Selling Remotely with KITS

Sales has always been a mobile profession where remote work is a requirement. Whether the task is heading to the next meeting or keeping in contact with your clients via phone or email, sales is one of the most fast-paced and on-the-go professions in any company.

However, there has been a drastic shift in consumers and businesses over the last two years due to the pandemic. This goes across all industries, including furniture sales. Many more employees are working from home and the return to the office is slowly happening, but for the most part, in-person meetings are still limited. Those salespeople who can sell furniture remotely but efficiently will continue to thrive.

The good news is that during this time of change is that we already currently possess the technology that could help you create opportunities from challenges. Sales reps can execute their best level of service by investing in advanced mobile tools. And now with that face-to-face interactions may be happening less frequently, ensuring your clients can visualize your proposals and get all the information they need is possible through advanced mobile applications.

One mobile tech solution that commercial furniture sales reps can start using today is The KITS Collaborator, KiSP’s mobile sales tool for today’s furniture professionals. From digital catalogs to features like generating a quick pricing quote, KITS was built to support remote work and get more done in one meeting. Join us in exploring how our tool and its features can support sales reps at this time to sell furniture remotely and in person.

Upgrade your Virtual Meetings with Visuals

As many businesses may still be working remotely, at least part time, sales reps may still find it difficult to schedule in-person meetings at this time. Even those that have returned to the office may have only done so in a hybrid approach, limiting the time in the office. Many workers have also just gotten used to remote technologies and may prefer to meet remotely. You can still be accommodating and sensitive to your client by hosting virtual meetings and check-in calls for open communication.

There are a variety of remote conferencing services available to support effective online meetings. With features allowing you to connect through video calling and sharing your screen, engaging your client can still be possible while working remotely. What can set you apart is how you enhance these meetings with visuals to encourage your customer to participate and collaborate.

With The KITS collaborator on your Windows 10 device or iPad, you can reflect your screen and allow clients in your meeting to follow along as you browse digital catalogs and show off a variety of furniture layouts. Utilizing this digital resource, you can build custom spaces with clients, respond instantly to their feedback and make quick iterations of fabrics and finishes.

The one-on-one time with your clients can be limited, so cutting down on unnecessary back-and-forth calls is crucial to closing the sale. The key to a successful virtual meeting is to be prepared, and concise, and to wrap up the call with the next steps. Prepare a checklist of your typical sales routine workflow to keep you on track. Try having a list of general ‘discovery’ questions ready to keep the conversation flowing and if possible, record the meeting so your focus isn’t on taking notes but rather on the needs of your client.

It’s also extremely valuable to follow up quickly, and KITS allows you to send the visual you created together to your client’s email or text immediately after the meeting and remain top of mind.

Selling with Virtual and Augmented Reality

With the rise in demand for more remote-capable tools, The KITS collaborator also has its set of immersive features that can help your clients visualize your projects while working remotely. Our KITS XRPro edition comes with Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) capabilities. For those who may be unfamiliar with these two immersive technologies, here’s a brief explanation:

Augmented Reality: AR allows you to overlay a computer-generated element into a real-world environment. For contract furniture dealers and manufacturers, this means that your client can view a 3D model of any furniture item into their real-life workspace.

Virtual Reality: VR is a complete immersion experience that removes an individual from the physical world with a VR headset or smartphone. Transport clients into a virtual representation of your solution to build an emotional connection.

Presenting your proposal with AR or VR will give your clients the opportunity to explore in full 360-degrees. While 2D renderings can adequately help your clients visualize your solutions, immersive technologies give a greater understanding of the size and scaling of the furniture pieces. Plus, telling your story in a new way during a precarious time can build your clients trust in seeing how reliable your business is despite current economic circumstances.

Support Between Design and Sales Teams

Completing a proposal is a collaborative process where sales reps sell their vision for their client’s space and the design team supports them by bringing it to life. However, creating effective space plans and stunning 2D renderings takes time. And while it would be ideal to send these visual resources to your clients after a few hours of your meeting, design teams are not just supporting one person’s pipeline but the rest of the business’s sales reps too.

The KITS collaborator and its quick rendering feature is a great in-between tool that could help sales reps complete smaller projects or provide added support for larger ones. Perhaps a client is looking to purchase a small number of custom chairs for their office or a single desk configuration for a new hire. Since space planning or 2D renderings aren’t necessary, sales reps can use KITS to quickly create solutions to their client’s specifications, render the image, and send it off for further revision.

For larger projects, KITS can be used to provide further support for your design team as well as engage with your clients waiting for their custom visual resources. Depending on the project’s complexity or the design team’s work backlog, sales reps can wait 3-5 days before sending their clients their final proposal. During this time, sales reps can continue interacting with their clients by sending them a simple visual of what their space will look like. Plus, after the design team has finished rendering out the final layout, sales reps can import DWG files into their account and sync them with their mobile device to review them with their client over video conferencing or on the phone.

All-in-One Software for your Mobile Device

For sales reps, their resources must be readily available from any location. If it’s working out in the field or remotely at home, selling furniture remotely an  successfully requires uninterrupted access to the tools reps need the most. Navigating through manufacturer websites, internal files, physical catalogs, quoting software and other miscellaneous software can quickly overwhelm any sales rep. The more complex your workflow is, the easier it can be to introduce mistakes and errors when closing a sale.

With a mobile sales tool like The KITS collaborator, you have access to hundreds of manufacturer catalogs with the ability to generate high-quality renderings and Quick Sheets of your proposal directly from your device. This all-in-one software provides product knowledge at your fingertips bundled with features that allow you to streamline your sales process.

Quickly build scenes with your favorite manufacturer’s products and test out unique swatch combinations with just a few clicks. Renderings can be instantly generated to show off the unique angles and perspectives of your layout. Keep it simple with a white background rendering to allow your client to focus on the selection of furniture or include an environment to set the ambiance to have a more “lived-in” feel. Cut down on the time waiting for your designer to get back with the appropriate resources and send your client same-day fully specified visuals.

Once your client is happy with the furniture you’ve selected as well as the layout, you can quickly generate a quote with our Quick Sheet feature. Not only does it include the estimated pricing of each item in the scene, but it also has a set of customizable features. Whether it be applying a special discount, or your client is looking for a quick summary of all of the furniture pieces to discuss further with their team, you can add in or edit out all the unnecessary information on Quick Sheets. The best part is the Quick Sheet will include your dealership’s logo and direct contact information so if your client has any questions or concerns, they can find your contact information within your proposal.

The KITS collaborator: The Ultimate Remote Work Tool for Commercial Furniture Professionals

From the beginning, we built The KITS collaborator platform to support furniture professionals in any circumstance. Whether they were in the office or out in the field, we knew that KITS needed to be a mobile platform to support sales teams effectively. And although the slow return to the office presents an extensive list of challenges for numerous industries, we are seeing more and more that this way of working might be here to stay. So, unlock the power to show and sell with The KITS collaborator today.

If you would like to see The KITS collaborator and all of its features in action, click here to schedule a demo with our team - we would love to chat with you. For more information on KITS and our different license options, click here for our pricing options. 

Updated September 27, 2022