Does the SMR Lead Retriever Work at All Trade Shows?

Sorry, There are a small number of shows where no lead retrieval system you purchase can help you - no matter what competing products may claim.

The reasons are as varied as there are trade shows. Some shows don't have a lead retrieval system. A few are using old magnetic stripe card readers, and a very small number use systems designed to ensure that no system except the one they rent will work. However, roughly 80% - 85% of trade shows that employ a lead retrieval system use a "2D barcode" system that contains the attendees complete contact information in the barcode itself.

Almost any show that uses a barcode that looks like this will work with the SMR Lead Retriever. These barcodes can contain up to 2000 characters of information.

Barcodes that look like this contain nothing but a number. They wont work with any lead Retrieval system you can buy.

What would keep the SMR Lead Retriever from being able to work at a show if there are barcodes on the attendee badges? Most trade shows hire an outside registration company to take care of the tasks of gathering registrations, mailing badges, collecting fees, and the like. That same company almost always rents lead retrieval systems to vendors at the show, and that company would probably prefer to rent you one. If they want to, companies printing the badges can resort to some nasty tricks to keep the business to themselves. Fortunately, most of them don't because the show management would receive a lot of complaints, but here are a few of the things we've seen:

One large company is now implanting malicious computer control codes in the barcodes they print. The SMR Lead Retriever v2 is equipped to handle these, so it's no problem for our product, but not everybody has been able to deal with it yet.

A very small number of systems are printing a numeric barcode on the badges. That barcode contains the attendees' unique control number, which corresponds to a record in a database. When the show is over, you turn in your lead retrieval unit and a computer matches the numbers with the information in the database to give you your list. A few that employ numeric barcodes have a wireless network running in the exhibit hall, and only their equipment can request the data that corresponds to the control number. Fortunately, these are quite rare, and registration companies that employ numeric barcodes usually also print the 2D barcode elsewhere on the badge. You just have to scan the right one.

Even when the registration company does use a 2D barcode and prints all the contact information on the badge, they could still employ any number of methods of encoding the information. Fortunately, we're not finding much of this.

Why doesn't the SMR Lead Retriever work with magnetic stripe cards?
We've elected not to program the SMR Lead Retriever to work with Magnetic Stripe readers for 2 reasons. First, very few shows use them anymore, and the number using them grows smaller every year. It's just plain expensive, obsolete technology. Secondly, since shows that employ magnetic stripe card readers really don't want you using somebody else's lead retrieval unit, many will re-align the heads on their machines so that outside units can't read them anyway.

Our Guarantee
Many competing products imply that they guarantee compatibility with the shows you exhibit at, but if you can find a copy of their guarantee, it doesn't promise that at all. At SMR Software, we don't make vague or empty promises. We stand behind our products. Here is exactly what we promise: We promise that our software will be free from defects. If you find a bug, we'll get to work on fixing it and we'll release a free Update. Updates are always free - no time limits. If we develop a completely new version, with new features, you'll be offered an upgrade at a substantial discount. The scanners we sell with the software are name brand equipment with manufacturers warranties of 3 or more years. We also promise courteous, helpful service, and you can even talk to a live, US citizen when you call us.

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