Who uses blackberries for service calls?

[redime]

How many companies out there use blackberries for service calls? Be it to update calls on the fly, or as business phones to get ahold of customers, other techs, etc.

[knightfall]

My company gives all the techs a blackberry to dispatch all service calls but there are still a lot of problems with the blackberry, it tends to lock up a lot and doesn't always work right.

[redime]

My company gives all the techs a blackberry to dispatch all service calls but there are still a lot of problems with the blackberry, it tends to lock up a lot and doesn't always work right.

The older style or newer style? By older, I mean the big black behemoths - 7520 model?

I had that problem with mine, turned out just to be an old phone. Our IT guy says after awhile (its probably from us dropping it and kicking it under the car so many times) they start doing funny things like not updating, saying its not in coverage even though youre on a major highway, etc. etc.

If you use Blackberry I assume you are using MWA for your calls? Does your company actually use the scanner feature thats available?

[Comingapart]

We're still in the dark ages.
The company provides Motorola RAZRs (which are POS's, btw) and all out logging and dispatch is done the old fashioned way.

I've taken to also carry my personal Iphone on service calls as a convenient way to research and look things up without having to break out the laptop.

and no more asking the customer for internet access either

[Two Medicine]

We've got about 45 Blackberries throughout the company and we pretty much do everything with them. Calls are dispatched, closed out, parts ordered, parts cleared, etc. with them. I think a lot of us have downloaded GPS programs and this has saved a lot of time finding some locations. We can even pull up current histories on the system and take a look at meters, etc. We're using the MWA and managers can pull up tech locations and all the calls in their ques and see if they need assistance or have been delayed. We don't use the phone aspect of the devices but with internet access and GPS, it's been pretty good. Every once in a while we hit a dead zone, but much better coverage than our previous pda's. Corporate has tied the MWA into our OMD system and it seems to work together. I know our dispatchers have stopped doing a lot of transposition of call reports and everything goes into the system now.

[NCPiper]

Palm Treos with eAutomate's Remote Tech.

Works great. Open calls, close calls, receive calls, order parts, etc etc