Customer service in the palm of your hand

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

Room To Grow

The PDA market is certainly nowhere near its maturity. Data transfer rates are still quite slow, and PDAs that can connect to the Internet or be used in the manner of a cell phone of course require a cellular carrier (and be subject to the frustrations of the U.S. cellular industry with its self-defeating competing standards) and Internet service provider. Should you move to an area that is not serviced by your chosen providers, you will experience all the inefficiencies of regional cellular restrictions and ISPs.

But in the near future, battery life will continue to improve, a wider variety of accessories will sprout up and, in a few years, even today's most advanced devices will seem primitive in terms of memory, processing speed and applications. There is still an issue of security, as well. If you hand your remote sales person or remote customer service agent a PDA that contains sensitive customer or company information, a unit left on an airplane or in a restaurant could conceivably be misused by the finder.

Earlier this year we learned about the potential for the Bluetooth Wireless standard in PDAs. Bluetooth will improve on the traditional infrared transmission standard in most existing PDAs as, unlike with infrared, Bluetooth transmission can happen between two handhelds around corners, through walls and from a greater distance. A Bluetooth-- enabled PDA would no longer require plugging into a synching cradle via a USB port to share data between the unit and the desktop PC.

Finally, cellular phone manufacturers have been teaming up with the dual PDA platforms to design PDA cell phones, or "smart phones," which are predicted to eventually eliminate the need to carry around both a cell phone and a handheld computer. These devices, still in their prototype phase in the U.S., are currently expensive and a bit too bulky for most consumers' tastes, but as the combined technology expands, the units will become increasingly practical and affordable.

An Industry To Watch

This magazine has, for twenty years, been dedicated to bringing our readers the latest and most useful information on delivering the very best of customer service. We are excited about the burgeoning personal data assistant market and its applications to wireless CRM, and plan to keep our eyes and ears open for the kind of news and information that can help you run the very best contact center possibl I invite you to share your stories of how you are using or intend to use wireless CRM in your customer service operation.

By: Rich Tehrani,

Group Editor-in-Chief,

Technology Marketing

Corporation

Sincerely,

Rich Tehrani

Group Publisher

Group Editor-in-Chief

rtehrani@tmcnet.com