Comparing different brand’s proprietary machine software for retool – Insights?

[Andrew McGregor]

Currently looking at Huebsch’s Command, Dexter’s Live, and Speed Queen’s Insights. They all look pretty similar so I was curious if anyone has any insight into the key differences between these brands, their machine tracking software, and their own pay app. I personally have a few Huebsch hardmounts installed and love their customer service but the free upgrades offered by Dexter as new technology becomes available looks like a nice perk. (How often they upgrade tech is another question, though.) I have no experience with either Dexter or Speed Queen. When taking a visit to the other stores in my area, the majority of them have Dexter even though the closest distributor only offers Speed Queen. (There is only one distributor in my state).

My store is cash only, unattended, and 24hr right now. I want to add in cashless options and move to an even more absentee role to focus on other business ventures. Again, all of the pay apps look similar so what, if any, are the key differences? I would mostly likely keep cash as an option for the time being until I see the majority of my customer base adopt the new payment systems. I don’t know if forcing the move over to all cashless right away will work out well.

Support is extremely important to me as well as ease of use by customers.

I appreciate any and all advice, thank you.

[Brent Hendricks]

Newbie here, but I come out of the tech field. I’m working through an acquisition now on my first store, with my goal to be that it’s mostly passive income in the next year. We like to take pretty long vacations, so pulling coins out and moving to a card system is very high on my list of things to do. The store has old Dexter’s and is coin-only with a couple of coin changers.

Things I’m considering and thoughts for you as well:

• What capabilities do each of them offer around loyalty? If the other stores in your area can offer the same, aren’t you a “me-too”? As I’m looking at options for the store I’m trying to acquire, I’m driven by how I can pull in the people and “own” them going forward so they don’t want to go to my competitor. Offering different pricing tiers (silver/gold/platinum), and group discounts (religious, social, or sports) are two things I want to do. This is my #1 reason to go to a third party like CCI or LaundroWorks.
• The investment in any of these solutions is non-trivial (unless you have a tiny store, but even then it means a lot of dirty socks to pay for it). There is significant customer-driven switching costs, so moving from one app to another will take re-training, and if you’re allowing any pre-payment/top-up on account, you’ll have to figure out how to get out from under that liability. More importantly, getting your customers to switch apps without leaving you will take work.
• What if you find after your re-tool that you want to buy a different brand? Maybe your distributor really doesn’t do right by you and you need to switch to meet market demand. Those two new 80lb machines in the back? Probably going to need a different app.
• Bank and credit are another thing to consider. I don’t know enough about the manufacturer’s payment options and flexibility, but being able to change your processor and bank are important. It gives you the ability to “shop around” for a better deal on credit. And, because there’s another person (the manufacturer) in the middle, you might be paying higher fees than if you can negotiate with a processor directly.
• What will they do with that data? I’m told some manufacturers use your data…potentially to justify another facility just across the street. I don’t want to enable a competitor to come into my market using my own data.
• One of the things I like the most about the CCI/LaundroWorks options is to remove the coins but keep the notes. I believe both of them have a “this is what the value of the cash box is” function, so you might even be able to have someone you trust to pull the cash box if you’re unable to do so. The amount they deposit should equal the amount the machine thinks is in the box. If it’s not, you might need to figure out why…and if that person was as trustworthy as you thought. This enables me to go on vacation with less worry about someone having to pull a bunch of coins out of boxes.

As I said, I’m a newbie here…but work in the POS space. The marketing/loyalty functionality is huge in my mind. I want to remove the coins so I can raise prices $0.08 if I need to in order to keep my margins where I want them due to utility costs going up. Kind of hard to do that if you still have coins. Simplifying the collection, removing the coin changer mechanical components…those are all HUGE for me. YMMV, but I hope this gave you some things to consider.

If you find some other use cases or things I didn’t consider, please, please…shoot holes through my current thought process.

• This reply was modified 13 hours, 22 minutes ago by Brent Hendricks. Reason: Fixed some typos and cleaned up verbiage

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