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Scanomat puts the app
into cappuccino
The ultimate coffee machine for those who equate
minimalism with great taste, the Scanomat TopBrewer
combines the best of Danish design with the convenience
of modern technology.
The coffee machine is designed to be hidden beneath the
worksurface so that all the user sees is a height adjustable
stainless steel tap, drain cover and glossy black touchscreen
surface on which to make drink selections.
But great design is just half the story.What’s really
exciting people is the TopBrewer app that allows users to
communicate with aWiFi or Bluetooth-enabled machine and
order a freshly ground cup of coffee using an iPhone or iPad.
The TopBrewer is packed full of innovative coffee
technology, too, including the world’s smallest milk frother
and two coffee grinders so that you can have a choice of
coffee styles (e.g. caffeinated or non-caffeinated). It can also
be specified with fruit juice and chocolate drinks.
It can dispense four black filter coffees per minute and
takes just 25 seconds to make a perfectly brewed espresso.
With the ability to make five cups at a time, it is ideal for
filling coffee pots in executive offices and boardrooms.
www.scanomat.com
innovations
Smart technology for business people in the
office, at home or on the move
Desk.com to transform
customer service in
small firms
Continuing to meet the needs of the
social enterprise, salesforce.com has
announced a new customer service
tool that allows small businesses
to view, respond to and manage
customer queries made by phone,
email, web, Twitter or Facebook via a
unified inbox.
Desk.com provides agents with a
single view of all customer contacts and
their source, ensuring that no queries are
missed and all can be responded to using
the appropriate communication method
or social network.
Employees with responsibility for
customer service – which in small
businesses can be everyone – can
manage queries through the Desk.
com Agent Desktop. This provides a
range of tools including case filters for
organising cases; macros for issuing
standard responses; and business rules
for prioritising cases and assigning
responsibility.
One of the strengths of Desk.com is
that it has been designed to meet the
customer service needs of today’s social
businesses:
n
it offers integration with Facebook and
Twitter as standard so that users can
see queries submitted via social media
alongside traditional telephone, email
and web communications; and
n
users can view and respond to
customer queries on-the-go via the
Desk.com Mobile smartphone app,
included in the price of a full-time
agent subscription (from $49 per
agent, per month or free of charge for a
single user license). Desk.com Mobile is
compatible with any smartphone that
supports HTML5 including iPhones and
Android devices.
Another factor in Desk.com’s favour,
considering its target audience of small
businesses, is its ease of implementation.
Salesforce.com claims that the Agent
Desktop is as easy to use as Facebook
and that any company, even one
without specialist IT staff, can get Desk.
com up and running over a weekend.
A company’s Facebook and Twitter
accounts, it says, can be connected to the
Desk.com Agent Desktop in fewer than
five clicks.
In the first quarter of 2012, Desk.
com will be launching a series of
reporting tools covering key metrics
such as average handle time, time to
first response and first contact resolution
rate. Pricing for these will be available at
launch.
www.desk.com
19
Vodafone has named the winners of the
inaugural Vodafone Foundation Smart
Accessibility Awards.
The international competition organised in
conjunction with AGE Platform Europe and the
European Disability Forum (EDF) aims to reward
developers who create smartphone applications
that help people with disabilities become more
independent.
The winning apps, which will be made
available to Vodafone customers using Android
smartphones, are:
Help Talk.
Designed for people who are unable
to communicate by speech, Help Talk presents
a set of icons that when tapped ‘speak’ a basic
need, such as ‘I’m thirsty’ or ‘I feel pain’. Users can
then provide further details in the same way.
Wheelmap.
Wheelmap uses crowdsourcing
to rate the wheelchair accessibility of cafes,
museums, hotels and shops. In one month, 1,200
users reviewed 180,000 places.
Zoom Plus Magnifier.
This app allows people
with visual disabilities, such as colour blindness
and long or short-sightedness, to improve the
readability of text by adjusting the size, focus,
font or background colour.
BIG Launcher.
A customisable Android
homescreen for people who find it hard to use
small keyboards, BIG Launcher uses big buttons
and large fonts to represent all the basic functions
of the phone – telephone, SMS messages, camera,
SOS button and installed apps.
http://developer.vodafone.com/
smartaccess2011
Vodafone honours smartphone apps that improve
accessibility for people with disabilities