The Change of Technology for Pearson, Our Plano Sprinkler Repair Company

It’s amazing how time flies and how quickly technology changes!  When we first started Pearson Sprinkler Company, a Plano sprinkler repair company, our main avenue for advertising was the phone book.  That big, clunky, yellow and white book that we all grew up using, and for some people, loving.  It was a source of very useful information for the local community.  It had home phone numbers and addresses, business advertisements and listings, and information for public and government facilities…an excellent resource at your fingertips!

This book would even have its own special location in the house.  Some would keep it underneath the phone and others would keep it in the little skinny kitchen drawer that housed all of the useful odds and ends.  It even had special uses: a heightener for children at the kitchen table, a weight for holding things in place while glue dried, or even to prove strength by ripping one in half!  Anyway you looked at it, the phone book was king.

Internet

Then along came the internet.  What a wonderful and useful tool – information at your finger tips!  When having a personal computer in each house was almost a normal thing for society, we decided it was time for a website.  We thought that it could supplement the phone book and we might get some calls from people who had seen it.  Before we knew it, and in almost a blink of an eye, everyone who called said that they found us online.  No one was using the phone book anymore!  Well, we thought, that’ll save some advertising money!  And so it began for us, advertising based primarily on the internet and not the printed word.  We had a great website, calls were coming in, and our sprinkler repair business was growing.

Social Media

Then along came social media.  What a terrific idea!  Not only could we keep in touch with family and friends, but we could keep in touch with our customers as well!  Also, new customers now had a different way to find us – through their own family and friends.  So we decided it was time for a FaceBook page.  Having a FaceBook page for Pearson Sprinkler Repair Company has really opened our eyes to the usefulness and benefits of social media.  We enjoy making postings, hearing from our customers, providing information, and sharing information about ourselves.  We were able to show our current and potential customers who we are and what we’re all about.  Really, the sky’s the limit when it comes to social media.

Smart Phones

Then along came smart phones.  Now what a transformation!  To find information, people went from being tied to a personal computer at work or at home, to having access to information literally at their fingertips every second of the day.  Customers were able to find us online during their lunch break, while waiting in lines, while going for a walk in the neighborhood, or while sitting on a patio somewhere having an ice cold beer.  And what a change for us too!  We were now able to communicate with customers via email or social media wherever we were.  We didn’t have to wait to get back to the office to return emails or respond to questions and comments on FaceBook.

Looking back now, we smile and think about how much all of these ideas that were created in someone’s imagination have changed our business…for the better!  Sure, we are saving money by not advertising our Plano sprinkler repair services in the phone book, but it’s more than that.  We feel that we are now better advocates for water conservation by having the means and capabilities to get information out there to the masses.  We feel that we can better serve our customers by being available to them anytime they need to reach out to us.  We feel that we are more than just a Plano sprinkler repair company; we feel that we are a part of a technologically advancing society.

And that phone book?  Well, one was delivered to our house yesterday.  I didn’t even look at it.  I took it out of the bag and put it right into our recycling bin.  The phone book is extinct at our house.