With all the winter fun happening across the country, I thought it might be a good time to see for myself what all the excitement is about. Nearly every state in the country (Florida being the exception) had the pleasure of seeing snow this year – some more than others – and since I hadn’t seen snow in a while, I thought it might be fun to take a little trip.
Although I love my job, I was looking forward to a few days of R&R. I realized how much fun research can be when you work in an industry that sells solutions to the hospitality and retail markets! I returned with pages of great info about a few of the products used in the marketplace today, and even gathered some enthusiastic feedback from the users themselves!
Living in Style
I had forgotten what it was like to stay in a hotel on vacation. Seems like most of the business trips I’ve taken entail late arrivals, room keys that don’t work, noisy neighbors and way too much elevator traffic. But this time the hotel experience was made that much easier by way of the Motorola DS4208. When I checked in to my favorite hotel (read: the one that racks up the most frequent guest points), I realized that I forgot to give them my member number when I made the reservation. When the front desk associate asked me if I downloaded the app, I was like, “what app?” The next thing I knew, I was downloading the hotel app, and she was scanning my member barcode!
When she scanned the barcode on my phone’s screen with the Motorola device, it was a snap. I asked her how she liked using the scanner for check-in and she said it was great because it saved so much time in terms of data entry. No more worries about typos and reservation errors. She even joked about the fact that she didn’t have to worry about getting caught up in a cord with the cordless version she was using. Since I had her attention, I figured I’d keep asking questions…here are a few more noteworthy comments:
- Form factor was great. Very comfortable to use, fits small hands easily.
- Durable! It sometimes gets legs and rolls off or gets knocked off the front desk and on to the tile floor, but it snaps back into action without skipping a beat.
- Scans with ease. They use this scanner to ring up items at the snack pantry for guests, and she noted how easy it was to scan because it doesn’t have to be held at any particular angle to scan the barcode
- Works great, even with hard-to-read barcodes. She scanned the barcode from a guest whose phone screen was cracked – not a problem for the DS4208!
Easy Peasy Scanning!
After such a successful report, it became my mission to search for the next DS4208. Sure enough, I found one when I stopped to pick up a few items at the store. Lots of challenging barcodes there, I’m guessing. I realized I still had a manufacturer’s coupon I downloaded about month ago (and even though I didn’t need a bottle of Tums® for this trip), I was interested to see how the coupon would scan from my phone. No surprise! It worked great. Fast and accurate. The clerk behind the counter said he was new at being a cashier, only been on the job two weeks. I asked him how much training he had on the scanner and he said “um, training?” But he did add that he scans coupons off of phones all the time – and it’s easy peasy (yes, he really said “easy peasy”). He confirmed much of what the hotel representative told me about the features she found most valuable, but he added that he appreciated the “beep” it makes each time he scans – it makes his job easier (doesn’t need to check to make sure it rang up), and he feels like he can scan a lot faster knowing that he can scan the next item once he hears the “beep”!
Oh, how was my trip? It was great! Lots of fun in the sun and snow, and even more fun realizing I couldn’t wait to get home to tell you all about it.
Looking for more information on the DS4208 from Motorola Solutions? Contact us: 800-888-4496 x102