The VFF Marketing and Sales Conference launched by the VFF Verband Fenster + Fassade (Window + Façade Association) on 8 November 2022 in Frankfurt was held under the motto "Selling more successfully" and offered participants many exciting presentations – including one on the topic of "How smart sales creates customer experience and added value in the window industry“. Speaker Karl-Theo Roes, founder and CEO of fenzta COM GmbH, sees a great need for action in overriding future topics such as digitalisation and thus shares the opinion of many industry representatives. Various participants who attended the event in the Schüco Showroom in the Next Tower in Frankfurt comment on the topic:
"The VFF conference has once again confirmed that there are some key topics that concern the industry – including, above all, visual digitalisation. Especially for us as a supplier of products that are invisible in the window when installed, this topic plays a very important role. Because: In case of doubt, the end customer decides to invest in the appearance of the window rather than in the hardware and thus perhaps attractive functionalities. It is therefore all the more important to provide more transparency here by means of moving pictures, VR or AR. But we have also met a need in the dialogue with our direct fabricator customers with a digital product presentation tailored to the target group. In addition to the use for direct consultation, we recognise further possibilities in the contribution that this tool can also make for downstream sales levels or the employees of our partners and have received consistently positive feedback for this. Since we ourselves are continuously working on digital solutions to bring the advantages of our products closer to all players, it is exciting to see that other market participants also see the need for developments in this direction – after all, everyone benefits when the industry pushes these technologies forward and mutual inspiration arises," says Katja Schreiber, Head of Marketing Communication at SIEGENIA.
Frank Lange, Managing Director of the VFF Verband Fenster + Fassade (Window + Façade Association), also sees a need: "It is impossible to imagine the window industry without digital solutions. Well animated and technically implemented solutions - of which the fenzta HOME app is clearly one - make many things easier and more cost-effective to experience. I think the vision of visualising windows in buildings and thereby creating a customer experience is a great thing. I'm looking forward to further developments and could well imagine, for example, that in the future government subsidy measures or a kind of analysis function that shows the end customer when it's worth replacing old windows will also be integrated into such digital solutions."
Showroom of the future
With an upcoming generation of digital natives, it is important to rethink sales. For example, future advice to architects and builders will become more digital, which is why some companies have already developed their own tools to counteract this. The fact is that anyone who wants to remain competitive in the future must offer digital tools for all phases – from design to execution and operation to deconstruction in terms of the circular economy. In combination with the fenzta HOME app, there are exciting synergies for the future that can raise the customer experience to a whole new level.
As a kind of 'showroom in your pocket', the aim of the app is to combine virtual and real impressions in the most reasonable way possible. Often suppliers do not have their own showroom or do not have the opportunity to display all elements – this is where the fenzta HOME app, as a digital extension of the showroom, is intended to offer suppliers concrete added value. Although the haptics offered by the showroom cannot be completely replaced by digital tools, the smart solution can in turn create additional inspiration on the customer side – for example, by allowing the customer to experience the window in their own four walls via augmented reality.
Digital solutions for the entire value chain
"In many areas of daily life, the trend is increasingly towards worlds of experience – whether analogue or virtual. This also applies to the purchase of a sun shading system. Visualisations therefore play a strong role in our consulting. Digital solutions in particular are becoming more and more sophisticated and offer us great opportunities to give our customers an understanding of the customised WAREMA products and their wide range of variants," says Dominik Frauenhofer, Head of Target Group Management at WAREMA Renkhoff SE.
The fact that the fenzta HOME app is not just limited to the profile or glass, but as an overall solution includes all potential suppliers that cover components of a window, is the core idea of the digital platform that connects end customers and suppliers. For example, manufacturers of hardware, sun protection, aluminium shells, automation or safety technology, but also paints, foils or handles have the opportunity to make their products visible and tangible in augmented reality.
Arvid Bürkle, Team Lead Product Management at GEZE, also sees further potential areas of development in the preparation of data for architects and planners: "Samples, trade fairs and showrooms are very expensive and do not show any customised solutions. The fenzta app, on the other hand, works in a customer-oriented way – and in two simple steps, the customer can already visualise his desired window in augmented reality. Especially for our products, a visualisation of the overall solution in AR is of course exciting. Another advantage would also be the direct generation of tender texts and BIM objects that the planner can use. As soon as the interfaces in an app function perfectly, human mistakes – which can sometimes occur, for example, when data is forwarded from the field to the office or manually entered into the ERP system – might not even happen to creep in. Therefore, it makes sense in any case to digitalise the quotation process as best as possible".
