Listers Launch iPhone Beacon App
Lister Trade Frames of Stoke on Trent has just announced the launch of its own iPhone and iPad Application for its trade customers to use.
The “Beacon App” has been developed in-house at Listers by Director of ICT Andrew Lister, to allow their trade customers to have evermore business tools and information, literally at their fingertips.
According to recent figures released by Ofcom, nine out of ten people now own a mobile phone in the UK and one in seven households are now mobile-only. They estimate that 2011 will see a third of all adults using a smartphone. Amongst adult users, 58% were male and used their smartphones for internet, accessing their emails and messages as well as looking at social networking sites. Adults also accessed maps and GPS navigation services along with picture messages and general news. (The Communications Market Report can be seen here: www.ofcom.org.uk/cmr.)
Listers have seen this rise in smartphone usage as an opportunity to give their customers yet another advantage over their competitors. The Listers “Beacon App” provides trade customers with up-to-date personalised data on estimates, orders, contract prices and technical information. It has a simple built in search function for ease of use and Beacon users also get a free of charge web based quotation program to use either on their iPhone or iPad.
Andrew Lister says that the customer feedback has been excellent since the official launch. “Customers are no longer satisfied just to have access to information 9-5, they have become used to 24 hour access on their business or home computers and we already give them that. Now things have moved on again and customers want information when they are on the move, not just when they happen to be sitting in front of a computer. The new ‘Beacon App’ uses the latest technology to give them the information that they need on their iPhone or iPad wherever and whenever they want to view it.”
While some of us may still be just catching up with this technology, Ofcom has recognised its growing appeal to adults and Listers has seen the potential for improving its customer service for those who are using this technology today. Listers say that they expect the initial uptake of the Application to be relatively small in comparison to their overall customer base, but that they intend to be ahead of the demand that this technology will produce.
Andrew says that the new “Beacon App” is just the beginning of a new era in how their customers will receive information and business opportunities from Listers. Andrew and his team have already started work on new applications that will deliver ever faster and smarter services to Listers’ customers.