Virtual Labs: 2020’s Most Vital Sales Engineering Tool
A few years ago, Salesforce published a post highlighting how virtual demos have become an indispensable tool for closing software sales. Its author, Rohan Ayyar, from E2M, stressed the following points:
Virtual labs are used to host virtual sales demos and proofs of concept (PoCs), which show target customers how products and services work.
Premium virtual lab providers like CloudShare enable sales engineers to quickly deploy and conduct demos.
Demos hosted in virtual lab environments go beyond typical video conferences by giving customers access to interactive hands-on demos anywhere, at any time.
The post went on to highlight how virtual labs enable software sales teams to (1) reach more prospects (2) create customized demos focused on specific needs, and (3) accurately analyze how prospects do—or don’t—experience the software you offer them.
Virtual demos and PoCs have become a do or die proposition
In 2020, my company engaged the customer experience experts at IDC to survey more than 200 U.S.-based enterprise software vendors and uncover their highest priorities.
After doing so, research director Gerry Brown concluded, “Failure at the product demo or PoC stage not only loses deals, but also risks losing customer value for life.” Brown claimed superior sales execution requires a digital transformation of traditional sales operations to better support today’s software sales process.
The research—and the conclusions drawn from it—actually came to light prior to 2020’s alarming pandemic. So now, with sales engineers being literally “grounded,” the study’s findings become even more urgent.
Demos and PoCs to support enterprise software sales can and should move to the cloud.
PoC abandonment looms large
If you spend time preparing and presenting proof of concept demonstrations for prospects, the following data point is bound to sting:
52% of software vendors report customers abandon PoCs in progress.
Here are two more troublesome revelations: (1) 50% need technical support for their PoCs and (2) 47% struggle with hardware issues to even run the PoC.
The net-net of it all is, because a majority of would-be buyers have bad experiences during the crucial PoC phase of the sale, it’s now imperative that software vendors transform the experience into a positive one.
The key to successful sales acceleration
IDC collaborated with CloudShare to create the infographic below that summarizes the most important findings of its research.
An interesting theme emerged: sales engineers and the sales teams they support claim the most critical need they now face is gaining visibility into the crucial parts of the purchase cycle.
For both product demonstrations and proofs of concept, real-time data analytics are invaluable. Far too often, how prospects interact with trial versions of your software is essentially a black box. The virtual lab platform, designed to replicate real-world environments, removes the mysteries.
CloudShare’s platform provides sales engineers the visibility needed to see the status of all demos and PoCs, analyze performance, track opportunities and inform decision-making.
The benefits of going virtual
Unsurprisingly, the top reason software sales teams employ a cloud-based platform for conducting virtual PoCs is to increase conversion.
Four additional benefits topped the list including (and in order of response rate):
Reduce the burden on those that conduct PoCs
Reduce to time and cost of conducting PoCs
Improve customer experience
Reduce the burden on IT resources
Check out these and other conclusions of IDC’s survey of enterprise software vendors in the infographic below.
Author Bio: As VP Product, Michal’s mission is to translate CloudShare’s vision into reality. Michal brings to CloudShare many years’ experience in product and project management along with extensive experience as a software developer. Michal holds an MSc in Computer Science from Bar-Ilan University.