Field service management for vending machine service providers

They can be found at train stations, in companies, public authorities, universities, hotels, hospitals and service stations: Vending machines where cold and hot drinks or snacks can be purchased. Around 617,300 vending machines (drinks and food vending machines) are in operation in Germany (source: Bundesverband der Deutschen Vending-Automatenwirtschaft e.V.)

Another branch of the vending machine industry is amusement machines, which represent a significant part of the leisure market. A total of around 180,000 gaming machines are operated in Germany, in addition to entertainment and sports machines such as billiards, darts and table football. Of the gaming machines, 57,000 are located in catering establishments and 123,000 in amusement arcades (source: Verband der Deutschen Automatenindustrie)

Food vending machines

Beverage vending machines

Amusement machines

Challenges in the vending machine service industry

Vending machine operators face a variety of challenges that are crucial to their success. One central task is the efficient maintenance and servicing of vending machines. They need to be checked regularly and repaired quickly if necessary to minimize downtime and ensure smooth operation. Optimum inventory management is just as important. It is important to ensure that the vending machines are always sufficiently stocked without creating unnecessary overstocks, which poses both logistical and financial challenges.

Another important aspect is energy efficiency and sustainability. In times of increasing environmental awareness and rising energy costs, it is crucial to reduce the energy consumption of vending machines and promote sustainable operating practices. This not only helps to protect the environment, but can also reduce operating costs.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty also play a major role. Service providers must offer a consistently high quality of service and respond quickly to customer inquiries in order to build and maintain long-term business relationships. Finally, digitalization and data management is a decisive factor. The collection and analysis of operational data makes it possible to optimize service processes, make them more efficient and ultimately increase customer satisfaction. These challenges require a well thought-out strategy and the use of modern technologies in order to remain competitive.

The Field Service Management software from mobileX supports vending machine operators in managing the orders of their field service technicians.

At the heart of the field service management software, digital resource planning ensures efficient scheduling and optimized resource deployment. Route optimization helps to keep journeys and walking distances as short as possible in order to achieve maximum productivity and efficiency.

A mobile solution or app enables on-site access to all order data and the direct creation of feedback via smartphone, tablet or laptop. Digital checklists and forms support service technicians in their work.

FUNCTIONS

What the Field Service Management solution from mobileX offers

Manual planning

Based on the job information, the scheduling system mobileX-Dispatch determines the qualifications required to carry out the job. In the list of suitable technicians, the dispatcher can see who has the time to carry out the job. The map display also shows him which technician has the shortest journey.

Automatic resource planning

In addition to manual scheduling, semi-automatic or fully automatic scheduling is also possible. The dispatcher can either define a specific period and only selected orders for optimization or have all existing orders scheduled using the fully automatic function.

Appointments with end customers

The scheduling module makes it easier for the dispatcher to make appointments with the end customer. mobileX-Dispatch offers the dispatcher all possible execution dates in a table. The dispatcher can prioritize accordingly with regard to the parameters “additional travel time”, “workload” and “appointment”.

Mobile order processing

With mobileX-CrossMIP, service technicians have access to all the data they need for order processing on their mobile device – even when they are out of range. A flexible navigation component gives them quick access to their orders at any time and they can easily switch between different lists and modules.

Feedback, service reports and forms

The technician uses the feedback to record the scope and content of the work performed in the form of time, material and text. Documents such as photos, service reports and forms with signatures can also be created. mobileX offers two options for mapping digital forms in mobileX–CrossMIP.

Daily reports

With the daily report, users can record both order–related and non–order–related working times, such as training sessions or internal meetings. There are three basic variants of how technicians can record their times. The dashboard for time confirmations shows the technician the hours worked on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Unbooked times are also displayed in the service technician app.

mobileX-Dispatch Software zur Einsatzplanung

Digital resource planning

mobileX-Dispatch is our tool for optimizing your resource planning for technical customer service. Our digital planning includes the scheduling of orders according to qualifications, route optimization, manual planning via drag and drop as well as semi-automatic and fully automatic planning. Pool planning and scheduling of orders to external service providers is also possible with mobileX-Dispatch.

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Mobile app for service technicians

mobileX-CrossMIP is our mobile app for order processing for technical customer service. It offers an intuitive interface and is of course offline–capable. mobileX–CrossMIP enables mobile access to plant data, digital creation of feedback, forms and time recording. Material logistics can also be mapped with our mobile app.

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Industry experience

The field service management and maintenance solutions from mobileX are used by numerous medium-sized and large companies:

Our billing cycles have also been cut drastically by introducing the mobile solution. Instead of up to six weeks it takes only only three to five working days from order entry to invoicing. The quality of the feedback has improved dramatically. With the nationwide rollout of the centralized scheduling, we hope to further optimize our service process and increase customer satisfaction.

Sascha Werner Team Leader Customer Service at BWT Wassertechnik GmbH

Since the introduction of the field service management solution of mobileX we have a much better picture of the effectiveness of our customer service and our material and time. This has also helped us to expand our service and to serve our customer service requests faster and more reliably.

Werner-Ulrich Lange sales and customer service director at Melitta Professional Coffee Solutions

At the beginning of the rollout, there was a certain mistrust of the new solution. But today, the colleagues cannot imagine working without the system. Data quality has improved dramatically with the field service management system. In addition, our personnel structure has changed in the customer service. While the number of our dispatchers has hardly changed, we now have a lot more service colleagues in the field. That is, we can provide more customers with a better and faster service.

Christian Schneider Director Operations International at Winterhalter Gastronom GmbH

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