Customers are being faced with increasingly complex buying decisions, especially when it comes to technology and services. As a result, increased pressure is being placed on store associates to provide knowledgeable service to customers. Our Emerging Experiences team used this opportunity to develop a solution to demonstrate how an immersive interactive experience can assist customers and store associates with complex buying decisions in a retail setting.

The Razorfone solution is focused around providing an experience where customers can learn about wireless products. Phone and netbook features and associated wireless plans are presented in a rich interactive environment. Accessories are presented to the customer as a cross-sell opportunity. The use of 3D allows for customers to view their device in any color and from any angle, regardless of availability of the physical device within the retail store. The customer can validate the wireless coverage where they live, work and play through the use of the interactive coverage map using simple pan and zoom gestures. Customers can personalize their device after purchase with ringtones, games and applications through the use of QR technology, increasing sales and helping to eliminate buyers remorse.

As the complexity of technology and service offerings increases, training store associates on these products and services can be expensive and ineffective. In addition, the turnover rate in retail can have a negative effect on the number of knowledgable store associates. In an assisted-sales scenario, the store associates can focus on being brand ambassadors while the experience provides the information the customer needs to make informed decisions about the wireless products.

Watch the above video as we walk you through the Razorfone experience. We’d love to hear your feedback!

The Razorfish EE team has been kicking the tires on Windows 7 for almost a year prior to product launch. With great success we’ve been running the Razorfish Touch Framework (RTF) on Windows 7 across a number of multi-touch displays. Recently our Neue Digitale office in Germany had the opportunity to port the Audi Configurator Surface experience to Windows 7 for the Windows 7 launch event. Utilizing the RTF, the team was able to bring the Microsoft Surface experience to Windows 7 in under a week. This makes the Audi Configurator, not only the first Windows 7 multi-touch application on the German market, but also a tool which is hardware independent and can be installed on a variety of multi-touch enabled devices.

We also had the opportunity to test drive with an experimental multi-touch hardware device named “dreaMTouch” manufactured by Elektrosil Systeme der Elektronik GmbH for the Windows 7 launch. We recently worked with the device for the DMEXCO (Digital Marketing Exposition Conference) in Germany where we showcased the Razorfashion application and our other multi-touch experiences. The device supports an incredible 32 simultaneous touches on a 46″ screen. The device itself only measures a few inches thick. The dreaMTouch is now available for purchase.

Check out more pictures of the Windows 7 Launch Event featuring the Audi Car Configurator.

We’ve been busy traveling the globe demonstrating our touch experiences. The reaction from clients and the industry has been great – we’ve met some wonderful people along the way. Recently we were at the Microsoft Vendor Fair showing our Surface and vertical multi-touch experiences. With the Windows 7 release, the excitement within Microsoft is understandable. Much like our other clients, we’re working with Microsoft in realizing the potential of touch related experiences from a sales and marketing perspective. To see evidence of this look no further than the Microsoft retail store.

Razorfashion goes international. We jumped at a chance to support our Neue Digitale team in Germany at DMEXCO (Digital Marketing Exposition Conference). To support the effort, we’ve been working with a company in Germany on an experimental multi-touch device named dreaMTouch. Once we figured out how to get the pre-release device through customs, we were able to integrate the hardware with the Microsoft-based Razorfish Touch Framework in under a day. Since integrating with the hardware was so easy, we decided to feature the Razorfashion application during the conference as well.

Our team has developed an application built on the new Razorfish Touch Framework called Razorfashion. It demonstrates how we believe retailers can meet shoppers growing expectations for more engaging digital experiences in-store and provide a consistent, integrated experience across the multi-channel shopping ecosystem.

Watch the above video as we walk you through the Razorfashion experience.

See it. Love it. Share it. Find it.

model photo credit: *katanaz-stock

Founded in 2008, Razorfish Emerging Experiences is a cross-functional team composed of strategists, artists, experience designers, and technologists. We’re part of the Razorfish Strategy & Innovation practice led by Shannon Denton.

You may have heard of some of our work such as AT&T Surface rollout, Woodgrove Financial and the Razorfashion application.

Our focus is on innovation, with an emphasis on emerging experiences and technologies. R&D is an important part of what we do. Some of these efforts are visible on this blog. As you can see, we have been doing a lot of work with touch interfaces such as Surface and other experiences like touch walls and multi-touch technologies like NextWindow and N-Trig.  Steve Dawson, Technology Lead, Razorfish Emerging Experiences, has plenty more to share in his posts on this blog. Mobile experiences are finally hot in the USA (thank you Steve Jobs) so we’ve been doing a lot of work in this area as well. We’ve also been working heavily with mapping providers like Virtual Earth, Google and ESRI. Lastly, we’ve been partnering with the Razorfish media and marketing team to deliver social capabilities as well. Think of the mash-up possibilities: touch + mobile + mapping + social media = very exciting!  One more thing before I move off of this topic; R&D it’s not just for technologists!  Our artists and experience designers are constantly pushing the limits and finding new ways to design experiences on emerging platforms as Luke Hamilton, Creative Lead, Razorfish Emerging Experiences, will tell you in his posts.

We’ve also been very busy this last year building solutions for our clients. Our digital ecosystem thought leadership is being put to good use for many of our retail – digital in-store clients. More on retail and our digital ecosystem thinking in future posts.

We’re just getting warmed up.

I hope you find this blog useful. I’m Jonathan Hull, Director, Razorfish Emerging Experiences. Feel free to drop me a note @ jonathan.hull@razorfish.com