Business efficiency

A visit yesterday from the meter reader resulted in an interesting chat. He was having trouble finding some properties on his list. He had the names, but on his screen so many were the equivalent of 'ACME Ltd, Stourport DY13 nxx'; really useful.

So I fired up Google Maps tapped in the business name and showed him where they were. He was impressed, but more so in that if available Google shows the telephone number of the business. He stated he'd download the package to his phone; later he came back and showed me that although it was showing the location it wasn't bringing up the same information I'd been getting.

"Have you tried tapping on the business name?" I asked
One tap later and "Oh that is going to save me a lot of time"

The most interesting/amusing/worrying bit was discussing the paucity of information he was given to locate properties on his machine. After showing the ability of Google Maps he told me -


"Tonight I'll go home and go through the machine listings and write them down in my notebook along with the information I can get from this [Google]"

I laughed

"No seriously I've a notebook and a set of different coloured pens and I go through the machine's listing each night. When I first started this job I'd visit each property as it appeared on the screen; but what happened was that I'd visit a property in [Areley Kings; W. of the river] then another in [Millfields; E. of the river] then it would send me back to [Areley Kings]. So now I go through them and arrange them all in groups. It saves so much time let alone diesel"

"But can't the machine order properties by postcode?" I asked incredulously

"No"

Unbelievable.