Forbes has a great article about how Nordstrom and Home Depot have adopted mobile POS devices enabling employees to check out customers anywhere in the store. Employees at Apple’s retail stores have been armed with mobile iTouch devices for several years that enable employees to scan a barcode and check out a customer immediately.  Companies like Nordstrom and Home Depot are seeing increased sales because they can expedite purchases as the customer is trying on clothes, makeup, cordless drills or circular saws. No more waiting in line “thinking” about your purchase. Using Mobile POS employees can capture the buying moment and reap the benefits for the retailers.

Some interesting tidbits

• Nordstrom’s first quarter sales increased 15.3% since implementing Mobile POS devices.
• The average number of items sold per sale increased
• The average sales price per sale increased

We are seeing similar trends in the adoption of mobile work order systems like ZenTouch in the service Industry.

Driving service business with mobile work orders

With a mobile work order system on an iPhone, Android or Rugged PDA service technicians have full access to services, parts and prices to quickly create an estimate or service ticket for a customer. One customer reported he has seen a 17% increase in service techs availability to take additional service calls just by implementing a mobile work order system. Spread that across 8 technicians – that’s a big impact on our business.

Another customer reports, “Customers seem to trust a digital system that breaks down costs for services and parts rather than watching me rifle through a stack of papers. I can present a complete service ticket, review the recommended services, add or delete items and allow them to approve service immediately.” In the event a customer decides to wait to initiate a service call to talk with their wife/husband, review finances, check their calendar, etc. a technician or estimator can save the estimate and schedule a call back with the customer. Now all estimates and work orders are accessible via a mobile device with a simple search.  Technicians can access past estimates and immediately revisit the estimate, email it to the customer or convert it to a work order on the spot.

Clearly efficiency gains are being recognized on both ends of the spectrum by implementing Mobile POS or Mobile Work Order Systems.  These efficiencies are enabling retailers like Nordstrom and Home Depot to drive business at the point of interaction.  Service industry leaders are experiencing identical results.  By improving the customer experience the decision to buy is expedited and mobile enabled businesses are reaping the benefits.

Jody Sedrick

Clipboard similarities to the iPad are facilitating user adoption

For the past couple of months I have demonstrated ZenTouch to service professionals from a myriad of industries; electricians, installers, auto dent repairers, carpet cleaners, plumbers and others.  I have found some trends that are enlightening, but today I wanted to focus on one – the adoption of the iPad especially in light of the launch of iPad 3 yesterday

We are so in-grained with collecting and annotating data using a clipboard that the physical similarities of the iPad or Android to a clipboard make it easy, even comfortable, to pick up an iPad and go to work.

Service Technicians

ZenTouch work orders on an iPad

Service technicians ranging from HVAC Techs, Plumbers to Auto Dent Repairs all carry a clipboard. Tasks range from looking up part numbers, checking off service items, filling out the work order, collecting payment information and getting final sign off.

Now with systems like ZenTouch, a cloud base mobile work order system by Zenware, service techs are using their iPad “clipboard” to create estimates, process assigned work orders, add parts and services on the fly, access customer information, review previous service work, manage service crews and have information sync directly into QuickBooks.

The clipboard form factor is so  universal that transitioning to an iPad or Android Tablet is a natural transition. Especially if you can couple the familiarity of a clipboard style device with intelligent business, medical or service apps that drive business, significantly improves processes and provide better service to your customers.

Here are a few areas that smart iPad Apps like ZenTouch are improving service business processes

• Easy and immediate access to prior service information
• Integrated service or pricing lists allow the technician to focus on service instead of pricing
• Immediate invoice for faster collections
• Proof of work
• Create, schedule and dispatch future service tickets right in the field
• Reduce and even eliminate human errors with automated business process
• Avoid handwriting and note translation errors
• Compute service work totals automatically
• Collect and record payments at the time of service

Services industries from all sectors are rapidly adopting enterprise mobile solutions.  I see a significantly higher move towards the iPad as the device form factor of choice.  Doug Drink Water in his recent blog “The 8 industries and professions most rapidly impacted by tablets” highlights the impact tablets of various service industries. Notice that all of these industries historically collected data on a clipboard.

Joplin Missouri - Tornado devastation

I have been amazed at the magnitude of earthquakes, tornadoes and other catastrophic events that have devastated areas around the world. Japan’s recent earthquake and subsequent tsunami are of a scale that is mind-boggling.  Recently the American Midwest was hit with a series of tornadoes. These tornadoes tore through towns and fields leaving a wake of devastation. My family who lives about 70 miles south of Joplin report it has been a series of non-stop, rolling thunderstorms and tornado warnings the past couple of weeks. Mine and my family’s thoughts go out to those families whose lives have been devastated by these tragedies.

As I watched the news reports my mind was turned to an innovative project we are developing for GeoCove. Recently, GeoCove’s CEO, Karyn Tareen approached us. Karyn was interested in creating an iPhone/iPad application that provides the ability to conduct accurate damage assessments following the aftermath of catastrophic events. While the application is still in final development recovery teams could use the GPS, GIS enabled application to determine the extent of the damage to the respective communities and ensure the proper response teams are deployed

Disaster assesments with an GPS, ESRI and an iPad

In designing the app, one of the key things considerations is offline capability.  On a disaster site, it is likely there will be no cellular or internets signals available. In short, the application has to work in a disconnected mode. In addition, integration with ESRI mapping is a key element to providing an insightful Geo-Spatial representation of disaster impacted areas.

It’s fascinating to watch the combination of GPS and Geo-Spatial enabled mobile apps revolutionize disaster recovery efforts. These days, disaster crews are now able to gather critical data, pinpoint the exact location so flooded areas, downed power-lines, road hazards, and other disaster related problems, and synchronizing all of this critical information to hosted cloud servers. Centralizing the information on cloud servers allows decision makers to make efficient decisions for response team deployment. Furthermore, these teams are better able to create documentation for disaster declarations. Declarations ultimately headed for entities like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Small Business Administration. Considering the difficulties disaster victims have had with accurately identifying their losses to these agencies, and ultimately collecting or defending their collective grants, this kind of information is critical to post disaster recovery efforts.

I’m continually amazed to see how the right combinations of technology, mobile, GPS, GIS and cloud computing can have a positive impact amidst challenging situations.

Jody Sedrick - Zenware