Home Depot Canada Starts Using iPad Minis To Boost Sales And Help Customers

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Senior Manager of Learning Innovation at Home Depot Canada Steven Beggs has admired the capabilities of Apple’s iPhone from the moment it was released in 2007. 

“When the first iPhone users started trickling in to Home Depot locations, they brought with them a device that had more information on it than any salesperson had on the floor. Customers still needed help, but often had to get the sales associates up to speed first; hardly an ideal situation.”

When Beggs got a look at what the iPhone could do, he wanted to incorporate the power of Apple’s devices into Home Depot stores across Canada. At the recent Tablet Strategy conference, Beggs detailed a new application called SMaRT, Social Mobile and Real Time mobile performance support. 

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The initiative gives select sales associates an iPad Mini with access to SMaRT, which they can use to give customers more valuable information about the products they are purchasing. SMaRT gathers information from Home Depot’s own website and app, along with product information from competitors which allows the sales associate to perform a price comparison against their competitors. 

“We didn’t invest a lot in creating anything. As much as possible, we used free, publically available information and content.”

After a successful proof of concept, the president of Home Depot Canada decided to put 100 iPad Minis across ten retail stores across Canada. Beggs said:

“If I’m not positively impacting the bottom line with the solution that I put into the hands of my associates, then I’ve got the wrong solution.”

The quote above is the key. If Home Depot’s SMaRT program can increase sales and continue to benefit the customer’s experience, the program may soon be expanding to a Home Depot location near you. 

Let us know in the comments below if you like Home Depot’s SMaRT initiative and if you want to see it deployed across more stores across Canada. 

[via TabTimes]

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