Mobile Truck Computing Enters The ‘Customer Experience’ Era

Mobile truck computing is headed into its third era, which Aaron Cargas of Cargas Systems (Lancaster, Pa.) calls the “customer experience era.” In today’s customer experience world, the propane industry has tablets at its disposal that have become much more powerful, the user interface is much better than ever, and the capabilities of the devices to communicate to the back office are greatly enhanced, notes Cargas, who is vice president of the company.

Cargas will talk about what he describes as the three eras of mobile computing in propane during a presentation titled, “The Evolution of Mobile Truck Computing: An Essential Tool for Propane,” on April 21 at the National Propane Gas Association’s Southeastern Conference in Nashville.

He explains that when mobile computers first appeared on the scene, they were used to automate processes that were previously manual. Prior to that time, drivers would manually handwrite information on a piece of paper, bring it back to the office, and someone would key in the information. The period that follows is the first era of mobile truck computing that Cargas will discuss in his presentation, and he calls it the “automation era” from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Drivers would prepare tickets through a software system, download it to a mobile device, and bring the mobile device out in the field to capture the information electronically. At the end of the day, the driver would bring back the device and someone would upload the information into the system back at the office.

“So it automated things that had previously been manual, but it wasn’t super interactive,” Cargas said. “Back then mobile Internet didn’t really exist or was in its infancy, so these earlier devices didn’t really have real-time connection back to the office like today’s mobile apps have. That’s the first era, which was a good improvement over doing things manually.”

Cargas has been in business since 1988, but the company started development of its Cargas Energy product in 2005, when it built the first version on a specific platform of “ruggedized” windows devices that have evolved over the years. “Prior to that, what people had used in trucks in the field were more of the smaller handheld rugged devices that you might see a UPS driver using in the past, really rugged but with a tiny little screen on them.” He explained that “ruggedized” devices can take more punishment than normal devices and can be waterproof or able to be dropped from a certain height without breaking, for example.

The Cargas Energy product came out around the same time that he refers to as the second era of mobile computing, the “optimization era,” from about the 2000s to the 2010s, which he says marked the beginning of mobile Internet. When 3G — the third generation of wireless mobile telecommunication—came out, it allowed actual usable Internet in certain coverage areas. “You could end up having a little more of an interactive solution, and also routing software became more prevalent, where the back office would route trucks in an optimal way,” Cargas stated. The devices provided marketers with real-time dispatching capability.

“If a delivery came in partway through the day, you could send it out to that truck because it had a 3G wireless connection.” Cargas noted that the company has always focused on optimization. “That was one of our big selling points. We’re going to help you optimize your fleet. You get more efficient, so it’s just automating things you used to do anyway, optimizing and getting more benefit.”

He sees the mobile computing industry as moving into what he describes as the third era: the “customer experience” era, from the 2010s to the 2020s. The devices of today are so much more powerful than in the past that they have greatly improved the customer experience. The user interface is so much better than it used to be, he noted, and the capabilities of the devices to communicate to the back office have been greatly enhanced. He explains that is because many more locations have 4G Internet capability, and the locations that don’t have 4G will sometimes have 3G. Although many companies still operate in areas without coverage, and the mobile applications must still work offline, he notes that 4G coverage continues to improve.

“They are talking about something called 5G coming along that’s going to have even better coverage, and a lot faster bandwidth,” Cargas noted. “So the customer experience era to me is, you have the ability from the tablet to do more things than you used to be able to do. And that may be things like sending a lot more information about what’s really happening out in the field back to your back office.” If the propane company receives a customer call asking when his or her propane delivery will take place, the customer service representative (CSR) can immediately see that the driver is in the field with two deliveries scheduled before being able to serve the customer who called. The CSR can see that without having to call the driver because the device is continually pushing detailed information back to the server.

“The tablet is tracking the GPS location of every truck. You can always see where your fleet is in real-time. You can optimize how you dispatch deliveries.” If a will-call ticket comes in the middle of the day, for example, the driver can email an invoice directly from the mobile device or the CSR can notify the customer that the delivery driver will arrive shortly. “There is sort of a progression of what mobile has meant to the industry,” Cargas continued.

Making the news even better, Cargas added, is that cost of the products has been dropping at the same time that quality is improving. The average device costs about a fifth of what it did a few years ago, depending on the product.

He added that although outfitting trucks with mobile computing can be a great benefit to marketers, it is also a substantial investment, so they should become as educated as possible. When considering a mobile app, they should research what platform the product uses and what the device options are. Is the device proprietary to the company selling it? “Or can I buy it anywhere, because I would want flexibility if I were them. The landscape is changing so fast right now that in two years I would want the flexibility to maybe run the app on another device in the future if something comes out.”

Cargas also noted that other companies sell standalone mobile products that are “bolted on” to the back-office product that the marketer is using, but he suggested marketers consider the advantages of products that are already integrated and come from a single company. He noted that some companies offer a fully integrated product in which the back-office portion and the mobile portion run together so the marketer can avoid dealing with two different vendors.

“The point of my presentation is that there might be a lot of companies that looked into mobile computing in the past and at the time decided it was too expensive or didn’t give them the benefit they hoped to get. Or maybe they used one of the older solutions that had more of a basic functionality and they aren’t aware of all the newer stuff you can do, so I wanted to provide some education on that front.” —Daryl Lubinsky