Virtual Reality (VR) has quickly become an asset in a salesperson's toolbox, giving them the ability to create stunning presentations and to engage with their clients on a different level. Given the overall rise in popularity and availability, VR has become one of the preferred solutions in helping sales and design teams in the commercial furniture industry to collaborate with more ease. As businesses continue to recognize the practicality and functionality that VR provides, this technology continually moves past entertainment and into Enterprise.
How to Use VR in Commercial Furniture
In a broad sense, VR builds a bridge between some points of friction you may face during a project’s external and internal process.
External
One of the key component to any successful client relationship is clear and effective communication. It's always important to remember that your clients will not know the line of products you offer as well as you do. So whether it be a special signature finish you offer or a configuration that is unique to you, immersing your clients in VR allows you to share your vision and showcase your products in a way they can easily understand. Not only can it build confidence and trust with your client, but since seeing is believing, VR can help your clients make decisions quicker.
Internal
Your final product that is on display in center stage for your clients to see is the result of hard work behind the scenes. And the beauty of VR is that it’s versatile enough to be applied to all areas of your workflow. Using VR in commercial furniture has many key benefits especially during the internal development stage.
So how exactly would VR be useful in helping sales and design teams to collaborate better?
The Ultimate Validation Tool
As with any project, there is the limitation of wanting to churn out your client’s vision in a timely manner. Having a fast turnover rate helps you stay competitive, professional, and client-focused. However, there are projects that will be more challenging than others, and having a clear sense of direction not only helpful, but it will be critical in concluding a project efficiently. In order to do so, seeing design information efficiently will be a crucial part of the process of getting from start to finish. Whether the challenge is a limited office area or a huge concert auditorium, VR provides a solution to communicate more efficiently with greater clarity.
“ The collaborate presentation tool has been the most beneficial part for us - being able to put the goggles on and have the design projected up on the screen is huge, instead of just watching someone wear goggles and not know what they’re looking at. So being able to keep everyone fully engaged and part of the experience makes a big difference.”
Lizzy French, Interior Designer - Virtual Reality Specialist
Being able to view a project virtually between iterations has been one of the most effective ways of utilizing VR in commercial furniture.
Being able to see your space makes all the difference. Not only does it make it clearer to you, but to the rest of your team. Information that would have been challenging to communicate previously is understood instantly when stepping into your project in VR. Plus, it gives you the opportunity to discuss with your team the feasibility of a certain layout your client may have requested. Whether the design or configuration isn’t functional or you’re unsure about what the quality of the end result would be, utilizing VR as a validation tool helps you understand the flaws of your design, and promotes discussions on how to fix it.
Enhance Your Communication
On that same wavelength, the clarity that VR provides is helpful during the revision process between both sales and design teams. As Eli pointed out, stepping into your design in VR helps you immediately understand what the space feels like and if it turned out the way you expected. Although it’s a great feeling when the result is better than you hoped for, using VR in commercial furniture highlights improvements needed in your design.
Viewing it first in VR helps you and your team to catch any foreseeable points of friction that could drag out the sales process. Whether it be hiccups in functional space planning or suggesting a different solution that would work better for the client, VR gives you and your team to brainstorm more ideas on how to make an area more efficient, practical, or aesthetically pleasing. Being able to iron out the last remaining creases will be useful in finalizing a design before presenting it to your client for further revisions.
Furthermore, fostering good communication is not only valuable when interacting with your clients, but also within teams. VR gives both sales and design teams a platform to understand each other's perspective and vision as well as provide feedback from both ends on how to improve the design. With breaking the visualization barrier, VR promotes clearer collaboration and cohesion between teams.
Share Your Design Remotely
VR has become more advanced and readily available, creating a variety of VR business-ready solutions suitable for any company. Many furniture manufacturers and dealerships have opted to adopt the tetherless VR option as it allows for greater flexibility and mobility of transport. Additionally, it’s a more cost-effective route as tethered VR requires a powerful computer to support the program and the headset. While you can pass along the headset to your colleagues and clients when you meet with them in person, a number of business-ready VR companies have made it possible to share your designs remotely.
Here at Yulio, we have simplified the sharing process and thought about how you really work so you can collaborate with your team or your clients anywhere in the world. Collaborate is our most used feature and allows you to present your design to your clients, colleagues, and prospects around the world or in the same room. Enjoy the freedom and flexibility of allowing your team to peruse through your design while also having the option to spotlight certain areas for their feedback. Plus, with our gaze indicators, you can always see what your client is looking at and get context for their comments and feedback. So whether your team is in the same room as you or on the other side of the world, remote participants can join in from anywhere on both headset or our browser-based fishtank mode. Your clients and prospects don’t require a headset or Yulio seat to view a Collaborate session in our browser mode, so there are no barriers to sharing your vision.
The Value of VR in Commercial Furniture
VR is a malleable and versatile platform, allowing furniture professionals to implement it into various areas of their project workflow. Primarily in a project’s design development stage, VR is a useful tool to foster greater communication between your teams internally. As a result, VR can encourage a flow of ideas on how to further improve your projects, helping you collaborate with your design team with greater ease and build greater rapport with your clients.
Here at Yulio, we strive for excellence in performance and integrity when it comes to our product, and customer service. Check out our Whitepaper on the right way to integrate VR into your business for maximum ROI. To learn more about us and what we offer, please visit our page or take our product tour.
