Augmented reality or AR, as it is more commonly called, is a tool that is used by more and more businesses and sales teams as technology advances. With AR your customers, clients, or prospects can get a clearer picture of how your products and layouts can fit into their workspace and get the closest experience to seeing the product in person. In this blog post, we will go over how Augmented Reality is used in business today and how AR for furniture can help improve your pitches and meetings with clients.
AR and Business Today
To break it down, AR is software that takes a 3D virtual object and through the use of a camera on a smart device it will first scan the room and then show how that object would look if placed in the space captured through the camera. AR has been around for some time. Up until recently, AR was commonly seen by everyday consumers in apps that used the camera on their smart devices in applications like Google playgrounds, Snapchat filters, and even in certain mobile games (the most famous of which is probably Pokémon Go). It was more of a gimmick or novelty in these instances, however, it has greatly evolved since then to become a valuable tool for driving sales with visual selling
In recent years there has been a large influx of AR experiences for more retail-focused applications. You have car retailers like BMW, allowing you to see what a car could look like on your driveway in a variety of colors and finishes. You have clothes retailers that can let you see what a shoe or accessory looks like in person. And most commonly you have furniture retailers such as IKEA and Amazon, who offer apps that allow you to place furniture in your room through AR and view it to scale and get a sense of where the object can fit. To put it simply, AR allows consumers to get the next best thing to having the product in front of them.
An example of AR being used by a retailer to see how a product would look in your surroundings.
AR and The KITS Collaborator
The KITS XRPro Edition of the KITS Collaborator tool offers up both VR and AR tools that you can use to share your designs with clients. These tools can be used to create virtual and augmented reality experiences on the fly that can be shared with clients in person or even remotely by sending links to a client’s phone so they can view it wherever they are.
This includes having AR objects of all manufacturers included in the KITS collaborator as well as the ability to place not just a single object, but an entire furniture layout in a room with the use of AR. Clients can reposition these objects on the fly and changes can be made quickly if they want to see other products or variations.
An example of the KITS Collaborator AR User Interface.
With the use of AR, you can do the following when meeting with clients with the KITS Collaborator.
- Help your pitch stand out - The KITS Collaborator is already an amazing tool that streamlines the pitching experience, but with the use of AR, you can create a presentation/experience that can be more memorable and easier to digest and imagine. AR sales techniques make your pitch much more memorable for your clients than yet another PowerPoint presentation!
- Get people moving - It may be different from your usual pitch but getting people up and moving during your presentation is a great way to get people engaged with your proposal. As they move around the AR furniture object it can spark conversation about the product and get them to address any concerns they may have.
- Reduce costs and visits - With AR you can get accurate sizing and the ability to see how a piece looks in the client’s environment, you can reduce costly and frustrating errors upon delivery that can happen when a client can’t fully realize a product. With these virtual “mockups”, it saves you time and money that can go into creating samples to bring to a space. You can also reduce the time needed for in-person visits by remotely sending AR samples to clients.
Only the Beginning
Over the past years with the switch to more remote work, AR became increasingly popular as a solution. As we know, the recent years only sped up the change to more remote work that was already underway. AR will continue to be a solution and tool for the foreseeable future.
It is important to make sure that your organization is including AR in your sales strategy and that you have a tool such as the KITS collaborator that can allow you to create furniture AR objects and easily share them with clients or prospects.
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