Michelle A Eng Leang

With the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion com­pa­nies ramp­ing up their ser­vices to en­sure that our mo­bile de­vices stay con­nect­ed, the pri­vate sec­tor in Trinidad and To­ba­go is grad­u­al­ly in­tro­duc­ing mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tions and ser­vices to com­mu­ni­cate with its cus­tomers and more im­por­tant­ly in­crease op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence for the busi­ness.

On­ly two of our banks have mo­bile of­fer­ings to­day-First Cit­i­zens Bank and Sco­tia­bank. First Cit­i­zens Bank's mo­bile bank­ing ser­vices al­lows its cus­tomers to ac­cess bank­ing in­for­ma­tion on the go. This ser­vice is not on­ly for cus­tomers with smart­phones but ex­tends to all cell­phone own­ers. Ac­count in­for­ma­tion is sent via text mes­sages alert­ing cus­tomers of changes to their bank ac­counts in­clud­ing de­posits such as salaries.

Sco­tia­bank has a mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tion (app) al­low­ing their cus­tomers to do their per­son­al bank­ing from the con­ve­nience of a mo­bile phone and it comes with promis­es of sim­plic­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. Cus­tomers can pay bills, check ac­count de­tails and trans­fer funds in be­tween ac­counts, all from their mo­bile de­vice.

The app fea­tures a branch and ATM find­er not on­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go but 20 coun­tries in to­tal. Avail­able in Eng­lish and Span­ish, the app al­so fea­tures fi­nan­cial and for­eign ex­change rates, in­for­ma­tion on new prod­ucts and ser­vices from the bank as well as the abil­i­ty to con­tact the bank di­rect­ly. Com­pat­i­ble with iPhones and Black­Ber­rys, the app is part and par­cel of im­prov­ing op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence in the bank.

Sco­tia­bank's Pub­lic and Cor­po­rate Af­fairs man­ag­er Cindy Mo­hammed stat­ed via e-mail, "Us­ing mo­bile de­vices has led to greater ef­fi­cien­cies, faster turn around times and re­sult. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, cam­paign par­tic­i­pa­tion (via SMS mes­sages) has in­creased us­ing mo­bile tech­nol­o­gy."

Mo­hammed added, "Us­ing mo­bile tech­nol­o­gy is sim­ply not a choice but rather a change in how we work to meet our cus­tomers' need." In­ter­na­tion­al freight­ing com­pa­ny, Fed Ex has an en­tire suite of mo­bile so­lu­tions avail­able to its cus­tomers here in T&T. The Fed Ex® Mo­bile Web App is com­pat­i­ble with iPhones, iPads, Black­Ber­rys and the An­droid plat­form.

Once down­loaded, Fed Ex cus­tomers can ac­cess up-to-date track­ing de­tails di­rect­ly on their phone. The app will alert you when your ship­ments are de­liv­ered, in tran­sit and when there are is­sues with your pack­age. If you're in­ves­ti­gat­ing ship­ping an item, the app al­so pro­vides you with rate quotes and es­ti­mat­ed de­liv­ery times with your mo­bile de­vice-be it phone or tablet. There's a lo­ca­tion find­er point­ing you to your near­est Fed Ex lo­ca­tion so you can sched­ule a pick-up and the trust­ed Fed Ex van will come to you.

Lo­cal com­pa­ny, Mo­birl, is re­spon­si­ble for many of the mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tions that have been de­vel­oped here in T&T. "We've done apps for Machel Mon­tano, Ravi B, Tribe and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion," said man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Anis­sa Dean. She ad­mits that while there is a lack of aware­ness in the coun­try on the ben­e­fits of adding mo­bile to a mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for a com­pa­ny or brand, her team is gen­er­at­ing high lev­els of in­ter­est. "There is a def­i­nite in­ter­est in mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tions from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty who want to reach their cus­tomers."

Dean adds that when they are pitch­ing clients, they use a de­mo plat­form to il­lus­trate the ease of use and the in­for­ma­tion they can pro­vide with a mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tion on a com­pa­ny's cus­tomers. "We can pro­vide sta­tis­tics on cus­tomer ac­tiv­i­ty with­in the app, lo­ca­tion of cus­tomers all the way to street lev­el. When we show this to po­ten­tial clients, they see the ben­e­fit of en­gag­ing with their clients via mo­bile tech­nol­o­gy."

She us­es the Machel Mon­tano app as an ex­am­ple where they were able to pro­vide the so­ca su­per­star with sta­tis­tics on how the app was be­ing used and where, as well as sta­tis­tics on mu­sic be­ing pur­chased. "One of the unique things with Machel's app is the live stream op­tion.

We worked with Machel to live stream his per­for­mances through­out the Car­ni­val sea­son via the app, so peo­ple who were liv­ing abroad and miss­ing Car­ni­val could see his per­for­mances live on their mo­bile phones or tablets like iPads. This is the pow­er of mo­bile."

Dean says de­vel­op­ing a mo­bile app can cost from $5,000 all the way $25,000 and high­er de­pend­ing on what the client wants. "The sky is the lim­it with mo­bile and we are on a mas­sive aware­ness cam­paign to get T&T to take ad­van­tage of the tech­nol­o­gy that is avail­able."