Choosing the Right PDA

Case study: benefits of using a PDA

Name: Peter Harmer
Business: Beverly Hills Business Machines (www.bhbm.com), servicing office equipment
Reason for using a PDA: “It fills the void and is very functional for my application and need,” says Harmer. “Anyone who’s in service and is not using this kind of apparatus to get the job done is inefficient.”

Always on the run, Peter Harmer admits he’s a difficult one to catch, except when he’s driving and his Nokia E90 Communicator is sitting on its in-car Bluetooth cradle. “I can’t see any good reason why professionals wouldn’t use it,” he says, referring to the clarity and convenience.

The majority of Harmer’s customers contact him via an email, which comes straight to his pocket, and from there he can action the job. “It gives me access to customers 24/7,” he explains. “Communication is what it’s all about. They need to know that if they’re going to email me, I’m going to get it.” Harmer goes on to explain how using a PDA ensures he attends customer work sites within the same day, or within 24 hours at the absolute latest.

But for Harmer there are other benefits of using a PDA too. “I use it as a calendar, a reminder for maintenance, and obviously I use it as a phone.” And one of his favourite things about his Nokia model is the QWERTY keyboard: “Once you get used to it, it’s great for text messaging and answering customer emails.”

So what’s Harmer’s advice for choosing a PDA? “Look at the ease of operation, back-up service and how productive you’re going to be with any PDA,” he says. “My Nokia paid for itself in under six weeks,” he adds. “When we can respond to customer requests quickly and efficiently, even when we’re out of the office, we can service more machines and do better business.”

Case study: PDA benefits for a mobile business

Name: Ismail Akinci
Business: All Graduates (www.allgraduates.com.au), interpreting and translation service
Reason for using a PDA: “We’ve had a fantastic response from clients about our productivity improvements, which is helping us grow the business and giving us an unbeatable competitive advantage,” says Akinci, estimating the company’s efficiency has improved by 80 percent.

Receiving about 400 translation and interpreting requests a day, Ismail Akinci needed an effective way to communicate with his staff. His solution was to deploy a fleet of BlackBerrys across the All Graduates network, and he hasn’t looked back.

“Prior to switching to Vodafone and moving to Blackberry, a client would ring our call centre to book a job, then my staff would need to individually call each appropriate interpreter until the job was filled,” explains Akinci. “The whole process of finalising a job could take up to four hours.

“Now, as soon as a job request is received, the details are entered into the database. The system automatically sends an email to each appropriate interpreter with a BlackBerry.” After receiving an email, the interpreters can reply with the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ link. And once a job is filled, the system sends confirmation to the interpreter and logs the details in the client’s account.

But the new procedure wouldn’t have worked if All Graduates hadn’t already invested in an automated online booking system, says Akinci. Still, the benefits have been more than worth the cost. “My call centre operated seven full-time staff booking jobs. I’d say the BlackBerry is equivalent to two additional highly efficient senior staff, so the saving would be at least $100,000 a year, if not more,” explains Akinci. “In addition, Vodafone’s business plans come at a competitive rate, which gives us confidence that it will be feasible to continue rolling out BlackBerrys across our entire network.”