The articles reports on Burrows Tractor in Yakima, Wash. whose salespeople travel to up 100 miles to visit farmers who are considering trading in their existing tractor for a newer model. Salespeople would take digital camera photos of the existing tractor and drive back to headquarters so the general manager could view the photos and determine the trade-in price.
"In the time you left the customer's farm, another dealer had a chance to get in there and mess up your deal," says John Riel, the general manager.
Time savings, deal savings
But about a year ago, based on advice from a U.S. Cellular sales representative, the tractor salespeople were equipped with camera phones. They now transmit photos while they are with the customer and receive the the trade-in price at the same time.
The salespeople also have laptop computers so they can print a receipt and complete the transaction with one visit. Riel says, "We saw a huge savings on mileage because the camera
phone saves a minimum of one trip on every deal we do.
"And now we never leave the customer's farm, so we lose fewer deals."
Camera phones and painting
Another company, Maintenance Systems in Chicago, paints commercial properties, such as Burger King, J.Crew and CompUSA. The stores being painted might be hundreds or thousands of miles away from the headquarters of the company that contracted for the services.
With camera phones the painters can transmit photos of their work-in-progress to a Maintenance System Web site that is designed only for its clients, the Chicago Tribune reports. "Matt Wolfsmith,
Maintenance Systems' operations manager, says in the article, "Showing them our work in progress gives our clients
more comfort with the work being done."
Real estate applications
Samantha Powell, a Chicago real estate agent uses her Treo 600's camera to obtain information about the condition of a property. She e-mails photos, from her Treo or her computer, to a building inspector to get an idea about any structural problems.
"The inspector gives me advice or feedback by phone or
e-mail. That way I get an opinion on the problem before I go out and
actually bring in an inspector."
The article also quotes Olivier Attia, chief executive of barcode company Scanbuy, about using camera phones as barcode readers. As I recently wrote, the current issue of Fortune magazine names Scanbuy one of the top 25 "breakout companies."
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