A manufacturer of drinks dispensers, supported by Made Smarter, is using augmented reality to transform its sales process, drive productivity and create jobs.
GenerationJuice, based in Bromborough on the Wirral, makes app-driven drink dispensers, or drink hubs, which serve natural juice drinks from concentrate.
However, its face-to-face demonstration process, which involves two staff driving to a customer, is time-consuming, inefficient, and hampering growth.
Working with Made Smarter, GenerationJuice has developed a digital demo experience using augmented reality which allows potential customers to visualise the dispenser on their site while tasting samples of the drinks at the same time.
The app-based solution reduces a sales process involving two people and four hours to one person and 30 minutes, with no-one having to attend the customer site.
GenerationJuice estimates that with new marketing activity to generate demo leads, productivity will increase by 600% and accelerate the company’s growth ambition.
Meanwhile, Made Smarter is also supporting a second technology project to add biometric and cashless payment options to the drinks hub during manufacture. This new automation removes the need for supervision and a separate manned till point, providing a stronger offer for potential customers.
GenerationJuice Case StudyThe pandemic had a significant impact on the business, restricting our access to potential customers. We used the time to rethink the way we approached certain processes.
Made Smarter’s support came at a crucial time. They applied their expertise to help us develop a digital roadmap and focus our strategy on concrete solutions to some of our major challenges.
Our first step is to create more sales opportunities using emerging technologies which will drive our ambition of building 1,000 dispensers over the next three years.
Simon Edwards, Co-Founder at GenerationJuice
Since launching in 2019, GenerationJuice has found success in the leisure and hospitality industry and has started to target emerging markets such as education and healthcare.
The dispensers are operated using an app via a smart device and are designed for reusable bottles, as an alternative to single-use plastic and aluminium cans.
After approaching Made Smarter, the company completed a Digital Transformation Workshop process and identified significant opportunities for data capture from the machines to give GenerationJuice business intelligence.
It also highlighted that GenerationJuice’s manufacturing is set up for small batch production, and that it needs new tools, equipment and small-scale automation to deliver cost and quality improvements.
However, with such a small team, GenerationJuice has identified that increasing sales volume is key to driving improvements in other parts of the business.
“Our after sales conversion rate is more than 80%, which speaks volumes about our product,” Simon said. “But the process of visiting potential customers is time-consuming and with the support of Made Smarter we identified it as the main blockage to faster growth. Add to that the disruption caused by covid and the subsequent restrictions on accessing customer sites, we knew a new approach was needed.”
With Made Smarter support, GenerationJuice has developed an app that uses augmented reality, interactive displays, and holographic display technologies, to demonstrate what the dispenser could look like on the premises.
The potential customer downloads the app, logs in to its bespoke portal, and starts the personalised experience, tasting samples of the 180-drink portfolio which are sent by courier.
Meanwhile, the biometric and card facilities will be added to the Drinks Hub at manufacture.
GenerationJuice aims to increase turnover by up to 50% with the new sales process and demonstrate a scalable solution.
The AR solution will cut its annual mileage by 20,000, reducing the business’s carbon footprint.
The virtual demo will save four hours per sale, 360 hours annually, enabling the business to deploy its resources and focus on business growth.
The project has enabled GenerationJuice to create two new jobs.
With sustainability high on the agenda, GenerationJuice estimates its products can offer resource efficiency for the customer in terms of waste reduction, energy savings, and environmental impact.
GenerationJuice estimates that an average customer can expect to save one ton of plastic or aluminium waste based on an average consumption of 75-90,000 plastic bottles or cans.
This will potentially reduce the company’s energy consumption by up to 63%.
With the sales process digitised, GenerationJuice can use the extra revenue to roll out its expansion plans and improve manufacturing and data capture.
“We are a small and nimble business with big ambitions and an even bigger opportunity,” Simon said. “Made Smarter has been a huge support through the pandemic in assisting us to shape our digital roadmap and accelerate our ambitions.”
