Automatic Merchandiser - 44

OPERATION

PROFILE

take it, which I think is awesome.
With telemetry, we're able to see
the machine and pinpoint problems
before our customers are affected.
We're able to restock when we need
to, and our accountability has gone
up. That's really a cool thing we've
seen; technology is number one in
my time here of how our industry
has changed dramatically."
Duncan said that one of the biggest challenges he continues to experience is keeping up with consumer
trends and the types of items customers want to purchase. He also noted
that the same technology that has
helped streamline the payment process and many other areas of the business has also created a new challenge,
and one that many operators face.
"We're in a society of instant
gratification, and we are trying to
keep up with the demands of our clients," Smith explained. "When you
get a request, they want that request
done right now. So, keeping up with
client demands in a service industry
is very difficult, and we're always
trying to figure out how we can do
that better."
Duncan says they started using
Cantaloupe's Seed device to do
machine monitoring, scheduling and
order generation in 2008. When Seed
Office became available, they adopted
The Smith family strives to build goodwill
to ensure All Star Services' employees
know that they're appreciated.

Automatic Merchandiser

this as their main vending management system. Seed Office has been so
impactful to the business - enabling
the company to reduce routes, visit
more machines per route and only
service machines when needed -
that Smith says this project is his
proudest accomplishment at All Star.
"Implementing technology -
telemetry and cashless - through
Seed Office has been my baby here
at All Star," he said. "Helping to modernize the company has been my footprint on the business."
He added that his mother Suzanne
was also very involved with the technology implementation.
"As an owner, my mom, Suzanne
Smith, has given herself a major support role for the company," he said.
"She is support for the business office,
IT and special projects. She is our
go-to person to get us organized when
implementing new technology. She
organizes the project and will take
on a lot of the setup work."
Since All Star Services started
launching micro markets around
the same time it transitioned their
vending management system to Seed
Office, the team was able to streamline their entire operational process as
it diversified the company's offerings.
"Every type of micro market
system had their own software for
order generation and scheduling," he
explained. "We saw a pretty heavy

VendingMarketWatch.com

August 2019

Employees work in the warehouse at All
Star Services.

operational inefficiency with our
warehouse, our office staff and our
field team because we were training
people on different kinds of software
to do the same thing - putting product into the field, merchandising the
product, recording inventory. We had
multiple handhelds and multiple databases we were maintaining."
All Star Services has enjoyed a
close working relationship with Cantaloupe Systems, which USA Technologies acquired in November 2017,
and for the past three years has been
beta testing Seed Markets, which
USAT previewed at the NAMA
show in April. Specifically designed
to manage micro markets, Seed Markets is a cloud-based, mobile platform
that can be fully integrated with all
major micro market providers. Smith
says that All Star provides feedback
to USAT through regular calls with
their product development team.
"We give them honest feedback -
the feedback would come from me,
our management or our drivers about
how things worked in the field," he
said. "We understand that software
isn't always going to be a perfect fit for
All Star Services and we're going to
have requests to make it work for us,
but if it's an All Star-specific request,

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Automatic Merchandiser

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