Customer Education

Ecommerce is vastly growing and bringing lots of new opportunities for the furniture market. However, it also provokes stir competition between furniture manufacturers and retailers. You have probably seen how successful are some of the competitors who actively promote their products and gain more and more buyers. But behind this success lies a surefire customer education strategy that brands use to convince prospects to buy from them.

Indeed, one of the main tasks of eComm sellers is to prove that their product is worth buying only with the help of visuals. Because online buyers can only rely on pictures and videos to make a decision, such promo imagery means the world. Therefore, in order to persuade customers to buy, sellers need to find an effective way to increase their awareness of the product with spectacular education tools.

So how can leading-edge CG technologies help manufacturers and marketers to achieve their goals? As a 3D rendering company with years of experience, we know at least 5 ways to boost customer retention and convince them of the goods’ quality using only 3D rendering.

#1. Cut-Out 3D Views Reveal Product Design In Detail

These days many brands dive into eCommerce to explore its advantages and broaden the audience, which is definitely the right way to go. On the other hand, they deprive online-shoppers of the opportunity to examine an object by touching it and holding it as customers usually do in retail stores and showrooms. Therefore, online sellers simply have to figure out how they can provide online customer education on product quality without using physical objects.

Usually, marketers use close-up photos of furniture pieces to showcase the details and textures. However, for such goods as soft furniture and mattresses, this education may not be enough. After all, customers need to know the internal structure of an object to understand its quality.

In such cases, CG imagery rushes to the rescue. Using professional 2D and 3D software, CG artists can make a cut-out view of an object and reveal its inner structure layer by layer. By adding such visualizations to catalogs and listings, manufacturers can prove the quality of goods and gain the trust of shoppers. Obviously, any seller will choose CGI for these purposes as they don’t have to destroy real furniture for the sake of customer education.

#2. CG Images Inform Customers About All Available Design Options

No doubt, informing your audience about all available designs is a must for every brand and also a great contribution to customer education. Having all the options right in front of them, buyers will be able to make a purchasing decision faster and with much confidence.

But to provide customers with various images, marketers have to make arrangements for a photo session — order necessary prototypes, rent a photo studio and equipment, hire a professional photographer, etc. Surely, the whole process takes too much precious time and money.

In turn, CGI can free manufacturers from this burden and save the company’s budget on promo and customer education at the same time. In order to make photorealistic visualization of all designs of a product, CG artists need to make just one 3D model of the item. After a 3D object is ready, they can change its colors and textures in a couple of clicks and thereby, render the entire collection in the shortest time possible.

#3. 3D Visualizations Show How a Furniture Piece Works in Different Interiors

Photos of products in a matching roomset not only make beautiful advertisements but are also one of the important tools of customer education. When buying a piece of furniture or decor, buyers would like to see how it looks in real life and learn ​​what interior style suits this item the best. However, it could be too labor-intensive and time-consuming to build actual roomsets for the photo session, not to mention the cost of the whole project.

When ordering 3D lifestyles, the brand doesn’t have to spend money on actual backdrops and staff because digital roomsets can be done by one or several CG artists. Using 3D programs, they can build several different 3D scenes, put a 3D model in it, and render roomset of various styles and colors.

Such images will help customers to see how versatile this object is or which interior style works best for it. On top of that, 3D lifestyles can become a source of inspiration and education for the customers. Using them as a guide, buyers can easily recreate the interior they liked at their homes.

#4. CGI Makes Perfect Tutorials and Explanation Animation

Many brands use videos that demonstrate the advantages of the product and thereby educate customers on their value. It totally makes sense considering this marketing research that has 96% of respondents claiming they like watching explainer videos to learn more about a product. However, shooting videos for every furniture piece could cost a fortune — studio rent, fees paid to a director and crew, post-production…the list goes on and on!

On the other hand, using CGI, a manufacturer can get cost-saving 3D animation that doesn’t require any additional people and rent. Animated videos can make excellent educational tutorials on how to use the product and show various design modifications. For example, if a brand sells wardrobe systems or transformable furniture, the animation will perfectly demonstrate all the configurations. What’s more, such tutorial videos not only improve customer education strategies but make great engaging content for SMM.

#5. Static CGI or 3D Animation Are Ideal Assembling Instructions 

To be honest, furniture assembly could be one of the hardest challenges for customers. It is so because of instructions that are often confusing and overloaded with text and numbers — you have to have engineering education to figure some of those manuals out. Therefore, naturally, many buyers don’t even get “useless” instructions out of the box and try to assemble furniture on their own.

However, with the help of CGI, manufacturers can provide effective customer education on furniture assemblage. Using 3D visualization, they can make their instructions captivating and easy as pie. For instance, you can order colorful static 3D renders that depict the process of assembling flatpack furniture step-by-step in a fun manner. Then, upload such instructions to the brand’s website and add them to each box.

If manufacturers want to simplify the instruction even more, they can order product 3D animation that brings the assembling manual to life. Self-explanatory animations are a user-friendly source of education for customers because it allows them to stop or rewound the video so they won’t miss any step. No need to mention, such animations work perfectly on product pages on the manufacturer’s website and on eCommerce platforms.

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Using CGI for customer education, brands don’t need any tricks and witty advertising to draw the buyer’s attention to the product and gain their trust. All they need is to show the design in detail using a 3D cut-out view, display the furniture piece in interiors, and provide customers with all the design options. Besides, CGI makes excellent static and animated assembly instructions that can help buyers better than any text manuals.

Need first-class CGI for customer education? Contact our studio for 3D rendering services and get cutting-edge CG solutions to increase customers’ awareness and your sales!

Max Kharchenko

Senior Account Manager

An ultimate problem-solver and skilled negotiator, Max provides first-class advice to clients. He is an extrovert, a dog person, and a sheer pleasure to talk to. In his spare time, Max enjoys playing basketball and watching Netflix.