In broad strokes, the history of frontline communication goes like this. In March 1933, the police department in Bayonne, New Jersey put two-way radios in its patrol cars, and officers could talk back to headquarters instead of only listening to it. From there, frontline communication becomes synonymous with one thing: the radio. Eventually, and thankfully, large enterprise teams figure out the limitations of traditional radios and switch over to modern push-to-talk platforms, like Zello, that let them do much more.
While frontline teams were moving onto push-to-talk, Apple was working on something else entirely. FaceTime arrived on the iPhone 4 in 2010, and seeing the person you were talking to stopped being a production. Anybody could show somebody else a thing instead of describing it.
But video calling never made its way to frontline teams, even though a lot of frontline work involves problems you have to see to understand. Instead they've had push-to-talk and not much else. Push-to-talk isn't going anywhere, since it's still the fastest way to reach people who are spread out and moving, but video calling is one sign of how much more frontline communication could be doing.
Zello is helping frontline teams take their communication beyond push-to-talk with six new features. Across three blog posts, we're covering all six and how they help teams communicate, coordinate, and put AI to work. First up are video calling, so a teammate can see the problem, and voice commands, so nobody has to stop and look at a screen. All six new features are worth a look before you start.
Somebody radios in that there's a leak under one of the trucks. The questions come back: Where exactly? Under the front axle? What color is it? How fast? Is it near anything hot? And so on. The whole conversation takes time and even after all that, someone still needs to come out and check because they need to be certain. That entire time the truck is sitting idle, waiting to get back to deliveries.
Describing a problem well takes time nobody has, and some problems are hard to put into words. It's difficult to describe a dent or a worn part well enough for somebody else to judge how bad it is. Photos help, but a photo is one moment from one angle. Some problems only show up while something is running, and sometimes the person deciding what to do needs to ask for a closer look before they can answer. Live video lets them see what the worker sees, as it happens.
Zello now lets frontline teams make video calls. Point the camera at the problem, and the person who can decide sees what you see.
On a video call, a mechanic can see the truck's leak before heading out and bring the right parts. A manager can ask to see the bottom row of crushed cartons and decide whether to accept the delivery.
Showing somebody the problem is faster than describing it, and it gets you an answer you can act on right away.
It isn't hard to see why frontline teams moved off traditional radios: one-to-one calls, as many groups as the operation runs, replayable messages, photos, emergency alerts. A traditional radio broadcasts to whoever is on the channel and stops there.
Making use of any of those features, however, means navigating a device, and frontline work gets in the way. Hands are busy, eyes are on the task, and in some industries the required safety gear makes handling anything awkward. Push-to-talk buttons help out, of course, since a worker can use them to message their team while their device is in their pocket or they have gloves on. But for anything other than messaging, they're going to need to pull the device out and find what they want on the screen.
Voice commands give frontline workers a new way of getting to Zello's features, one that suits how frontline work actually goes. A worker says what they need out loud, and Zello does it. They can send a message to one person by name instead of scrolling to find them. They can move to a different group, replay a message they missed, or start an emergency alert.
No matter the industry, frontline work doesn't wait, and voice commands mean communicating doesn't have to either.
Zello is giving frontline teams new ways to communicate, whether that's video calling, which lets them show a problem instead of describing it, or voice commands, which let them use Zello without stopping what they're doing.
And that's just a glimpse into the future of frontline communication. Video calling and voice commands are two of the six new features that Zello is unveiling. The others cover everything from handing off work and knowing somebody claimed it to getting a quick answer without stopping to look it up, and more.
Yes. Zello Work users can place 1:1 voice and video calls, so a worker can turn on the camera and show what they are looking at. Callers can share a screen too, and a photo taken from the live video sends to the conversation as a normal Zello image message.
Video calling is for the problems somebody needs to see before they can decide what to do. Describing a dent or a worn part takes time and still leaves doubt, and some problems only show up while equipment is running. Most frontline communication stays on push-to-talk, and a video call is the escalation when a description is not enough.
Voice commands let a worker say what they need out loud instead of navigating a screen. Commands include sending a message to one person by name, switching to a different group, replaying a missed message, and sending an emergency alert.
Yes. Voice commands are built for work that keeps a worker's hands busy and their eyes on the task. Safety gear makes handling a device awkward too. Saying a command out loud means a worker never has to pull the device out and find something on screen.
Yes. Zello calls do not end when the network drops briefly. They reconnect within seconds after a lost Wi-Fi connection or a handoff between cell towers, so nobody has to redial from a warehouse floor or a jobsite.
Zello is adding six new features. Along with video calling and voice commands, task management turns a message into work somebody owns, QR Assist puts a scannable help point where people need one, Smart Search finds an answer without anyone having to ask around again, and Ella, an AI teammate, handles routine tasks.