Use a 3D Product Configurator to Alleviate Purchase Anxiety and Boost Sales
B2B buyers across industries are experiencing a crisis of confidence when it comes to purchasing big-ticket items. They carry out their due diligence through extensive online research, but there’s just too much information out there — it’s a minefield.
Manufacturers have a responsibility to provide clear, concise product messaging to ease buyers’ passage through their customer journeys. Instead, they’re pumping out vast quantities of highly-detailed product information in an attempt to justify the technical superiority of their widget. This info-blob only leads to analysis paralysis. Buyers spend less, more slowly, and stick with existing suppliers, even if they’re unhappy with the service (better the devil you know.)
A 3D configurator lets manufacturers cut through the clutter and improve buyers’ decision-making ability. Buyers get a crystal-clear understanding of the most complex, customizable products without having to wade through reams of descriptive text and generic product images. Manufacturers need to stop “telling” buyers that their products are the best — they should “show” them! A 3D product configurator relieves pent-up purchase anxiety and boosts conversion rates by an average of 40%.
What Is a 3D product configurator?
A 3D product configurator is a powerful piece of software that makes configuring complex, customizable products quick and easy. From within a highly intuitive 3D interface, users can play around with colors, dimensions, parts, features, and more until they settle on a product configuration that perfectly suits their requirements, at a price that works.
Advanced logic (product rules) built into the software’s back-end ensures every configuration is optimized from an engineering and financial perspective. Mistakes are eradicated and everything’s validated upfront — much to the delight of engineers tired of dealing with amends and rework.
Product configurator software generates the best ROI when packaged as part of visual CPQ — a solution that combines product configuration with dynamic pricing and quote generation. With visual CPQ, once the configuration stage has been finalized, a price is automatically calculated, and users can instantly create sales docs such as quotes, proposals, and estimates at the touch of a button.
Some visual CPQ systems like KBMax enable the instant generation of engineering docs too. Technical drawings in CAD (SolidWorks, AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, and PTC Creo), BOMs, and CNC cut sheets can all be produced by non-technical users without any engineering department input.
CPQ clears engineering bottlenecks and cuts sales cycles down from weeks to minutes. It automates the most menial, time-consuming tasks, leaving engineers more time to innovate and sales reps more time to actually sell. Communication breakdowns and time-sapping back and forths between the customer, sales, and engineer become a thing of the past, removing the need for 20+ calls and emails to get a deal over the line.
A 3D product configurator can be used by a sales rep as an internal tool or embedded into an external website for independent use by end-customers. This embedded setup is ideal for today’s buyers who would rather self-serve from their chosen location, time, and device, than make one-on-one contact with a sales rep, whether in person or online.
How does a 3D product configurator reduce purchase anxiety and build confidence in prospects?
Uncertainty, ambiguity, and information-overload contribute to the kind of cognitive dissonance that prevents buyers from converting. To increase your win rate and deal size, you need to exploit your brief window of opportunity to educate buyers about your products in the most engaging way possible.
It just so happens that text is an incredibly inefficient information delivery system. 90% of all information transmitted to the brain is visual. To exert the most significant influence on buyers and convey the product information required to trigger a purchase response, you need to take a visual approach. And it doesn’t get much more “visual” than 3D. Or does it?
It does! Throw VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) into the mix, and you can dial the visual impact of your 3D product configurator up to 11. With VR, you can place prospects inside a simulated reality where they can interact with products as if they were right there. With AR, buyers can overlay 3D images of your products onto the “real world” as captured live by the screen of any device.
VR and AR are two Industry 4.0 technologies that are coming of age at exactly the right time — when COVID-19 and global high-speed internet access have normalized the concept of remote work. The traditional VR garb — chunky and uncomfortable headset, hot and sweaty gauntlets, wires all over the place — are being replaced by lighter, daintier gear. The global rollout of 5G is all that’s needed for VR and AR to become an integral feature of all custom product configurator software.
A 3D product configurator in the wild: Repligen.
Repligen is a Massachusetts-based life-sciences company that supplies materials used in the manufacture of biological drugs. The business, which is currently focused on fast-tracking COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccines, and diagnostics, is a prime example of how valuable a 3D product configurator can be in manufacturing technical, configurable goods.
One of Repligen’s flagship products — ProConnex® Flow Paths — is a configurable assembly that connects tangential flow filtration (TFF) systems to the bioprocessing workflow. Each assembly comprises 200 parts, including fittings, connections, process reservoirs, filters, pumps, and stands, making it an ideal candidate for 3D product configuration.
Repligen’s legacy configuration process required customers to communicate their assembly requirements through a mixture of written descriptions, pictures, and sketches, which engineers would design and configure manually. Drawings would then be picked apart, reviewed, and revised before a quote could be calculated and a proposal sent out. Repligen wanted to automate the most time-consuming sales and engineering tasks to reduce time-to-quote in a rapidly growing biotech industry.
Repligen implemented a 3D product configurator that enables non-technical sales reps to carry out the configuration process themselves, alongside the customer, without the need for any engineering input. Rather than build out every Flow Path assembly from scratch, reps can choose from a library of base configurations and standard options to produce a pre-built assembly that they can then customize in real-time. Product rules ensure every configuration is optimized for engineering and can be delivered successfully.
Once the configuration stage is complete, the sales rep can instantly generate a CAD drawing in two formats: a PDF to attach to the customer’s quote; and a Solidworks file that goes to engineering for any further validation or customization. They can also generate a Bill of Materials (BOM) with associated pricing details to assist with downstream production. It’s a fully scalable solution for a company in a rapidly expanding biotech industry.
Open source product configurator software is not an option right now.
Users of LibreOffice, Shotcut, Brave, GIMP, and Blender know that open source software can provide outstanding user experience at zero cost — a rare and highly desirable combo! Flexible and with no risk of predatory lock-in, any 3D product configurator open source solution would be worth careful consideration. Still, there’s no serious 3D product configurator software open source contender on the market or the horizon.
There are, however, several superb 3D product configurators available from SaaS vendors as part of visual CPQ. Vital features to look out for include: dynamic pricing, CAD and design automation; the ability to integrate with a wide range of other tools; a robust rules engine; and advanced data-driven analytics. Make sure you can tick all those boxes when you schedule a demo from your vendor of choice.
