The Lowdown
As part of its service offering, German energy giant E.On scopes out and installs boilers and charging units for its business clients, but its sales process had undergone relatively little evolution over the years.
With field staff expected to measure up and scope out new boiler installations and communicate these back to head office, often in the form of written paperwork, there was plenty of room for error.
The Problem
Connecting field staff with back-office and sales teams is difficult in any industry and the utility sector is no different.
Not only that, in E.On specific case, customers often struggled to visualise how a boiler or charging unit might look in their work environment.
They needed a technical solution that solved both of these problems in a simple and elegant way that could be rolled out across their sales teams.
The Solution
E.On spotted a gap in the process for a technology solution that would drastically increase efficiency and customer satisfaction, and they approached hedgehog lab to help them create it.
Following a two-day workshop at E.On’s Essen headquarters, we identified that an augmented reality (AR) platform would mitigate the challenges faced by their sales team and act as an immersive sales pitch to provide customers with dynamic visuals in the field.
By providing their sales team with a recordable and visual record of the proposed installation, the enterprise AR app would boost stakeholder engagement and improve the sales process as a result.
The Product
Developed with E.On’s current hardware solution in mind, we designed and built a bespoke enterprise AR app for iPad to transform their commercial boiler and charging unit sales process.
Utilising the new app, their sales team could now visualise instantly how one of their products would look in situ, allowing customers to experiment with potential placement and removing one of the biggest barriers to closing a sale.
The app also boasts screen recording functionality and integrated email, allowing sales leads to seamlessly provide customers with AR visuals from the app and to provide guidance for head office to support installation.
