A very common view in the telecommunications and consumer electronics retail stores is nowadays characterized by smartphones playing in a very uncoordinated manner colorful image videos of the individual device manufacturers. However, what is largely overseen is the fact that these devices represent perfect digital media opportunities for the respective retailer to rather advertise his services, prices and tariffs and accessories on those usually “free-of-charge hardware components”, thus adding value by helping the shop to achieve its sales targets. On top of that, many of these "live demo units" are locked by passwords or fingerprints in no time by malicious "customers", thus rendering the devices largely useless for other customers. Those shops are lucky, where only the device language has been changed to Japanese or Arabic, but even that can be avoided. The most serious problem, however, is the personal data that many customers leave behind on these devices. It starts with a harmless selfie and ends with complete email addresses and phone numbers. In many European countries, telecommunications companies are obliged to ensure that this personal data is being deleted immediately. However, the implementation of these requirements, as stipulated in the GDPR, does fail frequently.
Wouldn't it be perfect, if there were an app that would get to grips with all these problems and ideally also display important information of the telecoms company, such as advertising messages service offers and tariffs, or promoting accessories available in the shop? Swisscom has been one of the first telecommunications companies in Europe to address this issue and solve it with our mobile device software suite. The app allows the customer to test the devices inside out, but it prevents reprogramming, automatically deletes photos taken, contact data left behind. It puts the manufacturers’ live demo mode aside and ensures that all devices are showing the same content flow in a synchronous way, if you want. At Telefonica, the prices are digitally displayed on the mobile devices on display, rendering the separate analogue or digital price labels obsolete. All customer clicks are being recorded and can thus be statistically evaluated for marketing purposes. At night, the handsets' displays turn off to save power and increase longevity. The software is configured to start automatically when the devices are turned on.