The Clorox Company
We all know of Clorox as the bleach people. But you may not know that they're a multinational manufacturer and marketer of household and institutional products with about $4 billion in annual revenue. The company employs more than 3,000 people in Latin America. Clorox Latin America is using Palm handhelds in their mobile field sales force. Within eight weeks of implementing the Palm handheld technology, Clorox reported a 20% increase in the number of stores visited per day.

Elcon Corp.
Elcon Corp. is an electrical contracting company that created a Palm OS-based asset tracking application that the company says saves them $2500 per employee annually, virtually eliminates theft, and reduces redundant tool purchases. Elcon originally created the software for internal use, but they're now also selling it as a product because it's helping companies that have high theft problems. Elcon reports this solution paid for itself within a month.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the American South's largest newspaper, increased solicitor subscription productivity by 30% and improved customer relations after it gave Palm handheld computers to its door-to-door sales force.

Before the Palm handheld solution, the sales force would pick a street and walk up to homes with little or no knowledge about their potential customers. This resulted in unnecessary calls on existing subscribers or ones who previously told sales representatives they never want to subscribe.

Today, before beginning a door-to-door sales campaign, supervisors download customer and prospect information onto more than 100 low-cost Palm handhelds. Sales people carry the handhelds as they walk the neighborhood so they can approach the homes in an efficient order and adapt the appropriate offer at each door. By simply tapping an address from the list displayed on the handheld, sales people instantly know if the household is a current or lapsed subscriber and how many days the household receives a paper. The Palm handhelds also show sales people which current promotions they can offer the customer and automatically calculate applicable sales tax for each of 16 counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

The handheld solution has made the door-to-door campaigns much more productive and allowed the newspaper to reduce the number of door-to-door visits overall. Furthermore, it has improved customer relations by giving the sales representatives the data they need to better understand their customers before they open the door.

Fiat Credit France
Fiat Credit France is Fiat's financing arm. Fiat's 1,100 sales consultants all use Palm handhelds to present a financing offer, accessing price and model list data, financing information and current promotions--all at the touch of a button while on the showroom floor with the customer.

According to the company, not only has Fiat improved customer satisfaction and increased sales, but also the Palm OS-based solution has paid for itself in only 18 months. That includes recouping the costs of POS (Point of Sale) materials, brochures, the 1,100 Palm computers, printers, and other software and hardware options.