Customer service in the palm of your hand

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Aug 2001 by Tehrani, Rich

Had I asked 100 people five years ago if they or anyone they knew had a PDA, I probably would have gotten 99 blank looks. "PDA? What's that? The Preventive Dentistry Association? Public Defenders of America?

Yet, 1996 is the year that the very first personal data assistant, the Palm Pilot 1000, was introduced. Although at the time it was heralded as an amazing device, in retrospect, its slow processing power and 128 KB of memory seem almost laughable pitted against the truly amazing devices available today. Personal data assistants are the wave of the computing future, essentially acting as a bridge between the desktop PC and the user's life and business; and, in some cases, replacing some of the functions that formerly could only happen on a PC. Make no mistake: we are in the middle of a computing revolution, and it's literally happening in the palms of our hands.

A Bit Of History

First, here is a bit of basic information for readers who may not be familiar with the handheld computing world. PDAs come in two flavors, or operating systems. Your first choice is the Palm OS, invented and used by Palm, Inc. and also by the company Handspring, which was founded by two of the original creators of the Palm OS. Both Palm and Handspring build their products around this model, and devices that use this operating system are famous for being light, compact, easy-to-use and long on battery life. Inputting information is accomplished through a method called "Graffiti," which enables a user to write characters on the input pad with a stylus. A minor amount of self-training is required to learn the slightly modified Graffiti alphabet, as several characters, notably k, q and x, must be input with a single stroke of the stylus, without removing the stylus from the input screen. Some characters are tricky; I often had problems with the letter "v" being recognized as "u," until I learned that drawing "v" from right to left solved this common problem.

The other player in the handheld computing field is the Pocket PC operating system, invented by Microsoft and used in models manufactured by Compaq, Casio and Hewlett-- Packard, among others. The Pocket PC-based handhelds are best known for being fast and having a great deal of both internal and expandable memory as well as terrific graphics. For input, the Pocket PC-based PDAs use a method called"Character Recognizer," which is similar to Graffiti but, in my estimation, about 10 percent more difficult to master.

So, What Do I Use It For?

In their earliest models, PDAs were little more than electronic calendars and address books that possessed the ability to create short notes, but no actual word processing documents. Today's newest, sleekest models, notably the Palm M505 and the Compaq iPaq 3650, allow users to surf the Web, send and receive e-mail, create and spell-check word documents (the iPaq comes standard with a mini or"pocket" version of MS Word), play MP3 files, take digital photos (with appropriate hardware additions), play complex games and even connect and run remote server-based applications that don't reside on the PDA via programs from companies like Citrix, in the case of Pocket PC-based units.

Wireless CRM, Of Course!

It doesn't take a stretch of the mind to imagine the wondrous things that could be accomplished in the name of customer service with the help of PDAs. We all know that skills-based routing is an integral part of providing the best service to your customers. But the right expert may not always be at his or her desk, quietly working at a PC. The desired expert might be a technician on the road, a multilingual agent "on call" but attending a Little League game, a company executive on vacation or a contact center manager in a classroom conducting a training session. What would it be worth in the world of customer service to be able to reach the right person to handle a customer contact at all times, not only by voice but on the company's computing platform?

Some companies have recognized the inherent potential of wireless CRM and have begun developing software that ties the handheld platform to a company's customer service functions. One such player is Shared Resource Management (w-ww.srminc.com), which late last year introduced its allegro anywhere product that uses the Pocket PC technology to enable delivery of all customer service functions onto a user's handheld.

Questra (www.questra.com) is another company that has begun treading the path to wireless CRM by partnering with Intel, Siebel and Palm to produce a suite of products designed to link enterprise applications with remote devices using the Palm OS.

Sales Force Automation

This is another area with huge potential for handheld computing. Today, most sales people who spend a great deal of time on the road have cell phones, but must wait until they check into a hotel to dial up on their laptops and have access to e-mail, the Internet and company contact management software or databases. In order to check a name or telephone number in the company contact management software, road-warrior sales people must rely on office-based coworkers to farm through the database or Web surf for them and relay details awkwardly over the telephone.