In the US, 80% of people drive to work. That's 16 billion hours a year of commuting. Imagine if some of that time could be used productively... 

❝I absolutely love the app and being a sales rep in the car 4 to 6 hours a day find it incredibly helpful. It is literally freeing up and hour or two of time for me every day I am on the road by having a lot less time at the desk doing email. THANKS!!!❞

Scott Middleton

VP at Access Partners

California

So how do you get this benefit for your company? There are three main uses: commuting, work related driving, and accessibility. 

1. Commuting

Many senior level, engaged and committed employees want to be up to date on their communications and maximise their productivity. All you need to do is provide them with the tools to empower them achieve this.

An evolutionary step
Speaking Email is the next natural evolutionary step - from PC, to web, to mobile, to voice. Users can now check mail without looking, opening up a range of possible ways to consume email and stay ahead. The primary use case is driving to and from work, where a commuter would traditionally listen to the radio, they can now listen to their inbox, flag, archive and reply to emails.

Work/life balance
Remember when employees resisted getting a BlackBerry because they didn't want their work to take over their home lives? It is certainly important to have a good work/life balance. Surprisingly we have found the same employees who don't like having work email on their phone, with the notifications and temptation to check in, actually like being able to have their email read to them at a time of their choosing such as on the way to work. For these people Speaking Email provides a more preferable alternative tool to consume email outside of the office.

Examples:

• Taking a legal firm with 100 lawyers, say one in 10 use the app while commuting, they would save at least half an hour a day each. At a charge out rate of $250 an hour this would enable the firm to bill an extra $287,000 annually.
• At a firm of 5000 consultants, if only 1% used the app daily, they could see an increase in billable hours of $2 million annually.

2. Work Related Driving

If employees are driving as part of work, they can be contactable and productive at the same time.

If you have sales reps on the road, the more time they can be enabled to be out and about the better. By keeping on top of their email inbox, agents or sales reps can spend more time visiting customers and less time at their desk. 

Example:

• Let's say you have 10 sales reps on the road and each spends an hour a day at their desk doing emails. With Speaking Email you could cut this down to half an hour a day. If your reps are paid $50 an hour that's a saving of $50,000 a year. This is a conservative estimate: we are not even taking into account opportunity costs, reduced number of trips back to the office, or increased sales resulting from better responsiveness to emails.

3. Accessibility

If you have staff with disabilities, Speaking Email can help them be more productive. Speaking Email is a godsend for users with blindness, vision problems, dyslexia, motor dysfunction, stroke victims, and any conditions that makes regular mobile or desktop email apps difficult to use. 

Employee Safety & Compliance

Accessibility policies

If your company has policies about providing equal access for people with disabilities, you ought to be providing Speaking Email as an alternative mobile email client. 

Distracted driving laws

In most places, handheld mobile phone usage is banned, meaning you are not allowed to hold your phone while using it. While all jurisdictions have different laws, this appears to be the common denominator, applying to most US states and most of Europe, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.

There are no counties, states or territories we know of which have banned mobile phone usage in cars outright, except Quebec. Everywhere else it is legal to use a mobile phone in a safe manner while driving.

We recommend supplying employees with cradles to enable them to see and touch the phone legally. As long as the tasks are not distracting, this usage is legally acceptable. Most apps, however, are distracting to use, with small buttons, small text, typing or complex interactions. 

Mobile phone usage policies

We recommend providing a policy on mobile phone use and giving employees the tools to engage more safely with technology in cars. By supplying Speaking Email to employees and encouraging its use, employers are providing safer alternatives to commonly used communication tools.

We suggest such a policy could include:

• Enable work communication be done as safely as possible - voice calls using Bluetooth and emails using Speaking Email
• Supply employees with hands free kits and mandate their use, including a cradle to enable safely touching the phone
• Supply apps designed for in-vehicle use and suggest using these instead of standard apps

Technical Requirements

To run Speaking Email effectively users need an iOS 11+ or Android 8+ device. Voice recognition uses native device SDKs
and as such iOS devices are more reliable for speech recognition.

Users can connect to their on-premise or externally hosted email account assuming it is accessible on:

• Microsoft 365 (including Intune - see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/apps-supported-intune-apps under 'Partner apps', MFA, Exchange Online MDM)
• ActiveSync (including Exchange server, Microsoft 365, Amazon WorkMail)
• Gmail / G-Suite
• Outlook.com
• IMAP
• POP3 (least preferred)