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Blackberries can quickly become Crackberries if your employees get addicted to the popular communication devices.
Consider Home-Tech, the appliance-repair insurance company based in Fort Myers. It recently handed out Blackberry phones to all its service technicians to improve productivity and instituted some addiction protection.
Instead of calling the dispatch desk for each repair job, service technicians now get their instructions via Blackberry that includes the name of the customer, what the problem is and the customer's service history. Technicians can find the customer's location using Google maps and email the details of repairs as soon as they complete a job, making everyone much more efficient.
But these work tools can also be misused and turn into addictive gadgets that some jokingly call Crackberries.
So Home-Tech set some restrictions on its Blackberries. For example, the company disabled the function that lets technicians download applications or set up personal email accounts on the devices. Sorry, guys, no games on the job.
Not surprisingly, technicians aren't permitted to make personal calls on their work Blackberries. To protect the devices from inevitable wear and tear, Home-Tech purchased protective cases for these pricey gadgets.
One benefit of the Blackberry is that Home-Tech can track each technician in real time via the device's GPS locator. So, forget taking a quick snooze between calls. The boss knows when you're not moving.
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