How Your Biz Can Put AT&T Enhanced Push-to-Talk to Work

The Sprint iDEN network shut down June 30, 2013, is your company ready? Whether you’re transitioning from Sprint to AT&T or looking to add Push-To-Talk to your company’s toolset, now is the time. Last week on Small Biz Go Mobile I discussed how AT&T had recently released their Enhanced Push-to-Talk service for iPhone, joining their offering which was already available for Android and BlackBerry. But having access to the app is only one piece of the puzzle. For a variety of business customers, finding out how your company could benefit from the app and actually trying it out is the other piece. If you’re a current Sprint iDEN customer, the need is even stronger, as the service will be shutting down later this week!

So how can your business benefit from Push-to-Talk?

For any business managing remote employees, Enhances Push-to-Talk (PTT) has several advantages over traditional calls and texts. For one, you can directly reach out to remote employees quickly. Phone conversations typically take minutes while a quick back and forth on PTT could take seconds to resolve the same issue.

Being able to see which of your employees are online and available as well let’s you know who you can reach out to at any given time. And since AT&T’s Enhance PTT works over both 4G as well as Wi-Fi, no matter where your employees are they should be reachable.

What if they’re not? AT&T’s app will automatically notify employees that they missed a message, giving them a chance to check in later and reply.

Some types of small businesses can benefit even more from the PTT. If you’ve got contractors out in the field, repair or service techs you’re managing remotely, or sales team members working their leads, PTT is the best way to connect your team and ensure that everyone, no matter where they are, is capable of getting customer or business questions and concerns answered right away.

The hospitality industry is another great example. When larger staffs need to coordinate on projects, store contact databases, and quickly communicate with one another to solve any customer concerns or complaints, PTT offers a frictionless communication method for them to coordinate.

In construction, repair, flooring, plumbing, or other dirty jobs, you can choose from a variety of rugged smartphones to put in the hands of your team to ensure they have solid communications devices available as well as an easy way for your office managers, foreman, superintendent, or even an architect or other expert to stay in constant, close communication.

In manufacturing, giving employees who are working even at different plants or different parts of the floor the ability to quickly get ahold of one another can save time and money.

Or let’s say you run a transportation company, and are managing drivers, pickup & drop-off locations, as well as status from a single location. Your employees may already have smartphones, so AT&T Enhanced PTT can be the perfect way to coordinate everything with a single dispatcher.

These are just a few fields who can benefit tremendously from the service, which starts at just $5 a month per line. If your business is interested in checking out what AT&T has to offer, click here to learn more about AT&T’s Enhanced Push-To-Talk service for smartphones.