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Movie theaters across the country and around the world are facing increasing competition from consumer electronic technology and super-fast broadband as more people opt to stay at home and watch new releases on their own devices. The announcement of the distribution of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend,” in 2015 and four Adam Sandler movies by Netflix is just one example of what the future of movie distribution will be like.

As more competition is introduced, traditional movie theater operators are also adopting new technologies not only to enhance the viewing experience, but to also deliver superior customer service for the movie going audience. Regal Cinemas, which operates 7,347 screens in 573 theaters, has announced it has selected a mobile application platform called UsherPoint to provide its ushers with detailed information about events that take place within the theater.

The ushers at Regal Cinemas will be equipped with iPods running the UsherPoint application so they can provide different services and access information. The app can scan ticket barcodes on paper or on a smartphone screens, provide information about movie schedules with start and end times as well as the last time the auditorium was last cleaned. Regal moved to this technology because its radio-based legacy system was unreliable when the ushers were too deep in the theater or there were too many people.

The company also deployed an enterprise mobility management solution by MobileIron to manage the almost 2,000 iPods that will be part of the theater chain.

“We looked at analyst research, evaluated three vendors, and chose MobileIron,” said Brandon Stroud, director of IT theatre infrastructure services at Regal Entertainment Group. “We liked MobileIron because it was easy to navigate and setting policies was very straightforward. We also heard very good things about MobileIron’s customer support and we knew we needed a partner who was committed to helping us make this initiative successful.”

Usher Point has launched version 4.3 which adds new features, including controlling Cinema signage from Usher point, print tickets and pickup, graphical screening schedule view and booking pickup using loyalty cards.

As movie theaters continue to experience competition from new technologies and delivery systems, they have to differentiate themselves by providing superior customer service that will encourage consumers to come back to the theater for the overall experience.