Automatic Merchandiser - 38

SMALL OPERATIONS

Advice Tailored to the 1 to 4 route operation

HR Departments
And Vending

Increase your bottom line by getting your accounts'
HR departments involved
By Gary Joyner, Contributor

THE SEAS WERE CALM AS MY WIFE

and I made our way down to the dining
room on board the largest cruise ship
in the world. Shortly after the host
seated us at our dining table for the
next seven nights, we were joined by
three other couples. We all took turns
introducing ourselves to each other
and sharing information about where
everyone was from and what we all did
in our various fields of employment.
Two of the gentlemen were in
human resources (HR) departments at
the companies they worked for, and the
third was a senior corporate recruiter. I
shared that my background was working with HR departments in providing
employee refreshment programs for
our customers.
I found out that both men were
vice presidents in their respective HR
departments and were also SHRMSCP (Society for Human Resource
Management, Senior Certified Professional) certified, and the woman was
the senior corporate recruiter for her
company. The men were employed by
companies that had 185 employees and
235 employees, respectively, and the
woman's company had 310 employees.
During our conversations I shared
that the vending industry has a direct
effect on employee morale and productivity. Boy, did that open up a can of
worms with these three dining partners.
AIRING OF GRIEVANCES

All three agreed that a professional
employee refreshment program can
38

Automatic Merchandiser * April 2020

have both positive and negative effects
at their companies. Several questions
and comments from our dinner mates
included why a vending machine
does not exist that will vend the user's
choice of product at least 99% of the
time. I was told that they had more
important issues to deal with than having to make sure that each employee
gets a refund when their machines did
not vend the product, and the amount
of time that someone on their staff had
to spend meeting with the vending
company route person on this issue
was concerning.
They wanted to know why vending
companies never put anything on
sale and if it were possible for their
employees to have a say in which
products go in the vending machines
since the route drivers tell them that
they put in what their boss tells them
to. One of the HR managers said they
had an employee purchase a pastry,
and, after consuming several bites, the
employee turned it over and discovered green mold. That employee had
to go home and ended up missing two
days of work.
They said that all vending companies come in and tell a good story
about how their service is the best and
make promises. But once the vending machines are installed, my dining
companions said, they rarely hear from
the salesperson or anyone from the
management team who made these
commitments and promises.

I began to think that maybe I
should not have mentioned that I was
in vending. Still, I agreed that their
concerns and issues were valid and that
a truly professional vendor would make
every effort to resolve these and any
other service issues that may arise with
their vending company.
PROBLEM-SOLVING AT SEA

It dawned on me that this was the perfect opportunity to share information
with these three professionals about
how their concerns can be resolved.
Many people in our industry do not
share pertinent technical information with locations about the vending
machines they will be installing or have
already installed.
I informed our dining partners
that most state-of-the-art electronic
merchandisers manufactured in the
last few years come equipped with
guaranteed product delivery systems.
This ensures that their employees
will always get the product they have
selected, or they will get their money
refunded on the spot. Both HR vice
presidents said that would be a solution, no doubt.
I hesitated to include what I am
about to reveal, but I said to myself,
"Go ahead." One day, while I was up on
the deck of the ship, one of the HR vice
presidents asked if I'd be able to tell if
his vending machines had a guaranteed
product delivery system if he showed
me a picture of it that one of his people
had sent to him. Sure enough, it had a
guaranteed product delivery system.
His current vendor had never told him
about it or how it works.
When I told them that professional vending companies now have
access to vending management systems
software that will periodically notify
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