On paper, everything suggested a superb experience with the Nespresso Momento, a connected coffee machine dedicated to catering and hotel professionals. But since I opted for this machine, I have gone from technical problems to disillusionment.
Touch screen, connected machine, milk recipes prepared with the tap of a finger, support from Nespresso to better sell coffees: a priori, the Momento had it all. And we immediately understand Nespresso's intention: to target offices, hotels but also to all professionals who are not intended to become baristas like restaurants and bakeries, and on the professional side, to offer specialty coffees. a certain quality without too many complications, and without affecting its core business.
I immediately saw the benefit of such a machine for all bakeries, street food concepts, and other casual foods.
The rather beautiful machine, not too bulky, allows you to make Americanos, lattes and other macchiatos in 1 minute flat, without having to bother with equipment and letting the staff concentrate on their job, from sales to delivery. kitchen.
Here is my crash test!
Repeated breakdowns during the first year
The technicians sent by Nespresso are absolutely not to blame, because they are not magicians: if the machine crashed so much, is it because it must originally have been running in? The problem is that we were not informed of this when it was sold to us!
In any case, in the space of a year and a half, no less than a dozen interventions had to be carried out, with untimely breakdowns in the middle of service. Either the coffee no longer flows, or the milk container starts to freeze, or the water container is not recognized by the machine.
In short, breakdowns taken into account by the guarantee, but which disrupt the experience for restaurateurs.
Interventions that must be requested by telephone
Having to call an old-fashioned hotline to schedule an intervention is a waste of time that can quickly give you a headache. “Press 1, press 3”, etc… To always ask us for the same boring information, which takes a lot of time and which does not advance the shmilblick, especially in the middle of service, when we don't have much time to discuss untimely and regular bugs by telephone.
A machine that requires cleaning during service
Here again, an aberration from Nespresso, which does not live up to the brand. Indeed, imagine that you are in the middle of service, serving larigot lattes, and suddenly, your machine no longer wants to prepare any milk recipes, under the pretext that you have to start cleaning the milk container?
No backup, nothing to artificially postpone this cleaning, even if only for 2 or 3 hours, during the rush. And there, you are obliged to reimburse customers who have already paid for their order, and to announce to them that their latte will ultimately not be available, with all the disappointment that this causes both for the business in question and for Nespresso.
No vegetable milk on the program
In the era of plants, and all that lactose may have caused in terms of health concerns for the entire “Korn-Flakes” generation, Nespresso arrives with a machine for dairy recipes but… without plant-based milk. Not that we can't use vegetable milk, but let's say that if the machine were to be damaged because of that, Nespresso could not guarantee the repair, because it was not originally made for that. .
So I understand the technical constraints, but it would at least have been necessary to offer a vegetable milk signed Nespresso, and which is compatible with the machine?
Indeed, offering lattes with cow's milk seems out of time today, with the majority of customers necessarily demanding plant-based milk, given all the current injunctions linked to vegetarianism, animal abuse, and public health problems.
A non-existent salesperson
Here is one who, when the machine had to be sold, was there to promote the product to us. But once it was sold, there was no one left. When she finally responds curtly, it's to tell us to call the hotline, while we explain to her that it's an emergency and that we need help. So inevitably, we end up losing our temper.
Worse still, when trying to order on the Nespresso website, there was a bug several times which prevented us from doing so. Here again, we were invited by telephone to place an order over the phone, with all the loss of time that this could entail.
No commercial gesture, nothing was done, despite the numerous problems encountered on the machine. And I'm not talking about all the capsules worn out by vain attempts to prepare coffee, which obviously were never refunded to us.
Coffees served… not hot enough!
Here again, it is one of Nespresso's specialties. On several occasions, customers told us that the coffee was not hot enough. And on closer inspection, it is true that in fact, during all this time, the machine has never made coffee as hot as the one you can find in a brewery, or even at a home with a Nespresso machine. for individuals. Strange, right?
The technicians told me that this was indeed the temperature predicted by the machine, which is quite curious…
I'm not even talking about American coffees which are translucent, nor about professional capsules which are clearly less concentrated than capsules for individuals.
An expensive machine, paid maintenance and tacitly renewed
Not only is the machine not really a technological gem, but in addition, Nespresso tacitly renews you for one year to pay around €1,000 for the after-sales service pack. This pack therefore includes the different interventions, which we would have done without if it had not experienced so many bugs.
And to prevent this renewal, it is obviously necessary to send the eternal registered letter with return receipt one month in advance.
Having missed the deadline, I kindly contacted my sales representative, who obviously told me that it was too late for this year, and that I would therefore have to pay.
Given the number of interventions carried out since because of their machine, I easily understand that Nespresso is asking its customers to finance the operation.
In short, in the age of the Internet, of flexibility, of digital, making tacit renewals which are only canceled by registered mail with a tricky deadline, on a machine which is far from being a Rolls Royce of coffee , it’s… strong coffee.
An old-fashioned Lavazza machine and that’s it!
In our other restaurants we have Lavazza machines. No bugs, an account manager who answers the phone and regularly offers us sugar, glasses or capsules and who replaces the machine as soon as it gets a little dated.
So to choose, if I have only one piece of advice to give to snacks, concepts, and other stalls that offer coffee as a bonus: avoid Nespresso. And clearly, I'm not the only one who thinks this:
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