By Ricky Vescovacci, North American Agent Operation (NAAO) Manager, Office Marketing
The increased accessibility to mobile technology, like smartphones and tablets, has had a major impact on how we access information in our daily lives. More and more organizations and employees are adopting mobile devices for business-related purposes.
I recently attended a conference at a hotel where there was a poor internet and wireless connection. Many people were in panic-mode as they couldn’t access their emails and mobile applications. It proves how reliant we are on our mobile devices – most of us want to be able to access important work information at any time.
At Xerox we’re exploring new ways to use mobile technology to evolve the ways we stay connected and interact with our customers. Our sales teams in the North American Agent Operation (NAAO) is reliant on tablets. We are rolling out a tablet program with new software that allows us to better serve our customers with sales tools and information at our fingertips.
We’ve already seen several advantages since we provided tablets to our specialists and managers in NAAO.
- During customer meetings, we take notes directly on the iPad and it automatically uploads to our software system for our manager to monitor.
- Using tablets increases our sales productivity by removing wasteful hours from our day because we now have access to information at our fingertips. We can find customer data and sign contracts directly on the tablet.
- We can take advantage of immediacy with the customer. Instead of having to run back to the office, which can sometimes take a few hours and potentially result in the loss of the sale to a competitor, we provide the customer with the information right away and receive instant feedback.
As a result, we have more productive sales people, we save time and we’re improving sales management.
How are your sales reps using smartphones and tablets to improve their interactions with customers?
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Stay tuned for more mobile-related posts as we explore mobility in the enterprise leading up to mNext – IDC’s MobileNext Forum – on Nov. 30-Dec. 1.
Excellent points Ricky! The iPad has transformed the way we work in the field. I’m more responsive to customer and sales requests, and feel that I am never out of touch from the information I need. It’s definitely making us more collabrative as well!
(Xerox employee)
Thanks, Jeff! It’s great to see other sales reps seeing the same positive results as I have. That means the technology is really making a difference and allows us to better serve our customers, which is the overall goal in the end.
Any ideas on when USCO will roll out tablets?
That’s a great question, Tom. I’ll have to look into that. So far, I hear the program is doing well in NAAO.