[Customer Education] Seeing Is Believing

Imagine the following scene: Standing in a backyard your salesperson hands a ½-inch thick, 1.5-pound computer to a potential customer. The device is so light the customer might as well be holding a printed brochure. With the touch of a finger on the vibrant 10-by-8-inch display, your termite sales pitch begins, presenting the homeowner with a cinema quality mix of video, audio and information. Next, on the same device, the salesperson displays photographs that show termite activity in the customer’s crawlspace — not demonstration slides from an entomologist’s lab nor line drawings of termites from a 30-year-old textbook, but actual, time-and-date-stamped images of termite activity in your client’s home. To close the presentation, your company website appears on screen, fully functional, as the sales rep highlights your company’s proud history and advanced capabilities.

Sound far-fetched and expensive?

Neither, says Ray Johnson, president of Johnson Pest Control, Sevierville, Tenn. During the last eight months, Johnson’s sales team has used the Apple iPad to dazzle potential customers and boost termite sales. "It’s amazing how much information you can show the customer, in a very professional and efficient way, from one device," says Johnson. "We’ve done it many times now and it blows the homeowner’s mind each time. The technology amazes them." Apple’s ultra-thin, handheld touch screen tablet has proven so successful as a sales tool that Johnson Pest Control now owns four iPads, with immediate plans to add two more.

HOW HE DOES IT. For $729 (current pricing as of December 2010) Johnson suggests a 32GB, 3G iPad from Apple. Though it’s more expensive than the base iPad ($499), the 32GB version allows for increased video storage (an important feature for sales presentations) and the 3G capability allows Internet access anywhere for about $25 a month.

From the Apple desktop computer in his office Johnson can create a custom Power Point-style sales presentation that is loaded onto the iPad, and then presented to potential customers in the field. Additionally, he’s converted sales videos, such as Dow AgroSciences’ Sentricon DVD, for use on the iPad. Often, when Johnson’s sales personnel are at a prospect’s home, they’ll hand the iPad to the homeowner, who can view the video while their property is inspected. "We’ve handed out hundreds, if not thousands of DVDs and have asked the customer to watch it later after the inspection. But what are the chances that the homeowner really watches the video? Slim to none. With the iPad, we hand it to the customer and push play. The customer is going to watch that video if for no other reason than that they are genuinely intrigued by the iPad itself."

While the salesman is inspecting the house, he can take photos of termite damage with his iPhone or Blackberry and e-mail them to the iPad. When the video and the property inspection are complete, the salesperson displays the images to the homeowner, creating a potent one-two sales punch.

Despite tough economic times, Johnson’s sales have remained strong, something he attributes, in part, to the iPad. In fact, the company has been quickly adding an array of pest-specific presentations to its iPads, including a bed bug pitch designed for busy hotel operators. "Rather than needing a meeting room to setup a projector, laptop, etc., we just schedule a meeting and bring the iPad. My guys are telling me how helpful that’s been when dealing with potential hotel management customers. It’s quick, simple and it has definitely helped our close rate."

Johnson Pest Control provides each member of the sales staff with his own iPad, just asking that he treat it with care and limit its use to company business. "We did a little bit of training, but really that’s the great thing about an iPad, it doesn’t require much training."

Further, Johnson streamlines and simplifies the iPad as much as possible. For example, rather than use Keynote (Apple’s equivalent of PowerPoint) to display the presentation, Johnson turns his presentation slides into individual images and uses iPhoto (Apple’s photo management application) to arrange them into an "event" (slide show). This allows the salesperson to simply and quickly scroll through the presentation in the same way that he might show someone his vacation photos. "My guys just turn on the iPad, go to iPhoto, select the correct show and bam, it‘s right there in full-color, full-screen. It makes it very simple as compared to booting up a laptop, opening up PowerPoint, finding the right file, starting the presentation, etc."

All the company’s iPads are synced with Johnson’s Apple in the office, allowing him to control what’s on each one. "We’re all on the same page because I preload everything on the iPad in such a way that it can’t be changed. And from the office I can go in and very quickly change the message, the program, the pricing, whatever. I don’t have to worry about wasting thousands of brochures I just had printed."

With video, Johnson uses a free downloadable application called HandBrake, which converts a traditional DVD into iPad format. Once the file is loaded on the iPad, a simple touch of the screen gets it playing.

The iPad’s web access allows sales personnel to navigate industry websites, check e-mail and use online maps and GPS while in the field. What’s more, a number of industry-specific iPad applications are available, such as the NPMA Field Guide, the University of Florida’s iPest1 and PCT Magazine. "It’s astounding what is available now, and just imagine what apps and capabilities we’re going to have a year or two from now," Johnson says.

For estimates and contracts, the sales staff uses traditional printed forms. However, Johnson foresees converting to digital versions in the future. "The latest iPad update [rolled out in late November] has printing capabilities, and certain printers in the market will allow printing directly from the iPad," Johnson says.

APPLE TO THE CORE. You might think that such a high-tech, ultra-thin device would be fragile, but Johnson says his sales team hasn’t encountered any issues with the iPad. "We haven’t had any problems. I’ve found all Apple products to be very reliable, very stable."

Johnson admits he’s a bit biased when it comes to Apple. When he started Johnson Pest Control in 1984, his first purchase was a brand-new Macintosh computer—downright eccentric in the quaint Smoky Mountain Resort town of Sevierville, Tenn. Twenty-six years later, Johnson remains a die-hard fan.

So it’s no surprise that in April when Apple launched the iPad, Johnson awoke in the wee hours to make the 30-minute drive to Knoxville, where he was fourth in line to grab one. Within days he was putting it to work in his pest management firm. "The iPad is a great tool. I think we can use it in our industry for many different things."

The author is a freelance writer based in Cincinnati, Ohio. He can be reached at ssmith@giemedia.com.