ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT VISUAL PRODUCT CONFIGURATORS!

However smart a shopper you might have been, you have been duped at least once in your life, and this is something that you can’t deny. No no, we are in no way laughing at your lack of understanding for a particular product but are a little bothered by how customers still get duped today.

There are a lot of those ugly memories when you purchased from a website. Now, this purchase involved product visuals too, where you had an idea about how your product will physically look like. Or, you thought you had an idea. The final product you received was far different from what you thought would be delivered.

This is exactly where buyer’s remorse kicks in. There is frustration and a lot of disappointment to back that frustration up as well. 

You purchased a single product and got disappointed? Give thought to businesses then, where this disappointment tends to explode in magnitude because the purchases are in bulk, and also have a degree of customization as well. 

This is where a visual product configurator proves to be a game-changer as a tool that makes the purchase and sale of complex products a breeze.

What is Visual Product Configuration?

In the simplest of terms, visual product configuration is product customization, where a product is specially designed for customers to meet their requirements. A product configuration tool is an inclusion within the CPQ software, allowing customers and sales reps to have flexibility where they can configure products on their own.

For any manufacturing business, product ordering a pretty complex process, for both- the customers as well as the sales team. Problems only become more of a threat when the products on offer are complex and have a lot of customizations available. 

Through product configurators, a majority of persistent issues get sorted, but several companies still feel that the CPQ tools they use are not as hassle-free in functionality as they would have liked.

To make matters a little more difficult, some manufacturers feel that a CPQ solution makes the entire order process more complicated with added input fields like questions and even quotes.

Everything is taken into consideration, if there is one CPQ solution that makes things easier, it has to be a visual configurator. The technology of visual configurators enables customers to have a proper view of their selected product, leading to increased customer satisfaction, better sales performance, accurate orders, and so much more!

Visual Configurators- The Types

As far as the types go, there are four types of product configurator software. Here they are-

1- 2D Configurators 

A 2D product configurator gives out an image that’s 2D in nature. In other words, images turn out flat in this kind of configurator. Yes, certain parts can be customized, but there won’t be a 360-degree view of the product available to a customer.

2D configurator is a great choice if, as a manufacturer, you are wound tight by budget but still wish to avail yourself the benefits of a visual configurator like real-time updates, better-placed orders. For the customers, the ordering experience will be a pretty simple and intuitive one. 

2- 3D Configurators

3D configurators take the intuitive experience to the next level, by employing a highly responsive design that makes shopping a pretty immersive experience for every single user. Such a configurator allows shoppers to rotate the products and get that depth-oriented view that is missed in a 2D product configurator.

All the customizable parts can be edited in real-time. The more complex products a manufacturer has, the higher will be the relevance of a 3D product configurator software up to its sleeve.

3- Virtual Reality Configurators

This one’s a pretty advanced configurator in terms of technology, where there is no dependence on renderings and images, but instead, a highly immersive experience that allows users to explore and interact with a product in a simulated environment, after which they can confirm their design before ordering.

It’s cutting-edge, and VR presents a whole new opportunity for customers to interact with their product, giving them a pretty novel configuration power.

4- Augmented Reality Configurators

AR configurators deliver a big boost to the overall configuration process, where users can take a virtual rendering of products and place them in real environments. To understand such a configurator, Apple’s LiDar scanner is a pretty trendy instance. 

The products in such a configurator are true to their specifications, allowing for better decision-making regarding the purchase. 

Visual Configurators and the CPQ Revolution

Be it a Salesforce product configurator or any other specific configuration software, an effective CPQ and product configuration strategy contributes to some dominant areas in business. 

Listed below are some of the ways through which visual configurators are making their presence felt in core business areas-

• Better and More Effective Sales on Multiple Sales Channels

The most sophisticated configurators are boost sales cycles, cut down customer bounces, and also enhance the sizes of deals as every customer knows exactly what they will be getting. The same thing also bodes well in reducing the return or exchange of online orders. 

• Streamlining Sales & Engineering, Leading to Better Quotes

The right visual product configurator fosters an environment of better collaboration across multiple departments, that include sales and engineering. Things work in high sync, which brings a dramatic reduction in errors, boosting sales productivity. 

• Improved Configuration Options with Better Technology

It’s a walk in the park for visual configurators to update exactly how dynamic and efficient a certain product is. Manufacturers can work on customer feedback with visual configurators to develop an understanding of what customers think of their products.

There are a lot of things that make visual product configurator a bet that will give nothing but gains. As a manufacturer of complex products, you will never go wrong with a cutting-edge tool like KBMax. Disappointment won’t be an option.