By now, you’ve probably seen the gaps in your manual coffee service business workflow. Spreadsheets don’t scale. Manual ticketing leads to delays. And your team is spending more time juggling logistics than fixing machines.
You’re ready to move forward, but with so many field service management software promising the same thing, it’s hard to know which one will actually deliver.
These five questions will help you see beyond the sales deck and understand whether a tool will truly support your team, your customers, and your long-term growth.
Let’s start with the most important one: Will your team even use it?
Question 1: Will our technicians actually use it?
Let’s be honest: if your technicians don’t use the software, it doesn’t matter how many features it has.
Adoption is everything. Your field team is juggling dozens of jobs a week. They need a tool that speeds them up, not slows them down. Here’s how you can make the decision easier:
Test the user experience:
Choose platforms that offer mobile-first design with intuitive navigation.
Check for offline access:
A poor signal at a site shouldn’t mean total standstill. Offline functionality in your field service management software should be non-negotiable.
Pilot with real users:
Let technicians test the software during actual jobs. Their feedback will tell you more than any demo ever could.
If your software fits into their day, not disrupts it, you’re already halfway to success.
Next, you need to ensure that the software is built to handle coffee service complexities.
Question 2: Can it handle service complexity across machines, sites, and schedules?
Coffee service is far from one-size-fits-all. You’re servicing espresso machines, vending units, water dispensers, sometimes all in one location. Each comes with unique needs and customer expectations.
Here’s what to look for:
Custom workflows:
Your system should adapt to the specific operational demands of each machine type, from espresso units that require specific cleaning cycles to vending machines that rely on precise refill schedules. It should also support variations in service agreements, like differing SLA expectations, subscription models, or maintenance contracts, so that your team isn't forced into a one-size-fits-all workflow.
Flexible scheduling:
Can it handle different service intervals by client or asset? For example, some locations may need weekly espresso machine maintenance due to high foot traffic, while others only need monthly vending machine checkups. Your software should allow for these nuances without manual calendar juggling.
Support for SLAs and subscriptions:
Your clients expect consistency and accountability. Whether it's a quarterly descaling agreement or a same-day SLA, the CRM you choose should automate reminders, ticket creation, and escalation paths to ensure no service promise falls through the cracks.
A platform that recognises this complexity helps your team move faster and customers stay happier.
Question 3: Can we model ROI before committing?
At the end of the day, investing in new software is about driving real financial returns.
To justify your investment, start by understanding your baseline.
What’s your current cost-per-ticket?
How long does it take your team to resolve the average service request?
These metrics are essential benchmarks.
Next, identify the KPIs that matter most in your business. For most coffee and vending teams, that means tracking first-time fix rate, SLA hit rate, and technician utilisation. These indicators reveal whether a tool is making your team more productive and your customers more satisfied.
Don’t just take a vendor’s word for it. Look at real examples.
YellowBeard, for instance, cut SLA response time by 43% and reduced churn by 11% after switching to a system designed specifically for high-volume machine service like dobby. That kind of impact turns software from a cost centre into a profit driver.
Question 4: Will it grow with our team and customer base?
You might have 5 techs today. But what happens when you hit 25 next year? The wrong platform could become your bottleneck.
Here’s what scalability should look like:
Multi-location support:
As your service footprint expands, managing routes, ticket volumes, and technician availability across multiple cities gets exponentially harder. Your software should make it simple to distribute workload, maintain consistent service levels, and ensure each region operates efficiently without creating more admin overhead.
Role-based dashboards:
Each team in your operation uses data differently. Your service lead might need a live feed of SLA breaches and technician availability. Back office staff might prioritise invoice statuses and open service tickets. Meanwhile, sales wants visibility into machine uptime and customer satisfaction trends to identify upsell opportunities. A strong field service platform should let you configure dashboards by role, so each team sees exactly what they need.
Transparent licensing:
Avoid systems that punish you with high per-user costs as you grow. If your software charges for every new technician or back-office user you onboard, scaling becomes expensive fast. Look for licensing models that allow flexibility so your growth isn’t penalised.
Question 5: Can we customise it to match how we work, not the other way around?
Every customer expects something slightly different. Some want monthly check-ins. Others only quarterly. Some want SMS updates, others email. Your software should match that flexibility.
The ability to customise ticket types, views, and SLA timers is essential to reflect how your team actually operates. You should also be able to design workflows that automate recurring tasks without burdening your admin team. And when needs change, your system should make it easy for non-developers to adjust those workflows without starting from scratch.
Customisation shouldn’t come at the cost of complexity. A good platform makes changes simple and safe.
By now, you know what to look for. But it’s one thing to talk about features, another to see them working together in practice. So what does the right platform actually enable your team to do, day in and day out?
Dobby: Built for coffee and vending teams like yours
We built Dobby after speaking to dozens of operators who had asked the same questions you just read.
Can their technicians actually use the system? Will it adapt to their mix of machines and SLAs? Can it deliver a clear ROI and grow with them? Time and again, they told us: generic field service tools weren’t cutting it.
Dobby was designed from the ground up to answer those exact needs. It’s not a one-size-fits-all platform, it’s purpose-built for the complexity and pace of coffee and vending service.
Technician-first mobile app:
Works offline and is designed for speed.
Centralised control:
Unified ticketing, scheduling, and machine data in one place.
Real-time dashboards:
Track SLA compliance, technician productivity, and more.
Whether you manage 50 machines or 5,000, Dobby is built to keep your operations running smoothly.
Want to see how Dobby compares to your current setup? Book a demo and get a tailored ROI model built around your actual ticket volumes.
Any Query? We Got You Covered!
FAQ’s
What is field service management software?
A field service management software helps you plan, schedule, and manage technicians in the field. For coffee service operators, it replaces manual spreadsheets and disjointed systems with one centralised place to manage jobs, track machines, and monitor team performance.
