Chromeboxes are so intuitive that patrons of any age, background or technical ability can use them with ease. Some of our patrons know English as a second language, while others, like my dad, have trouble using computers. But it seems that anyone, including my dad, can use Chrome. Patrons also take the written portion of their driving test using these devices. Or, if a customer forgets their required identification documents, they can even use the device to access and securely print a water bill or bank records.
We’ve modernized our office and are now more customer-centric by switching to Chrome. While getting a new driver’s license or ID may never be a thrilling errand, we can now make it an easier and more friendly experience for every customer who walks through our doors.
It was a huge opportunity for us to innovate and offer our clients more options when it comes to investing.
In order to launch successfully, we needed an intuitive interface that not only educated potential clients about our product but also made it easy to sign up. We tested several laptops and tablets that weren’t the right fit, before I reached out to Google. That was on a Friday and the following Monday, Google engineers came into our Phoenix engineering facility. By lunchtime, we landed on a solution that was quick to deploy, very easy to manage and use, and offered the high level of security that we demanded: Chromebooks.
With help from Insight, a Google reseller, we rolled out 1,000 Chromebooks in 250 Charles Schwab branches in less than two months. Everything worked right out of the box — our IT team didn’t have to install any software or manually customize settings directly on the devices. Instead, they used Chrome device management to put each device in public session mode, so multiple clients could use the same Chrome device securely, without signing in.
Our IT staff can implement specific settings, such as session length, which saves time on device management. Today, our IT team spends fewer than 10 hours each week managing 1,700 devices in our branches across the country.
Opening a Schwab Intelligent Portfolios account on a Chromebook is easy. When a client walks into one of our branches to learn more about automated investing, an associate hands the client a Chromebook. Within seconds, the client is guided to a Charles Schwab webpage, where he or she can learn about the product, complete a questionnaire and open an account. The whole process is electronic, so there’s no paperwork — minimizing errors and time spent on administration.
Our clients trust us with their sensitive financial data and their money. Security has to be our biggest priority. Chromebooks’ rigorous security settings ensure our clients’ data is safe. Chromebooks manage software updates automatically, so devices are always running the latest and most secure version.
Our IT staff limits session length and all data is wiped after a client finishes. IT can also block certain websites and limit Chromebooks to the private Schwab network, so data isn’t traversing public networks. If a device is stolen, there's no risk of data loss and the device is rendered virtually useless.
Our partnership with Google has helped us deliver on our promise to provide best in class client experiences with ongoing innovation. We’re also looking into installing Chromeboxes in kiosk mode in our branch lobbies, so clients can easily explore all of our other product offerings. Tens of thousands of clients have opened Intelligent Portfolios accounts using Chromebooks’ secure, client-friendly devices, and we've exceeded our targets nearly every month since the devices were deployed. Here's more on how Charles Schwab's clients use Chromebooks to sign up for Schwab Intelligent Portfolios.
To find out more on how Google helps keep your data and devices safe, view the Atmosphere: Rethinking Security in the Cloud digital event on demand here.
When government budget cuts threatened our organisation's financial health, we didn't expect a technology change to keep us afloat. But that's exactly what happened. We provide a wide range of youth services in inner London, including an assistance program for teenage parents and programs to help young people find employment. In the wake of increasingly severe public funding cuts, Epic joined the private sector after 25 years with the local authority of Kensington and Chelsea. Ending even one of our projects was a step we didn’t want to take, and by transitioning to Google Apps for Work, we didn’t have to. The £140,000 a year that we save with Google gives us room in our budget to maintain all of our services. Now Epic is not only financially sustainable, it’s more efficient, more secure, and primed for a future of cloud computing.
Google Apps pulled our fragmented organisation together. Before we switched over last year, few of our 80 part-time staff had a work email account or online calendar; we relied entirely on phone calls, texts and face-to-face meetings to communicate. Now, almost everyone uses Gmail and calendar to stay organized and in touch. Whether staff are working with young people at one of our six youth centres or at any of our other eight offices, they can use one of 50 Chromeboxes to check their accounts. And for management rushing between meetings and our 20 case workers who operate off-site, we have 40 Android devices for them to stay connected from anywhere.
The impact on our efficiency has been huge. Google Apps for Work has reduced the number of emails we send by 50 percent in two months. The Chromebooks our 25 senior and middle managers use take seven seconds to start up, compared to the 20 minutes we spent starting up some of our old machines, so their time is spent fixing problems for our other 130 staff rather than waiting for technology to warm up.
Cloud computing is the future for our kind of community work, where teams are spread thin and wide. For example, instead of relying on a scattered paper trail to register attendance at our events, we now use Forms to track participation as they happen. Under our old system, the quarter of a million files we had stored on the local authority hard drives were full of confusing duplications. In one case, we found the same document saved in 47 variations by over 50 people, with no clue as to which was the final version. Now, the whole team can work together on a single shared Doc. And because there’s only ever one version, we don’t just save time, we stay aligned and build off of each other’s feedback seamlessly. We found Drive to be more secure, too, because its privacy and file access controls let us control information in more nuanced ways than we could before.
Maintaining our services without public funding was a daunting challenge, but Google Apps helped make it possible. Even better, the tools bring our team together and save us time, so we can spend more of our resources on the people who need them most.
