In part one of this series, we explored how today’s digital consumers—always connected, omnichannel, experience-driven, and data-aware—demand frictionless journeys across venues like cinemas, food courts, and fast-food outlets. While they value speed, personalization and rewards, many beverage service models still create obstacles: hidden or inconvenient dispensers, extra queues, and rigid processes that don’t adapt to real behavior. The result is frustration for customers and missed sales for venues. Fortunately, digitalization, IoT, mobility and cloud technologies already enable a smoother, mobile-first experience where consumers can seamlessly order, earn rewards, and self-serve drinks without friction.

Understanding this customer experience means breaking down the digital journey, its touchpoints and the technologies behind them:

1. Awareness and Consideration: Triggered by convenience, a visit to an event or venue, or a simple craving, the customer—who has already been exposed to ads, promotions, or brand notices—opens the preferred app. Within the app, they can not only view the menu, combos and drinks, but also customize their beverage experience by selecting the fountain that has the flavors, size and quantity preferred and in the nearest area. As orders can be placed or modified online, either from home or directly at the venue. Beverage dispensers can be added digital capabilities to interface with the app, enabling two-way data exchange. They can share information such as order details, machine status, location, available flavors and consumer preferences, all of which help the user make more informed choices and enhance convenience. The machines are able to continuously collect and transmit this data to the network, where it can be accessed by the app. The app, in turn, can request real-time updates from the dispenser. Alerts—such as when a machine is running low on beverages—can also be exchanged, ensuring a smoother, more personalized and reliable customer experience.
2. Decision and Access: As regards where and when to buy your drink, given the preference fo the digital consumer for the digital channel, the exchange between app and machines are key for the consumer to make the decision.
3. Ordering: Ordering through the app, kiosk, website or counter provides a consistent experience. Consumers receive either a digital or physical ticket/token, which can be used at any time to dispense their drink according to the purchase terms—such as size, quantity, refills and flavors. Orders can be placed in front of the dispensing machine or remotely from home, with the consumer collecting an electronic token for later use.
4. Payment: Digital wallets are a key enabler of a frictionless experience. They are convenient, faster to use and more economical for venues. In cases where no dedicated mobile app is available—such as at some cinemas, recreational venues, convenience stores, offices, sporting events or airport corners—dispensing machines themselves can provide digital payment APIs that integrate directly with the venue’s app.
5. Self-serving: The token can be presented to the machine via the mobile app, a printed version or directly managed through the app for self-service. Before redemption, the consumer may update or modify the order. Once the token is used, the machine automatically recognizes it as redeemed, ensuring smooth and accurate service. Tokens for each family member or all combined are a choice of the customer.
6. Post-purchase and Loyalty: Data collected by the dispensing machine can be shared with brands and retailers to enhance both the consumer experience and business performance. Insights into preferences, usage patterns and operational data enable continuous improvement, stronger loyalty programs, and more personalized offerings.

Augmenting dispensing machine with digital technologies

A number of technologies need to be combined to allow for that refurbished journey:

• IoT, custom or standard systems on chip, as wells as embedded software, to interact with dispensing machine controls and collect and exchange data with the apps. They are required to interact via standard interfaces such as USB, network websockets, GPIO, TTL…
• Private or public cloud platforms to ingest, route and store data and solutions
• Analytics and AI to generate insights
• Software engineering to provide rich and efficient interfaces and engines to the customer and venues
• Secured communications via 4G/5G, wireless and wireline for telemetry and control signals
• Cybersecurity, privacy and data protection

Although these technologies have existed for some time, manufacturers have traditionally focused on using them for maintenance or machine status monitoring for the owner, rather than enhancing the consumer experience. A new generation of add-on devices and software, leveraging these technologies and the available machine interfaces, can now widen the focus toward enriching the customer experience. Going from pure data collection solutions to devices and software that interacts with the customer and need to ensure a seamless and intuitive experience is the challenge for these add-ons. That is why when designing them, the mindset of the product managers and engineers need to be reshaped and leave their confort zone of “industrial devices” toward “consumer devices”. Consumer device requirements are always challenging and involve different sensitivities compared to industrial ones.

At BevServ, with our nuddo solution, we continuously strive to shift our mindset and stay focused on delivering a platform that both enriches and expands the possibilities for consumers while also creating new opportunities for owners—whether brands or retailers. By combining these technologies, we have developed the right solution for all stakeholders: a platform designed to support and strengthen relationships among them and with them.

However, the real challenge goes beyond simply adding technologies; it lies in ensuring that brands, retailers, manufacturers, and platform providers like us unite around a common purpose: creating a truly seamless, end-to-end consumer journey that elevates the entire experience.