Packaging

Virtual showrooms: Customer dialogue rethought

Wednesday 03. June 2020 - Particularly in times when it is difficult for companies and customers to talk to each other personally, digital solutions that enable simple, location-independent, and direct exchange are more in demand than ever. With its new range of virtual showrooms, Minebea Intec is offering a digital consulting point for interested parties, thus demonstrating that the company not only has decades of expertise in weighing and inspection technology but also responds to the current crisis and the challenges it poses in the interests of the customer with innovative offers.

Digital solutions have always been interesting, but in the face of the corona pandemic, they are inevitable. Minebea Intec now offers the ideal digital point of entry with their virtual showrooms for entry-level advice on products and solutions: Via an online video conference, interested parties have the opportunity to ask experts, have products demonstrated live and get the best solution for their individual requirements. “With the virtual showrooms we have created a completely new digital format for our customers and partners: For the first time in our market environment, we are offering the possibility to have a virtual product presentation live, and online, and to clarify all questions with the experts – as if they were directly on site. Completely independent of an event, but as a standard offer for customers, partners and interested parties”, Willy-Sebastian Metzger, Director Strategy, Business Development and Marketing of Minebea Intec, points out.
Virtual showrooms enable digital communication between interested parties and experts
In the showrooms, all available digital communication media are used: Experts from the fields of container and silo weighing, industrial scales, foreign object detection and checkweighing are connected to the participants via video link and have products and information material directly at hand. High-resolution cameras ensure that the product, as well as individual features, can be inspected in all details.
To support the product presentation, the experts use the insertion of information material, such as data sheets, and send them directly to the participant on request. In order to prepare the online meeting in the best possible way, interested parties can communicate their questions and wishes when booking the appointment: It is not only since the Corona crisis that Minebea Intec has focused on the customer and his requirements and wishes.
The dates can be booked on the company website for the desired time and in several languages: Currently, interested parties can secure a free appointment with experts at the production sites in Germany (Hamburg, Aachen, Bovenden near Göttingen) and at the international sites in Birmingham, UK and Bangkok. The range of services is being continuously expanded, and further showrooms are planned in the USA and India to cover all time zones regionally and linguistically.
Digital concepts: an elementary component of corporate communications
However, the new virtual showrooms are only one part of the digital package from which customers, partners and interested parties benefit. Because there are numerous other practical online offers.
The Minebea Intec Academy, for example, offers online training courses in which expert knowledge is made tangible for the user. Questions about applications, products and solutions are dealt with as well as the optimal use of load cells, industrial scales or inspection equipment.
Just as with consulting in the virtual showrooms, Minebea Intec is also available to its customers in digital form in the event of a service case. With the augmented reality service app miRemote, support comes easy, direct and independent of location. The app establishes a video connection between the customer and service e.g. with a smartphone. The service expert can thus see live what the user has in front of him and can help the customer to solve the problem himself by using signs or gestures within the app as well as supporting informations.
“Digital has long been at the top of our list, and we had already invested a lot in our digital offerings. However, the Covid 19 pandemic has added a whole new dimension which has greatly accelerated the process of digitalisation in our country. We hope that this will now benefit our customers, partners and also interested parties and help them to find the right solutions for their needs. The initial feedback from the market regarding the Virtual Showrooms has already been very positive. We are now building on this and will continue to optimise and expand the range of products,” concludes Willy-Sebastian Metzger.