SkyMail LBS documents every step

“It is convenient to type a message sometimes, but if I’m running through an airport or driving, this gives me the ability to send a lot of detail instantly and have it be prioritized by the receiver,” said CEO John Pescatore. “It is almost a profit-enhancement tool. The [return on investment] is immediate. It’s sold on a subscription basis, so if you are able to reduce hold times from 10 to 15 minutes to 1 to 2 minutes, that technician can make an extra call or two a day -- or in the home health care arena, see an additional patient a day because you don’t have to go drop off paperwork or spend a lot of time writing things down. You can communicate using your voice in your cell phone and have it go back to the office to be transcribed and recorded. It can be a very, very efficient tool.”

Pescatore has an extensive history in wireless communications. In addition to several mobile startups, he was with Nextel for 10 years, working closely with Nextel cofounder Brian McAuley, now the chairman of PDV. Like with the PTT technology that both Pescatore and McAuley championed at Nextel, one of the main goals of the SkyMail technology is to increase worker accountability.

“Even in the location-enablement, it is not something where the company is tracking,” Pescatore said. “It’s user-initiated. When they send the SkyMail message, the location stamp can be appended to it. Simplicity is very important for us. There is so much technology out there for the mobile worker and user, and that’s great, but in order to get adoption, the easier it is for them to use, the quicker and the deeper adoption will be. We integrate into the way they work in the field.”

Other companies, like Nuance Communications, offer voice-to-text SMS and email services similar to PDVs. But its biggest competition might be fighting the status quo. At an enterprise level, the standard practice has always been calling into call centers or using field-force automation systems to document activities. Pescatore said that the SkyMail service can be used in conjunction with field force automation to get the extra details and exception reporting.

Companies in industries ranging from construction to cable to transportation to the government use the technology to document field visits, record observations, conduct field interviews, notify customers or their administration and to report maintenance checks of the vehicle, location and status – to name a few applications. The company is targeting larger fleets, but the service is applicable to any size organization, including smaller enterprises like landscapers or plumbers documenting their visits and logging their hours, Pescatore said.