Try Before You Buy.
The opportunity to test something before you purchase.
Whether it be a new TV in Currys, a new phone in Carphone Warehouse or a sound system in John Lewis, we are immediately drawn in and want to experience the product before we spend hard earnt money.
We just love the opportunity to play with the technology and will generally shop around anyway!
If you do that for personal purchases, do you do it for business purchases too? Or do you have full faith in absolutely everything that people sell you and simply live with it if it isn’t perfect? Whilst the faith may be admirable, suppliers are generally only with you for part of your buying process and don’t need to work with it day in, day out.
The Cisco Global Hybrid Workplace Survey 2022 states a staggering 77.9% of senior staff rate good technology and support as a critical success driver in hybrid working, which in itself has become the norm for most businesses.
That is a huge number of people depending on technology to deliver their business. In round figures obtained by the Office For National Statistics in 2021, 3.5 MILLION people describe their job as manager, director or senior official. That’s a total of 2,726,500 rating technology and support as a critical success driver to their business. And that’s just management! I’d hate to run the numbers for ALL staff across England.
So the question still remains, how can YOU be ABSOLUTELY sure that the technology you purchase is right for you if you don’t see it first?
Most technology is bought from either a line item on a quote or an image on a website, not from actually experiencing it. I’d like to share two stories that show the power of a demonstration.
A client in the insurance industry had recently purchased multiple rooms of AV prior to speaking with us. They gave a brief to their supplier, were given a quote which got given the go ahead and they spent upwards of £60,000 on BYOD video conferencing equipment. Trouble is, the system they ultimately ended up with came with too many cables and, to start with, the incorrect connections! Their laptops required USB C, not USB A and this is not an uncommon mistake to make.
Another client that we have supported on behalf of a partner works in the food manufacturing industry. They were beginning a major refurbishment project (including removing the VGA and component connections in the Boardroom) and originally had a make-shift video conferencing set up. They wanted to upgrade across all of their sites which meant they wanted to create a consistent experience for their users. They weren’t impressed with their original demo system that they had crudely fitted themselves so, armed with several devices, we provided an on-site demo. The client did some test calls with different hardware, testing different meeting room scenarios and exploring the different user experiences before committing to spending over £20,000 on a system that they had faith in. They also had senior decision makers in the business join the calls and visit the room to see the kit in person which helped speed the process up for them internally.
Since the equipment has been so well received, they are implementing a staged installation of the same system throughout the entire of their business with complete faith and confidence in the technology.
It isn’t uncommon for senior leaders to come view the systems during a demonstration because they are just as intrigued to see what they will be signing off on. From experiences, decisions are made far quicker when everybody gets to explore the equipment for themselves.
There are some restrictions however. Custom programming and cabling systems are usually only able to be experienced in a dedicated environment and not every system can be demonstrated easily. Imagine trying to drag an LED wall up 6 flights of stairs and installed in your Town hall space!
Most manufacturers will have a demonstration space somewhere around the country where you can see and experience the products yourself. They will take the time to show you exactly how the systems work and you get to understand how they look and function in the flesh. But sometimes you might be concerned about YOUR specific environment.
Demonstrations of many products can take place at your site and can be left for users to trial for a short period as well. Imagine not being sure which system to spend your money on, having three or four (or more meetings) going back and forth with members of the team and being able to say ‘right, let’s get a Poly X52 in meeting room one and a Logitech Rally bar in Meeting Room two and see which one users get on best with’.
That is so powerful.
You can get real life test scenarios underway.
Senior decision makers can test it too and make an instant decision.
As a partner delivering to an end-user, it demonstrates your commitment to your client that you want it get it right for them, not just cross your fingers and wait for the support calls to come in.
As an end-user, you become fully confident in delivering the RIGHT product across your entire business. Or confident in the single room that you deploy, project size doesn’t matter.
With such a powerful opportunity, how do you get in on the action?
MPAV Limited would like to extend two invitations to you.
- We would love to invite you to a demonstration centre with leading technology providers to experience meeting room technology in all of its glory. Where possible, we would also love to extend an invitation to demonstrate systems within your environment.
- We would love to extend a 10% off ALL equipment following a demo when purchasing with us.
You can get instant reactions from decisions makers.
You can make sure that systems are right for your, or your clients, end users.
You can to play with technology (time depends on how much you want to skive!).
You can SAVE money at the end of it all.
How do you take advantage of this and get ahead of everybody else still struggling with systems they bought from a line on a quote?
Simple. You can contact us via email or book in a short discussion here, mentioning that you have read the blog and can tell us which Poly model has been mentioned above.
We will then have a chat with you to discuss your project, discover what you are trying to achieve and how we can provide the most valuable demo to you and your business.
It really couldn’t be easier!
