Automated phone number for empty and broken machines

[arenorthvend]

Hey all, new to the forum, and vending, but I've gotten so much information from this forum that I would like to give something back hopefully. I'm a techie at heart and love creating systems. So while starting up my own company I was thinking about being a single person operator, and not wanted to get bogged down with phone calls about machines I have in the field. So I created a little automated system using Twilio, which only costs $1 a month to rent a phone number, and maybe $0.08 at most for each call you receive.

Basically you can call or text it, and it will ask for a machine ID number, which you would have an ID number printed on each machine. You do need to keep an updated list of your machine numbers for this to work properly. If they put in a wrong ID number, it will as them again. Which will keep people from putting in the wrong number, which then you won't have a clue which machine is having the issue.

Once they put in the proper number, it will ask them if there is a problem with the machine, or if the machine is low or out of stock. If they say there is a problem, it will ask them to describe the problem. If its something out of stock, it will ask them to name the products that are out of stock. (If for bulk vending, you would technically know what the machine ID has stocked in it. Although you could just use 1 machine ID for a triple head.)

Once they have completed their submission, they are thanked and assured a technician will be out shortly to either fix the problem or refill the machine(s).

Then you are sent a text message with all the details of the call.

If this is something you would be interested in, please message me your cell phone number so I can tell the system where to send the service text to so you can see the system in action for yourself. For cost reasons I'm only going to setup 2 numbers and I'll give you the number so you can try it out to see if you like it. Each person will get 2 days of testing, then I'll move down the line so other people can try it out. I'll help a few people build it for free, you will have to pay for the usage though. It does take time to setup, so if this seems like something that a lot of people want, I may turn it into a service.

If it doesn't feel like it would be viable as a business service I may just post a video showing step by step instructions on how to set it up yourself.

Hope I can help. Thanks!

[arenorthvend]

Just an FYI, this system would work with Full Line Vending as well as Amusement vending, but since I don't see a forum that wraps all 3 together, I'll just post it here. Don't want to make the moderators mad off the get go.

[gumball guy]

 

42 minutes ago, arenorthvend said:

Just an FYI, this system would work with Full Line Vending as well as Amusement vending, but since I don't see a forum that wraps all 3 together, I'll just post it here. Don't want to make the moderators mad off the get go.

I can appreciate what you are trying to do but I'm not sure how well received it would be with the customers or if there is really a demand for it in most vending businesses. I operate a large bulk route and a small full line route. I try to personally answer my phone as much as possible. If I can't answer I explain on my outgoing message to leave the business name, street address, city, phone and I will call back asap. Pretty simple and effective with no added cost and has served me well over the years.

Three issues I see with your system:

1. Customers want to talk to a human being whenever possible and I want to talk to them. Customers appreciate it.

2. Many customers/locations don't have time or just don't want to fool around with multiple steps when reporting an issue especially if they are frustrated about losing money in the machine.

3. I just don't see the demand for something like this because I don't get a ton of service calls.....maybe 5 - 6 per month if that. If your phone is ringing off the hook with service calls then you are not running your business correctly.

  I could see this possibly working with very large regional or national business where you have alot of employees spread over a large geographic area but not as practical for small to mid sized operations in my opinion. Again this is just my two cents and according to my wife I am wrong alot so that could easily be the case here. Regardless I wish you luck with it and welcome to the forum.

[arenorthvend]

53 minutes ago, gumball guy said:

 

I can appreciate what you are trying to do but I'm not sure how well received it would be with the customers or if there is really a demand for it in most vending businesses. I operate a large bulk route and a small full line route. I try to personally answer my phone as much as possible. If I can't answer I explain on my outgoing message to leave the business name, street address, city, phone and I will call back asap. Pretty simple and effective with no added cost and has served me well over the years.

Three issues I see with your system:

1. Customers want to talk to a human being whenever possible and I want to talk to them. Customers appreciate it.

2. Many customers/locations don't have time or just don't want to fool around with multiple steps when reporting an issue especially if they are frustrated about losing money in the machine.

3. I just don't see the demand for something like this because I don't get a ton of service calls.....maybe 5 - 6 per month if that. If your phone is ringing off the hook with service calls then you are not running your business correctly.

  I could see this possibly working with very large regional or national business where you have alot of employees spread over a large geographic area but not as practical for small to mid sized operations in my opinion. Again this is just my two cents and according to my wife I am wrong alot so that could easily be the case here. Regardless I wish you luck with it and welcome to the forum.

I appreciate any and all feedback. Like I said I’m new to this business. I feel like a lot of people today don’t want to talk to people, so I was just throwing it out there. But I can understand the need for some people wanting to talk to an actual person.

i also only got the idea because another very large vendor in my city has a setup very similar. (I found out because one of their machines was broken.)

Edited May 21, 2019 by arenorthvend
Needed to add something

[orsd]

I personally have a phone number and a website with a form.

If they want to use an automated system they can go to the website, if they want to talk to someone they can call me. Still, I don’t get many calls.

[sweetstop]

I use and 800 number for all my Id stickers

it sends me an email with the voice mail immediately or I can just have it ring to my cell

just a few bucks a month and looks professional having a toll free number

[brendio]

I find this interesting, and after hearing about Twilio, it is on my list to play around with also, but for a slightly different purpose. One of my amusement machines is set up to send me text messages with meter readings. I would like to have that data sent and massaged into a more usable format for long term trends. My other use case was for running prize competitions to engage customers more for repeat business on my amusement (e.g. running a high score competition on arcade or pinball machines).

As others have said, operators generally are not run off their feet with service calls, and I find most people are more likely to walk away from a machine than report malfunctions and location owners are too busy running their business. I often get to a location to be told it hasn't worked for days/weeks/months.