Iglucraft sells tiny houses and saunas in a virtual showroom
In the early summer of 2022, Iglucraft's sales team launched a game-changing solution in the world of customer relations, allowing to sell tiny houses and saunas more successfully and in a more customer-friendly fashion worldwide. "The solution, developed in cooperation with AVAR Agency and with the support of EAS (Enterprise Estonia), has already been positively received by many customers. The initial three-month launch period has shown that the new solution has brought thousands of visits to our virtual showroom as well as website, and new sales of saunas and huts," Villu Valm, Sales Director of Iglucraft, revealed.
This new solution, the like of which has so far only been used in Estonia in the field of selling new real estate developments, works on three levels: a 3D view of the products, a virtual showroom on the website, and a virtual reality experience through 3D glasses.
The Virtual Showroom application on the website allows the customer, by filling out a contact form, to enter an Iglupark, a village made of Iglucraft products, whilst in the middle of nature. In the setting one can familiarise with Iglucraft huts, saunas and offices - inside and out, as well as get a perfect idea of their actual dimensions and additional aspects. The experience can be found on Iglucraft's website at: https://showroom.iglucraft.com/
"Commonly, the customer is not able to comprehend what the feeling is really like inside the product, simply looking at a photo or a video, nor is it easy to translate the dimensions in the way we wish. We still come across situations where we have shared photos, videos, and drawings with the client, but once the client enters the house in person, they are surprised to find that everything is much more spacious than they had imagined," says Valm.
The third feature, 3D glasses, allows Iglucraft's sales team to take all the products with them to the other side of the world. "Our sales managers go to customer meetings all over Europe, and as of this year, also in the US. Based on our experience, we can say that as the customer has a better understanding of the product, the sales cycle is shorter, and the need to invite the customer to Iglupark in Estonia to see the products is reduced," added Valm.
While the showroom app on the website helps to reach new leads, the 3D glasses and the reality experienced there makes it easier to close sales. Without exception, the 3D experience has brought out a powerful emotion in everyone. As this is a new solution in our industry, most of the time, this encounter is also our customers' first virtual reality experience of their lifetime. This excitement and the wow-effect are powerful ice-breakers and make contact with the potential client much more casual, yet stronger.
Another advantage of using the virtual showroom as a sales tool is that it enables to sell interior design that will not yet be ready, for example, for another six months. Solutions created in collaboration with a designer can be made visible to the customer today, even though production has the capacity to produce the solution at a later time. So, sales-wise, we are virtually ahead of time.
In addition to sales, the virtual showroom is an indispensable and innovative marketing tool. "If it seems like you are hitting a wall at any point, it's not the case. The more the privacy settings of different phone operating systems inhibit advertising on social media platforms, the more necessary new clever solutions are to generate leads. A new platform is a solution for the coming years to help engage in a dialogue with important contacts, regardless of what is happening in the operating system landscape. It will also be possible to measure customer behaviour and interest in different products in the 'back room' of the showroom, which is also a new and exciting addition, in the views of marketing and product development."
