5 ways to enhance customer experience with AR & VR

Consumers have very high expectations of their brands at every touchpoint, and these expectations have grown rapidly in the past few years. A large part of this is the acceleration of online buying, ushered in by the pandemic, forcing businesses to invest heavily in digital transformation.

Additionally, Big Tech has revolutionized the AR and VR space, igniting consumer enthusiasm and further bolstering the ecosystem. Altogether, these advances are driving the evolution of immersive customer experiences at breakneck speed.

Due to all of these major changes, it’s clear that companies need to create better experiences to build and sustain meaningful and lucrative customer engagement.

Meeting customer expectations

Today, as more customers buy goods online, the shopping experience often falls short of their expectations. While 75% of Fortune 500 companies accelerated their technology transformation in light of COVID-19, those businesses that still rely on traditional e-commerce frameworks, with static 2D visuals and rudimentary configuration tools, fail to capture consumer attention and loyalty.

As this realization grows, retailers and brands are increasingly looking to immersive and personalized experiences to help stand out and deepen connections with consumers. They must seek innovative solutions that can drive engagement, conversion, and sustained profitability. In retail, for example, AR experiences have proven to boost sales significantly by improving purchase confidence through placing items in real-life environments and allowing closer inspection in 3D.

AR spending by retailers is expected to reach $60B by 2023*. The majority of customers now start their shopping with online research; in the automotive industry, over 80% of new-car customers now begin their journey online. Brands first compete digitally by providing interactive and immersive experiences: Using AR to place a new car in your driveway or a virtual couch in your living room, exploring a new factory layout in virtual reality before any physical construction begins, or even visualizing complex surgical procedures using VR and 3D modeling. Some brands, like Don Julio Tequila, even go as far as transporting their audiences to a whole other (virtual) destination to experience the magic behind the product. These digital experiences are transforming industries, providing interactive and immersive engagements for users and paving the way for a digital-first competitive landscape.

Beyond B2C, nearly two-thirds (65%) of B2B companies across industry sectors now offer e-commerce capabilities. XR applications are emerging as a valuable marketing tool for brands to drive purchases, improve shopper confidence and conversion, and enable brand storytelling.

*Harbor Research, RT3D E-Commerce (2021)

What are the main challenges faced by businesses?

With customers expecting more during the purchase cycle, they need to trust that what they’re seeing is what they’re buying. With this comes a variety of challenges. For example:

• Presenting complex and high-variation products: Businesses find it hard to showcase complex or detailed products effectively, while also managing a wide array of product variants. Whether it’s large-scale items like vehicles, unique high-end products, or items with numerous configurations, compellingly presenting these products can be difficult, particularly when consumers expect a deeper understanding and connection with the products they intend to purchase.
• Engagement and interactivity: There is also a pressing need to enhance the shopping experience, both online and in physical stores, to be more engaging and interactive. Consumers increasingly seek immersive experiences that allow them to explore products in-depth, and visualize customization options in order to make informed purchasing decisions. In fact, 90% of B2B buyers would turn to a competitor if a supplier’s digital channel couldn’t keep up with their needs. Since failure to meet customer expectations can lead to high levels of dissatisfaction and attrition, it is important for businesses to regularly innovate their online presence to remain competitive and retain their customer base.
• Escalating product return rates: If a product fails to meet a customer’s expectations due to misleading product imagery, or static photography that doesn’t capture every angle, this not only increases product return rates and operational costs but also erodes brand reputation and customer loyalty.
• Extended lead times: Reliance on physical photoshoots for marketing content production is not only costly but also inefficient. With the need for repeated photoshoots with each product refresh, businesses face significant delays and resource allocation challenges, hindering agility and competitiveness in the market.

The potential of AR and VR

The demand from consumers has built a need for seamless, immersive, and personalized interactions across all platforms in the digital journey. Companies are also awakening to the profound impact of 3D product views, which have been shown to generate 50% more engagement compared to static imagery. By utilizing tools that build XR experiences, businesses can elevate engagement, conversion rates, and brand storytelling to drive increased revenue for many different scenarios, from virtual try-ons and virtual showrooms to virtual photography and more. Here’s how:

• Increased conversion rates and improved customer satisfaction and loyalty: AR and VR experiences boost commerce strategies by helping bridge the gap between online and offline shopping. Engagement and sales improve when brands allow consumers to interact with and configure products on their online shopping platforms, available across any device. One of the most significant advantages of adopting XR technology is its potential to boost revenue: 94% of customers are more likely to purchase a product that is advertised with 3D or AR content.
• Efficiency and cost savings: Companies can accelerate time to market and reduce marketing content production costs with virtual asset creation for building AR and VR experiences. They can achieve cost efficiencies by streamlining product visualization, reducing the cost associated with traditional methods for visual content creation, and reducing the need for physical prototypes.
• Competitive advantage: In a crowded market, differentiation is key to standing out. XR technology allows businesses to create unique and immersive experiences that captivate customers’ attention. For example, when Bosch Rexroth created a virtual showroom for the display of their large Industrial products, they saw their customer engagement double, as compared to in-person diplays.. By offering interactive product configurators and virtual showrooms, companies can differentiate themselves and create a lasting impression on consumers.

How businesses in different industries are improving customer experiences with AR and VR

Automotive | Audi

Audi is renowned for its innovative automotive design and progressive technology. To showcase the Q6 e-tron, Audi developed a fully immersive virtual exhibit, integrating real-time car visualizations with advanced AR/VR capabilities. The fully immersive space combined complex technology with multimedia content, demonstrating the Audi Q6 e-tron’s technological innovation to journalists, content creators, and other media representatives. With the Apple Vision Pro, the audience was able to view every detail of the car’s exterior, down to its rear electric motor’s oil cooling circuit, in real-time. By letting them experience the car spatially and immersively, Audi not only helped them easily visualize and understand the complexities of the product, but also reflected their commitment to driving innovation in a highly competitive industry.

Manufacturing | Bosch

Bosch Rexroth built a virtual showroom that enables the exploration and display of large industrial products without the challenges of conventional real-world demonstrations. Their VR application provides a better sales experience and moves away from 2D sales enablement materials; sales teams can demonstrate the finer details of each product, by employing virtual product teardowns. To reproduce such demonstrations in real life would take hours of disassembly and reassembly. In the virtual showroom, it takes less than 30 seconds. The interactive nature of the experience allows for greater customer involvement compared to more conventional methods such as presentations, ultimately creating deeper engagement with their customers.

Healthcare | Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has adopted immersive training methods and they’re realizing multiple benefits. For example, their surgeons are enabled to quickly create and utilize 3D models for urgent medical procedures; they have virtual environments allowing patients to engage in their own healthcare, and discuss side by side with their surgeon, helping to plan out what their operation is going to be. All of these allow them to share insights and plan surgeries with a level of patient and doctor interaction that was previously impossible.

Food and beverage | Tequila Don Julio

Diageo is boosting sales with XR by building experiences that deepen the customer connection with their brand. The first beverage brand to build with Apple Vision Pro, they created an experience to showcase the rich legacy, craft, and culture of Don Julio tequila in an immersive, engaging way.

5 ways to enhance customer experience with AR & VR

While AR and VR technology has the potential to transform how businesses engage with their audiences, it is imperative to get those experiences right. Here are five ways in which AR and VR can help you enhance customer experience.

1. Increase visual engagement with photorealistic quality

With the fierce competition to market better online, a brand’s ability to captivate and engage customers through AR and VR experiences can provide an edge. You need technology that offers a blend of interactivity and visual fidelity that can streamline the pipeline of marketing content creation into an efficient process that produces scalable, photorealistic, high-definition assets – and brings your products to life in your XR environment.

Doing it right:

• Use your own 3D CAD data, converted to photorealistic, high-definition assets: You should be able to use your existing tools to get complex 3D CAD models ready for immersive applications. This ensures that you do not compromise visual quality or performance on any platform – like with Pixyz’s advanced algorithms and best-in-class polygonal tessellation and decimation tools. Such assets – which you own and manage – will be central to your immersive experience, helping to increase product understanding and drive engagement.
• Optimize your 3D model for its intended purpose: Whether you need high-quality rendering for product components in a marketing video or rapid response times in a sales configurator, your tool should bring the flexibility to meet diverse use case needs. This adaptability will allow you to fine-tune your asset creation process, ensuring that each 3D model serves its intended purpose perfectly, from enhancing online product configurators to enriching virtual reality experiences.
• Streamline 3D content creation for expanding realities: The ability to quickly adapt and refresh content is key to maintaining engagement and relevance in a fast-evolving digital landscape. Automated asset creation workflows can help increase efficiency by optimizing the data conversion pipeline to swiftly produce and update assets. By minimizing manual effort, companies can repeatedly produce fresh and compelling immersive experiences.

2. Build a personal connection by offering personalized experiences

Cultivating a connection between the customer and the product has become more important than ever. Luxury brands, such as high-end luggage manufacturer Globe-Trotter, understand that creating an emotional connection through customization and interactivity is more likely to lead to repeat buyers and foster customer loyalty. In fact, 40% of consumers reported that they had purchased something more expensive than originally planned when their experience was personalized.

Doing it right:

• Provide a customized product experience: Businesses can let their customers truly interact with their products using immersive experience apps, allowing them to add their own personal touches to virtual versions of the products. For instance, imagine a furniture store where customers can change the color, material, or size of a sofa or a table, and see if it fits well within their own virtual home space. Luxury leather goods maker Camille Fournet created an interactive 3D product configurator to allow buyers to customize their watch straps, increasing consumer engagement and sales. Not only do experiences like these make the customer part of the creative process, they also help them create a deeper emotional bond with their unique product.
• Create a sense of ownership prepurchase: By giving customers the power to personalize their experience and interact with a product in their own way, businesses can create a strong sense of ownership even before the customer makes a purchase. This turns customers into fans of the product, who feel a connection to it and are more likely to buy. For example, enabling customers to build their dream motorcycle or bicycle from scratch, by selecting components and colors, and then letting them visualize it in their garage, can turn them into immediate customers and passionate advocates for the brand – potentially sharing their unique design and configurator experience with family, friends, and followers.

3. Go beyond the screen, offering interactivity and immersion in the digital world

Creative ways of getting customers to interact with products can be a big differentiator. From interactive showcases, hands-on demos, or immersive virtual reality experiences, businesses can change the way customers engage with their brands, deepening the connection between them.

Doing it right:

• Craft experiences that closely mimic real-life interactions with products: This enhances the user’s understanding and emotional connection they feel to the product. VR technology can transform static 2D images into dynamic experiences through immersive product showcases and virtual stores with 360-degree views. Businesses can build a personalized connection with users using real-time creation, editing, and iteration tools, turning every encounter into an opportunity for engagement and customer interaction.
• Seamless data integration for dynamic 3D experiences: With Unity, you can integrate your 3D experiences into your legacy systems to ensure product variants are always current. Plus, integrating them with database systems will keep your product metadata consistently synchronized. With a robust C#/.NET framework, the connection will allow for a seamless flow of information between your immersive platforms and legacy systems. Such integration facilitates real-time updates to product information, configurations, and customizations, enhancing the accuracy and personalization of digital consumer interactions.

4. Take your experiences anywhere, to any device

The experiences you build should be scalable across devices and geographies, enabling universal access, permission control, and engagement. You should also be able to easily update content globally, keeping experiences fresh and relevant.

Doing it right:

• Expand the reach of immersive experiences to any device: Your XR experiences should be available to customers regardless of how they access and consume them. Unity’s broad platform support (currently 20+) enables you to build once and deploy immersive experiences across a wide range of devices, from high-end workstations to mobile with minimal graphics capabilities. This capability is particularly attractive to companies wanting to reach potential customers on the latest XR platforms, like the Apple Vision Pro. Unity’s partnerships with many XR headset makers – plus our application samples, templates, and training – make real-world integration smooth and accelerate time to market.
• Enhance in-person interactions with tailored digital experiences: In the realm of high-touch, in-person customer encounters, the effective management and presentation of product options are critical to get right. A unified asset management platform like the Unity Asset Manager streamlines this process, serving as a single source for organizing, accessing, and showcasing digital content during these critical interaction moments.
• Worldwide engagement with instant updates: To keep your digital interactions fresh and engaging, you must be able to efficiently prototype, test, and deploy content updates globally without interrupting the user journey. Unity Cloud Content Delivery facilitates the rapid iteration of 3D content, keeping experiences captivating and in tune with user feedback by swiftly rolling out new models or updates to a worldwide audience.

5. Leverage customer feedback to continually improve

Immersive customer experiences are a great way for companies to solicit, understand, and incorporate feedback from their users. In real-time, businesses can see how people are using their products, what features they like, and where they can make improvements. Such direct input from the users’ experience enables the company to refine its products to better meet market demands, ensuring a competitive edge.

Doing it right:

• Recognize what’s missing to introduce new features: With immersive experiences, businesses can get real-time insight into how users use their products – actively soliciting user feedback helps identify desired features or functionality missing from their product offerings.
• Use interaction data to optimize user interfaces: User feedback offers insights into UI interactions and app functionality, enabling optimization for features and ease of use. For example, if people want more ways to customize their virtual car, the company can update its app to quickly add new options. This not only keeps user experiences up to date but also shows that they are listening and care about their clientele.
• Understand preferences to adjust content: Understanding customer values and preferences allows for the adjustment of content to serve their needs better. For manufacturers, adjusting content might mean providing more detailed product specifications or usage tutorials based on customer inquiries. This commitment to satisfaction fosters a deeper brand connection and encourages ongoing engagement across industries.

Why choose Unity?

Unity Industry is a comprehensive suite of products and services for developers to build custom experiences for AR and VR across industries such as automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, transportation, and more. Here’s how it can radically transform your business:

• Provides a robust, user-friendly 3D development platform that streamlines projects and workflows through fast iteration times, drag-and-drop functionality, and simplified animation, enabling you to easily create captivating, immersive experiences

• Unlocks the value of your 3D data by unifying diverse data sources into a single platform, transforming your existing 3D data into interactive, real-time experiences, and preserving its value throughout the entire lifecycle

• Helps you build to scale with your business by providing cross-platform support that enables you to build XR apps to reach leading devices such as Meta Quest, Apple iOS and visionOS, PlayStation®VR2, and OpenXR-powered headsets, to reach people wherever they are.

• Accelerates creation with expert partner advisors and on-demand training, making it easier to streamline development and speed time to market. As part of your Unity Industry subscription, Industry Success offers expert advice and extensive training, allowing your team to focus more on innovation and less on troubleshooting.

Start now with Unity Industry and empower your business to create the experiences of the future.