Although augmented reality (AR) is mostly known as a technology used for entertainment purposes, its potential is not limited to games and fancy photo filters targeted at consumers. It has a lot to offer to businesses as well.
When you deal with business to business (B2B) sales, all properties of your product or service must persuade the potential client that it will increase their company’s profit. There should also be something impressive in your offer that makes it stand out. This is where AR can enter the stage and become a handy sales and client engagement tool that you can create with the help of your company's developers. To see how it works, let’s explore three potential AR use cases I've noticed for B2B sales as the VP of business development at a software development company that creates augmented reality products.
Product Presentations
By enhancing your presentation with AR, you can visualize and highlight the aspects of your offer that require special attention in the most realistic and immersive way. It can be especially useful when displaying real property, like Realtor.com does, or large products such as industrial machines (think CAT). But the most well-known example is probably IKEA, who used augmented reality to allow clients (both consumers and businesses) to try furniture in their offices and apartments by superimposing it on the surroundings with the IKEA Place app.
There are two key advantages to this approach. First, it can make interacting with the client remotely easier and more enjoyable. Second, the clients can see all the perks of the product without physically interacting with it.
Exhibitions
When you talk to your client in private, you’ve already gained an advantage — the client is talking to you instead of your competitors. Exhibitions are a completely different environment. You need to stand out among dozens of other companies. And this is another marketing application of AR — you can use it to attract visitors to your stand.
Considering the hype around AR, which still won’t cease, just mentioning it in your flyers or on the banner can be a hook for exhibition visitors. Take the example of Ford. The company used AR to attract visitors during the 2017 North American International Auto Show. The visitor could sit inside the car and at the same time see what was happening under the hood on a big screen. The exhibit not only impressed visitors but also made headlines and increased the company's visibility.
Another example is Motorex — an oil company that amazed guests using an AR-powered interactive factory tour. The tour video shows AR stopping points where visitors could enjoy hidden content using their smartphones.
Data Visualizations
When you're presenting something more abstract than an excavator or a next-gen Ford Focus, it may be hard to convey the value of your offer, especially when it involves complex data that's hard to visualize. Here, AR can come into play in the form of an interactive three-dimensional visualization.
This use case for AR is only emerging in B2B sales, but there’s already a solid technical background for it. According to a project participant's description, IBM Immersive Insights is a visualization tool that presents data in 3D space, making it easier to explore data and grasp the insights it provides. In an experiment detailed by an IBM representative, IBM engineers used the tool to visualize Instacart’s data grocery purchases and thus better understand user purchasing patterns. Although it's not related directly to B2B sales, I believe this case shows the potential AR has in complex data visualization both for internal use and for presenting your value proposition.
Recently, researchers from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) released a paper suggesting that immersive data visualization surpassed the desktop-based 3D plots in an experiment. The users presented with immersive (AR) visualization showed a deeper understanding of the information than those who were looking at models on the flat screen. Results like these may indicate that sooner or later we'll need to reconsider the way we share statistical insights into our businesses.
AR Challenges To Overcome
Like any technology, augmented reality requires a significant initial investment, so it's vital to be aware of possible pitfalls before rushing to design an AR solution for sales purposes.
First, to create a high-quality AR experience, I've found that you need very good hardware that's specifically designed for AR support. Additionally, your image processing speed should be high enough so that the image doesn't freeze or lag behind and looks as natural as possible. If you use your own hardware, this will mean an additional investment in AR screens or glasses, which might be unprofitable. If you rely on the devices of your potential customers, you may lose some of them if their devices aren't ready for your overly innovative presentation.
Another potential pitfall lies in too-high anticipations often associated with this technology. We've all heard too much about the immersive and innovative features of augmented reality. (In fact, even this article wasn't immune to it.) This hype can create exaggerated expectations, which one USA Today writer suggested could lead to disappointment if the actual experience isn't as smooth and engaging as it's supposed to be.
Still, I expect that developers can gradually overcome these challenges as technology development and AR hype transform into AR awareness.
AR Solutions For B2B Sales: What’s Next?
Augmented reality is becoming more common in both the B2B and business to consumer (B2C) sectors. Nevertheless, such apps’ implementation and user experience still need to be improved. I've seen companies try and fail to implement such technologies because the solutions were limited in functionality and had UX issues.
From my perspective, the early attempts to take advantage of AR neglected the benefits of machine learning. As a result, those solutions couldn’t recognize complex image elements or get the shade and light right. Today, machine learning capabilities are available in many open-source platforms that your developers can leverage, such as Google's ARCore, ApertusVR by MTA SZTAKI or ARToolKit. So, I'm sure that in the near future, developers working with AR can improve their approach to AR-powered solutions, combine them with other technologies and make the user experience smoother.
