Why Service is Crucial When Purchasing an Automatic Coffee Machine

Let’s park the quality of the coffee and budget considerations for a second, because there are a lot of good quality automatic coffee machines on the market that can produce a decent coffee in your workplace. Instead, one of the most important factors will be choosing the right service partner. After all, there’s no point spending hours researching the best automatic coffee machine for your workplace if you’re going to end up with substandard service, missing parts and extended downtime.

The truth is, any automatic coffee machine, whether Franke, WMF, Melitta, Jura or Dr Coffee, will require ongoing maintenance and service to perform at its best. We recommend going with a service partner that truly knows their equipment inside and out and can provide the highest level of support. So when selecting which automatic coffee machine is right for you, or where to buy it, make sure you ask the right questions first. We’ve put together a few of the most important things to ask before making a decision: 

Does the seller have an in-house service department? 

If you’re buying your equipment from an online equipment dealer or retailer with no service department, they’ll likely make their money on the one-time sale and you’ll be left to sort the service and maintenance yourself - which we don’t recommend. As an end user, it’s extremely difficult to navigate the required preventative maintenance schedules and warranty parts, etc. without the support of a certified service partner. 

We’ve taken over the service and supply for a number of customers where the after sales service was virtually nonexistent. Some had been paying for ad-hoc parts replacement and service call-outs from a variety of vendors, not realising that the source of their issue was one that was covered under warranty, which could have saved them thousands of dollars and hours of downtime. Also keep in mind, some sellers claim to have service departments - but outsource their servicing to third party contractors. 

Does your service partner offer regular maintenance? 

Preventative maintenance is an essential part of maintaining Franke automatic machines - and the problems compound drastically if these PM cycles are skipped. A lot of service partners won’t perform regular maintenance, because it can be expensive across a fleet of machines, and maintaining the inventory is also costly, but this leads to more major failures in the long run. We service and maintain our own fleet of machines, performing deep cleaning and maintenance every four weeks, and know what it takes to keep the machines running well. We’ve also learnt tips and tricks over the years to extend the life of parts which would otherwise fail prematurely without intervention. 

Does the service partner have much experience with your specific brand of automatic coffee machine? 

Even with ‘factory training’ provided by manufacturers for their service partners and distributors, there's still a substantial learning curve (including knowing which parts to stock) that can leave you without adequate support after purchasing a machine. A lot of coffee machine equipment service providers will also send their technicians for basic training (1-2 day course) on the specific brand of coffee machine so they can advertise that their technicians are trained - yet they’ll have very little in-field experience repairing or maintaining those coffee machines. This means diagnosing and repairing will take the technicians considerably longer - and you’ll have to pay for it. That’s why it’s best to stick with specialists in the brand of automatic coffee machine you select. 

What are the long term maintenance costs of the automatic coffee machine?  

Instead of focusing on the upfront costs, get detailed information on the manufacturer’s suggested Preventative Maintenance programs. These programs will have a list of parts that will need to be changed on a cyclical basis. This is where your maintenance money will be going. Some of these parts will need to be changed on a time interval basis, for instance every 6 or 12 months, and some of these parts will need to be changed according to how many product cycles the machine has performed. It is in the execution of this PM cycle that will determine the real cost of ownership over the life machine. 

Some machines have the same cycle every 6 months and others, like Franke, have different PM scopes at different time intervals. So while it may seem more economical to buy certain machines up front, you might need to replace three times as many parts in the first 2 years or risk voiding your warranty, which can blow out your initial investment. This is also where knowing your tech really comes in handy. Whoever you choose should be able to help you understand how best to implement the PM schedule based on your machine usage. 

What is the warranty and who provides it? 

You should be clear on who your warranty provider will be when purchasing an automatic coffee machine for your office or workplace. Sometimes it's the manufacturer, sometimes it's the retailer, and sometimes it's the third party service provider. In some instances, it can be a combination of all three, which leads to finger pointing and a lack of accountability when something goes wrong. It is this unfortunate reality that means those of us with experience in the service side of the industry recommend you buy the machine from the company you intend to service it. 

Conclusion 

Remember, any automatic coffee machine you buy is only as good as the service company you use to keep it running. Ultimately, everything we do, sell and recommend is based on our knowledge and experience servicing Franke automatic coffee machines - and if you’re going to invest considerable money into an automatic, you need to find a partner who can offer that advice.