The Many Faces of Service – Service Before the Sale

    [First in a series of three Service Spotlights]

It may be a sad commentary on modern life but we all tend to think of service only in the context of repairing something that's broken. These days, the term "self service" usually means "fend for yourself." It might be tolerable in a do-it-yourself store but it's not the sort of "service" you want when you're evaluating mobile computing solutions or implementing a wireless network.

There is, dare we say it, an old fashioned concept of service that means "taking care of a customer." While LXE strives to provide you with state-of-the art products, we're decidedly old fashioned when it comes to the definition of "service."

Service begins with providing customers with the right products, the right features, and the right configurations to meet their needs. For us, that means service starts on the drawing board.

LXE designs its products from the ground up to be rugged, reliable, robust and provide the greatest possible uptime possible. This mean shock mounting all components, minimizing the number of internal connections, providing appropriate environmental seals on units and using international open standards wherever possible.

Open standards provide customers with a defined migration path for future expansion and the assurance that software support will not suddenly evaporate as proprietary systems might (and sometimes do).

Building the right products means nothing, however, if we can't help you select the right product(s) for your applications. That means that another essential step in taking care of the customer is to listen, to understand your applications, your physical and data environments, your workplace culture, and your plans for the future. Only then can we begin to suggest solutions that will best meet your current requirements and provide the best path for future growth.

When evaluating mobile computing products, it's often tempting to gravitate to one end of the price/performance spectrum or the other, to go either for a product with the lowest cost or the most bells-and-whistles.

In some applications, one or the other may be the clear "best" choice. In the vast majority of applications, however, the "best" choice – the one that will meet all the requirements cost-effectively and actually does contribute to increased productivity – lies somewhere in between the extremes. And it may be that there are a number of "best" choices because different product configurations should be considered for different applications or different parts of the same application.

For example, mobile computers that will be used in cold-chain applications or that may be exposed to low temperatures outside will need to accommodate workers wearing gloves. Those that will be used in widely varying lighting conditions will need to have displays (and keyboards) that are visible under all those conditions. Mobile computers that can switch between voice and bar code or RFID reading or those that can be both handheld and vehicle-mounted can provide flexibility for a wide range of current and future applications.

Helping you understand the range of choices – and which choice best addresses your needs – is what service really means during the evaluation process.

In subsequent columns, we'll look at other aspects of service and what it means to you.