PRESTO FOR BUSINESS?!!
Many of you know Presto as a computerless email solution for families. Said differently, Presto lets busy moms and dads make their lives easier by having a way to deliver email with photos or documents to their moms and dads who don't use, or who struggle with, computers. But did you know that businesses use Presto, too? Today there are a number of innovative businesspeople who have purchased Presto Printing Mailboxes with accompanying Presto Mail subscriptions because they needed a solution that was better than Fax, but that also didn't require a computer or Internet connection.
You might be asking yourself what business in today's world doesn't have a computer or Internet connection? Lots, it turns out. Especially remote business locations where the business people don't want the operators at the remote locations to be surfing the web all day. Besides preserving productivity, these businesses also save the cost of the computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse and software. They also save on hardware maintenance, virus and spyware maintenance, and continual desktop software upgrades. For those environments where one-way information flow is desired, Presto has provided an elegant solution that does not require ongoing IT Dept. maintenance.
PAPER IS PORTABLE
Still, it’s hard to think of where paper-based output is preferable to screen-based output…or is it? We have been told of uses for Presto as diverse as these:
- Medical Records: Presto has already been tested delivering documents to medical offices where regulatory compliance required a dedicated delivery device, and where high resolution color output delivered via email was greatly desired.
- Retail business locations: When your business lives and dies by the infrastructure to change product pricing, Presto can play an interesting role. We were approached recently by a retail store chain with dozens of locations. They wanted to use Presto to deliver formatted price signs to each store location. Every morning, the Printing Mailboxes retrieve any price sign updates which would then print out automatically for the satellite store location. The local employees then only need to take the printed signs and deploy them around the store, replacing the outdated pricing. And, the Presto delivery confirmations gave headquarters verification that the new prices were printed out at each location.
- Pizza Parlors: For this idea, consumers would go through a registration process on the Pizza Parlor's web site and thereby be added to the specific restaurant location's approved senders list (to prevent spam). They can then either email their order from any computer or smartphone, et voilá, the pizza cook gets a printed order. All without the restaurant owner needing to know anything about technology. Or, with a little bit of web development, it wouldn't be hard to imagine the page bring printed out with the pizza order, delivery directions and coupons for the consumer's next visit. This is just an idea at this point, but one that could be implemented without any difficulty at all by businesspeople who have no technical expertise. Bottom line: small businesses can implement a way for their customers to connect to their directly and conveniently without a large-scale technology development effort, and without resorting to phone or fax in an increasingly online world.
FAX IS DEAD
The most interesting aspect of using Presto for Business is that it provides full-color, 600 dpi resolution with auto-handling of digital images and Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) documents coming from any email client, Webmail or smartphone. Almost no one faxes anymore. And low resolution black & white output is just not good enough for many modern applications. For environments where a computer or Internet connection is impractical or too expensive, Presto could just prove to be a Fax-replacement technology that is ready to go.
THE MOST IMPORTANT BUSINESS
Although some of the ideas above are just that, ideas, there are real businesses today that use Presto all across the country: the thousands of retirement homes and assisted living facilities who have residents with Printing Mailboxes in their apartments or rooms. For years the families of seniors in these facilities have enjoyed daily contact from their extended family members no matter how far away they lived. It is these businesses, and the family members that reside there, that are Presto's main audience. We will always be focused on solving problems for people like this. But that's not to say that the Presto platform and technology can't also prove to be a significant solution for the world of business as well.
If you have a business and want to know if Presto can work for you, email me at ceo.direct@presto.com
Recent Comments