the sales results of the machines on site.
Plan ingredient deliveries
Nowadays, customers expect a certain level of service, which also extends to the OCS business – if they need to place orders every time they are about to run out of a product, it means taking inventory, making a call, and hoping to get the items delivered on time. An IoT solution can be your best friend; since you know how much product you have delivered and how much has been consumed, thanks to product recipes, you can set up alerts to inform you whenever there’s a product running low on stock and reach out to the customer proactively.
Even better, agree on an automated delivery schedule – whenever the amount of beans left is lower than a few kilos, send a new shipment to the customer. Easy!
Schedule maintenance jobs
Another way to be proactive is to take care of the machine’s health before it needs serious technical intervention. With intensive use, various machine parts wear down, which is a normal process; however, telling it to a customer who is unable to get their morning espresso is another story – we all want things to work well all the time.
Scheduled maintenance is an excellent remedy for this, and this is where route planning comes in. When planning a delivery visit, schedule additional tasks for the filler, or create separate maintenance routes altogether. In the long run, you will save on maintenance costs and increase the customer satisfaction level.
Optimize drink menus
Even the best coffee machine will remain unused if the recipes do not match customers’ preferences, thus it is crucial to make sure the drink quality is top-notch. With real-time sales transferred to Vendon Cloud, you will easily see your top and flop drinks.
Then, you can start looking for patterns – are two espresso shots followed by hot water because your Americano is too weak so people are creating their own? Might it be that your seasonal latte is not a bestseller because it is on the second page of the menu? Without sales data, this analysis becomes mission impossible.
Plus, it’s very easy to test new drinks and recipes as well – sales data will let you know if you are a master chef in an instant!
To sum up
As you see, telemetry is much more than having data – it’s more about what the data can tell you and how it can work for you. And it turns out, it can do a lot.
What makes Vendon unique as an IoT solutions supplier is its ability to connect to a multitude of machine models from a variety of manufacturers; for an OCS operator that works with multiple types of machines, it is a must; having two separate systems to manage the fleet is neither wise nor financially viable.
Pour en savoir plus sur la façon dont Vendon peut vous aider à faire progresser votre entreprise, contactez-nous à l’adresse grow@vendon.net or your local Vendon Distributor.
