Are your prospects virtually happy versus actually happy?

By David Scott, Managing Member at Avid Communications.

They were putting on a brave face, but you could tell that what they were saying wasn’t the whole story.

Our sales force was discussing what it was like to sell during the Coronavirus crisis. They know we don’t like to hear excuses for not selling, so even during a pandemic they were reluctant to complain about the new sales landscape. After all, we sell services that allow companies to reach and service their customers through technology–including MaX Meeting, a fully functional video conferencing service. So we could certainly lean on that technology to help us plow forward, even now.

But you could tell that an inability to have a face-to-face meeting had stripped them of one of their major advantages over other providers.

Video Conference Blues

In a recent New York Times article on videoconferencing, a reporter wrote, “These (video) disruptions, some below our conscious awareness, confound perception and scramble subtle social cues. Our brains strain to fill in the gaps and make sense of the disorder, which makes us feel vaguely disturbed, uneasy and tired without quite knowing why.” Have you had any of those feelings during countless video conferencing meetings?

In-person sales meetings communicate much more than what is actually being verbalized. The feedback our customers provide is critical in crafting a custom solution–and supporting it well. And the relationships we form during those meetings are the glue and foundation for working together for years. Virtual meetings just aren’t the same, especially when some of the attendees have their camera turned off.

So for a while at least, we’re getting a dose of what it’s like to be our competition. And we don’t like it much. We’d like to be able to say that MaX Meeting (or Zoom or WebX or Google Meet) is an adequate replacement, but it just isn’t. We are still winning new clients in spite of these challenges, but like many, we’re looking forward to the day when we can visit our client’s location to talk about working together during a face-to-face meeting.

Have you had a similar experience?

We would like to know your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading!