My business partner, Dave Wasden, turn me on to a great new app this week – WAZE. Basically it’s a community-based traffic and navigation. Think CROWD TRAFFIC Control – everyone using the WAZE app contributes to the very latest traffic updates while they are driving down the road to outsmart traffic. The app since on top of Google Maps and provides a unique, fresh, friendly app experience that makes it fun to use.
As you drive to your location WAZE alerts you to upcoming accidents, traffic jams, hazards and police (hidden and visible). All of this data is being fed by drivers (supposed to be their passengers) as they drive down the road. I was amazed at the continuous flow of information fed to me real-time. Not only can I see the current traffic load on my current route. I can also view traffic on adjacent roads that can be utilized to circumvent a congested area.
One of the interesting by-products of using WAZE is that I find myself significantly more alert to conditions on the road. I’m not only looking for the hazards, traffic jams or police continuosly presented to me in the app. I’m also looking for things that I can warn other drivers about to contribute to the WAZE experience.
This morning I received a new alert. Based on my location I was fed two advertisements; one for a Biscuit Taco only 3 minutes away at Taco Bell, the second for Cricket only a minute away. Based on my location I was fed information that potentially was relevant to my current location and the time of day – breakfast. I didn’t stop for a Biscuit Taco but did swing in for a McDonald’s sausage biscuit.
This got me thinking about field service applications. For the past couple years we’ve discussed location aware apps but are now seeing smart utilization of the capabilities not only in the consumer marketing arena but field service as well. For example when a service tech arrives on site we could feed the service call summary, parts required, contact information, a message to call the office, expected time on site, service history and more. Armed with this information the service tech can walk-in with everything needed to serve the customer as well as be mentally prepared for how they can serve the customer before walking in the door.
Jody Sedrick, CEO
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Zenware Inc. is a Boise Idaho based company that specializes In custom mobile software development, custom iOS development, custom Android development, iPad software development, iPhone software development, custom web development, web hosting and SaaS based work order management software. We also have a powerful line up of off-the-shelf mobile cloud solutions; ZenTouch now RoadFS, and ZWarehouse