What Are the Challenges of Zoom and Other 2D Programs
In the past year, platforms such as Zoom, Google Meets, and Slack have exponentially served remote sales teams and their processes. Sales development representatives face several challenges when working a remote sales job. Whether it’s trying to understand non-verbal communication with a client or frantically shushing a barking dog during the meeting, sales development representatives (SDR) have no choice but to adapt to the new remote environment.
Navigating a remote sales job has allowed SDRs to become more efficient, minimizing the time required for traveling and interacting on topics outside of work. But maybe those small, informal interactions that tend to happen during face-to-face communication is what we really need to hold each other accountable and stay disciplined on a sales team.
Global Sales & Success Enablement Manager at Continu, Bradford Jordan claims, “The majority of learning tools on the market are not built for sales and actually fall apart when used for sales audiences. Having separate tooling for L&D and Sales implicitly and explicitly creates a divide.” Sales development representatives are lacking a way to connect with their own sales team that enhances their work and incentivizes a welcoming and fun environment.
In a year when friends and co-workers have been relegated to small squares on a screen, how do we even attempt to recreate those special team interactions that keep us fueled?
What Is a Virtual Reality (VR) Sales Office
While the pandemic has caused a boom in online social spaces that attempt to replicate in-person interactions, especially for the purposes of replicating the in-person office environment, not all technologies are created equal. When managing a remote sales team, CEO of Sales Readiness Group, Norman Behar shares that, it is just as important (if not more) to focus on your teams’ underlying behavior to drive results as it is to focus on the results themselves.
Offices are spaces that tend to have a lot of activity going on at a given time. There’s a lot of people talking in groups, both big and small. Zoom and other video conferencing applications are great for replicating the big group conversations such as training, but not so great at replicating the one-on-one conversations that happen on the way to the break room.
To offset these challenges, it is essential to provide a 3D space where users can interact with others inside their web browser. Platforms that provide this experience, such as Mozilla Hubs, Topia, and countless others, have seen dramatic rises in their user counts over the past year.
Mozilla Hubs allows you to create a VR experience in which users can choose an avatar, roam around, and interact with others in a virtual office space. These platforms come close to replicating the in-person office environment thanks to several substantial features, such as spatial audio.
How to Add Value to Your Remote Sales Team with VR Office
Spatial audio sometimes referred to as 3D audio is the use of virtual sound sources to replicate the phenomenon of sounds coming from certain directions. Thanks to spatial audio, co-workers can “walk” past each other in virtual hallways and have those little side conversations that would regularly take place in the office. This substantial feature has contributed to the recent success of these platforms during the pandemic.
Additional features such as sharing screens on a wall, breakout rooms for additional training, and webcams feeds allow managers to sustain the training effectiveness of video conferencing, while also better connecting with their SDRs in a VR office environment. From a managerial perspective, the VR office space is an incredible tool to lead your sales team, as it simulates a more genuine interaction compared to solely video conferencing.
The opportunity to have moments of one on one learning is severely limited in traditional video conferencing. With remote sales jobs here to stay for who knows how long, a VR office can provide a welcoming and fun space for SDRs to give and receive feedback and engage in ways that are not always work-focused. This refreshing experience can allow sales teams to get ever so close to recreating those special, in-between moments.
