Businesses are changing rapidly day by day by embracing various technological innovations. These innovations are making it possible for customers to experience as well as envision a product personally without being present physically. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are 2 powerful technologies capable of making a huge impact on industries.
By integrating VR and AR technologies into businesses, business executives are virtually changing the ways through which people experience purchases, building, buying and selling.
So is it basically the future? We’ll see to that in this article.
Applications of VR in businesses
Although the use of VR in businesses is still in its infancy, the potentials of this technology are immense. Let’s go through a few.
Business prototyping can be taken to the next level
Companies who deal specifically in products will be able to use VR to envision the prototypes in a way that was never seen before. This will provide them with significant insight into the products that can bring in valuable feedback at the earliest stage of manufacturing.
Real-estate industries might be able to revolutionize the ways of purchasing and selling properties
Real estate businesses can successfully use virtual reality to help their potential customers envision as well as tour properties and homes digitally from anywhere in the world.
The customers just have to wear a VR headset and then they will be able to tour a lifelike simulation of a property as if they are there on the very spot. This is an avant-garde feature; there’s no doubt about it and your customers would love it for sure. The entire experience would be nothing less than a fairy-tale.
Some VR 3D mobile apps provide a few more advanced features. In such cases, customers would be able to open doors, explore various property amenities, rearrange furniture, and do many more things with a simple touch of their fingers.
Curbing geographical barriers
The main benefit of VR is that it removes the geographical barriers faced by businesses while displaying their wares.
Your customer can be anywhere in the world. But s/he can still explore your wares with the simple use of a smartphone and a VR headset.
All hands meeting are going to be a piece of cake with the use of VR
At times, organizing an “all hands meeting” becomes pretty difficult, especially when certain people work from home, are on certain business trips or are just not around on that specific day. VR can make the task easier by bringing all people together in a jiffy.
You might be on a trip to America but all you’ll need to tap into the meeting is a pair of VR goggles. Simple and convenient; isn’t it?
Applications of AR in businesses
Augmented reality is a little bit different than virtual reality where it offers several graphical enhancements to the real environment. Unlike VR, it doesn’t create an entire environment of its own. AR also has several avant-garde potentials in the business realms. Let’s go through a few.
Interactive training
AR creates an interactive as well as immersive learning platform. Training employees through such a platform is far more effective than typical class room lectures or simple learning instructions.
AR can bring print materials to life thereby, making it more interactive
Augmented reality can be used by real estate businesses to bring conventional, flat print materials like blueprints, plans as well as photos to life. And the best thing is that all these things can happen right in front of a customer irrespective of any geographical boundaries.
A simple scenario can clear this thing up.
Like for example, by using augmented reality, a real estate executive will be able to pop up a three-dimensional model of a property or a home that is fully interactive.
The three-dimensional model generated through augmented reality is almost similar to that of a hologram. But it also supports a handful of extra features where a client will be able to modify various features of the generated model home such as paint colors, try a different piece of furniture and do virtually anything s/he wants.
AR can provide businesses with high ROI (return on investment)
The ability for customers to interact with 3-dimensional models has proven to be a great return on investment for businesses. Certain AR software has a form of analytics backend which allows product-based businesses to see where, when and how often people are using their AR campaigns.
So you see that augmented reality produces an enhanced as well as rich personal experience to potential customers. The entire buying experience becomes very gratifying from the point of view of the customer which increases the ROI chances from the point of view of the business.
Is AR/VR the future?
The answer to this question seems more obvious with the benefits of these technologies highlighted above.
The use of augmented and virtual reality in businesses can definitely provide customers with a rich user experience which turns out to be pretty gratifying from the point of view of the user. So is it really the future? Absolutely, it is.