Another week and another DGB poll has ended, this time with results that I would say are less than conclusive.
At the start of last week I asked the industry whether it thought it was ready for smart window and door technology. After the FIT Show this was one of my big themes that I took away with me, so it felt right to ask the question, given how many new smart tech products were on display over those three days.
This was the question, and the results it gave.
Poll and results:
This was the question I asked for the last seven days, and the results it gave me:
That’s a win for the “yes” vote, but not a resounding one by any means. That being said, for an industry that is always slow to adapt to change, this probably isn’t all that bad within the context of our industry.
I think if I were to ask the same question in a couple of years I would like to think that “yes” would be getting easily over 50% of the vote.
In a previous post on the matter, I mentioned that for the sake of installers and home owners getting on board with the smart products we’re hoping to sell, we as an industry have to understand the point of them.
The purpose, not the product
For our industry to get this right, we have to understand what we’re selling and the benefits it will bring. Simply trying to flog a piece of hardware isn’t likely to get the home owner ticking. It helps if it looks good don’t get me wrong. There were some really nice bits of kit on display at the FIT Show, there were some very questionnable ones as well. It’s how Apple sells their phones at silly prices, and now Samsung.
We have to get the message across about purpose, and the benfits that bit of extra hardware will bring. I mentioned in an article last week that much of the smart tech coming out focuses on the locked/unlocked status of a door or window. So, installers are not selling the bit of hardware that attaches to the window or door, but the ability for a home owner via their phone to check to make sure that their windows and doors are indeed locked and secured.
One of the main examples I can give is if you’re going on holiday, and in the stress and hype of it all, you start to question yourself in the taxi half way to the airport as to whether you locked the door or not. That dread is awful. You can’t do anything about it yourself, other than hope a friend, neighbour or family member can go to your house to check. Naturally, no one wants to put a loved one out like that. But, you could always check your phone to make sure. If it is, great, you can relax and be on your way. If not, at least you know and then you could ask someone to do you a favour.
That’s what we’re selling. Yes smart tech is still a physical product. It’s the services they provide however that are the key USPs here. So long as we can get that message across, and get on board with it ourselves, we should find integrating smart tech into our usual sales methods fairly simple.
You may have seen on Twitter that I have a new poll up for this week. Go on over and leave your vote on there. A new article is coming up later on Tuesday to explore the subject matter of that poll in a bit more detail.
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