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When Snow is Falling, Voxer App Helps Keep a Business Running

TMCnet Feature

February 07, 2014

When Snow is Falling, Voxer App Helps Keep a Business Running

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By Rory J. Thompson
Web Editor

Back in the 1960s, Volkswagen had a very successful series of print and TV ads that asked a simple question: How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the snow? The answer, of course, was that he drove a Volkswagen with the engine mounted over the rear wheels for traction.


Fast-forward to today, and with so much snow falling all across the country, the new question is, how do the plow-truck drivers keep in touch with each other for maximum efficiency? One missed cell phone call could have a driver heading to a job that’s already been completed.

Chris Marino, owner of Xtreme Snow Pros in New York and New Jersey, found the answer with the Voxer Business App.

According to the company, Voxer is, “a truly live push-to-talk and multimedia messaging tool, without the restrictions of other cellular services.” There's no contract, and Voxer works on any iOS, Android (News - Alert), or Windows Phone device, and on any Wi-Fi, 2G, 3G, 4G or Edge network worldwide.

“We have to coordinate with more than 70 seasonal employees working across the region so we were searching for a cost-effective communication system to help dispatch, monitor, manage and communicate with staff,” Marino told TMCnet. “Once we discovered the feature set available with Voxer Business, and that the subscription only cost per user/per month, we immediately knew we were choosing an affordable and full service communication solution for our particular business needs.”

The beauty of the product is that it offers instant enterprise communications; there’s no waiting for someone to “pick up,” like they would a phone.

“Voxer Business is a high performance push-to-talk (PTT) service that enables users to communicate with one another from anywhere in the world in real-time and across all iOS, Android, and Windows devices,” said Itamar Kandel, chief revenue officer at Voxer. “Making phone calls virtually unnecessary, Voxer introduces speed and efficiency into any type of work environment. On the move or from a desktop computer, employees can stay connected through voice or text messages, with the ability to collaborate through group chat, live extreme notifications, and send multimedia images in seconds.”

That’s a set of features that appealed to Marino. With scores of drivers and plow trucks under his purview, he needs to make sure everyone is where they need to be, when they need to be there.

“Instead of checking in at a physical location, my staff simply sends a VoX once they reach the site,” Marino said. “Depending on where staff is located, we can create group chats so that New Jersey employees are not receiving news about job sites in New York. Every message also has a time and GPS stamp that ensures they’re at the right place and on time. Once they have finished the job they send a photo so we can review and confirm that the job is complete.”

And with drivers needing to pay close attention to what they’re doing so they don’t accidently bury a bystander with snow, Voxer for Web extends the business service to desktops, providing administrative and monitoring capabilities – a top feature request from existing customers.

“Companies with distributed workforces can communicate from an office desktop directly to a mobile employee,” Voxer’s Kandel said. “All audio messages are stored so if a live message cannot be listened to in real-time, it can be conveniently heard and replied to at any point in the future.”

The app appears to be a winner for the company.

“We’ve had tens of millions of downloads in over 200 countries. Customers are popping up in a broad range of industries from an NYC taxi service, to an event management company headquartered in Washington DC, to an elevator repair service in Puerto Rico,” Kandel explained. “We spend a generous amount of time listening to user feedback so we can integrate the most beneficial features for employers to manage communication and for their employees to download and use the app with ease. We launched the desktop version to help dispatchers and in-office workers monitor employee conversation, which has become an integral part of employee monitoring for businesses.”

The company reports it has hit several technical milestones as it looked to constantly improve its app. For example, Voxer realized the importance of enterprise-ready features like data encryption and data retention. It also launched advanced enterprise features like single sign-on in November 2013 that could help large enterprises easily adopt the app. This year, Voxer will have updates for iOS, Windows and Android and current users can expect to see changes in both the user interface, as well as the feature set.

So, is there snow in your forecast? If so, you’d better hope your plow-guy has the Voxer app. Otherwise, you might be waiting awhile to get cleared out.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi


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