Today I spoke with Donna Longino of UPS about her company’s recently announced Blackberry smartphone application. A leading delivery service such as UPS is a logical fit for mobile technologies, especially for drivers needing to stay connected while “on the go.”
Yes, that’s a UPS truck snapped today outside the local Starbucks, in all the glory of Chicago winter weather on the company’s busiest day – some 20 million packages according to Donna.
Yet, the Blackberry application, like an iPhone version preceding it, is designed to enable business and consumer customers alike to find a drop off location, receive shipping quotes, order pickups and check on package delivery status. Dig beneath the details, as we did with Donna, and you gain a greater appreciation for what was involved:
- UPS employs an Information Technology group 5,000 strong, who possess deep mobile application expertise and were responsible for creating applications which interact with UPS’ massive global network of package and delivery data.
- Considerable research went into creating the new mobile application, to understand how best to serve their customers and offer a differentiated user experience from competing delivery services. To these ends, UPS discovered customers wanted a fully native application as opposed to be directed to a mobile website. Why? Because application code can be fully loaded on a handset. From the user’s perspective, this offers a more natural responsiveness consumers associate with desktop computer applications, with time taken only to bring new data across the network. Navigating a website, even one optimized for mobile, can often seem more cumbersome and of course in the event of a network lapse the session will end abruptly. Moreover, the UPS app allows consumers to log into the application once, and automatically upon launch relate any packages to their account to view instant status – no keying in of lengthy tracking numbers are required.
- Some UPS business customers are beginning to request the ability to have text messages sent to recipients and/or senders, providing notification of package delivery. Even greater reach could be possible were UPS to enable customers to text their tracking numbers to receive instant updates – all of which are capabilities available in Interactive Mediums’ Engagement Platform.
Few organizations have the staff, funding or internal systems to execute a mobile strategy to the extent UPS has; for those who lack any of these critical pieces firms like Interactive Mediums stand ready with a flexible Customer Engagement Platform optimized for mobile interactions as well as a wealth of experience developing mobile applications which map to the way consumers want to engage with a business.
As UPS says “What Can Brown Do For You?” we say “How can Interactive Mediums power more effective mobile interactions for your customers?”
