Canadian Vending, April, 2006

Coke, cStar Pilot Proves Successful

KINGSTON – A pilot project at the Ambassador Conference Resort was the site for the first Canadian installation of mobile phone and cardkey technologies over a wireless network at the same time.
Guests at the resort are able to use their mobile phone or room keycards to purchase Coca-Cola products from vending machines .The applicable charges appear on their hotel invoice.
Results during the pilot project included increased sales and improved guest experience. Customer experience and feedback were positive, according to the administrators of the trial. The cashless system also reduced the hotel staff’s time on supporting coin exchanges and coin jam problems.
The trial stage is now over and the Ambassador Hotel has continued to offer the cashless vending service.
The cell phone technology works with current handsets; there is no need to upgrade to a newer cell phone to use the service. Existing vending machines can be updated with cStar’s processing module to handle cellphone transactions; there is no need to invest in new vending equipment .The vending machine does not require a wire online connection to process a cellphone transaction as the installed module can create a wireless link to forward transaction data.

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