The events industry in Australia has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic but innovative air conditioning manufacturers have found inventive ways to showcase their products and reach customers.
The refrigeration and air conditioning industry has always had a heavy reliance on events as it is the best way for customers to get a first-hand look at products and to ask direct questions.
But COVID-19 has made face to face contact impossible, not to mention border closures and lockdowns which have had a severe impact on business travel.
The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has reported losses of more than $35 billion in direct expenditure to the Australian economy as a result of cancelled business events in 2020.
In the first six months of that year 92,000 jobs were wiped out in the events industry.
While some companies took a wait and see approach to the pandemic, innovators created new opportunities by utilising technology and online platforms.
An excellent example of this is Temperzone and Hitachi Cooling & Heating, they have managed to overcome pandemic problems by creating their very own virtual exhibition.
It features multiple digital touch points, simply click on a specific image and a video appears with a presentation on that specific product.
It is a one stop shop for technical data and product information and even includes training seminars, as if you were at an actual conference.
Temperzone group brand manager, Damien Walsh, said customers undertaking the virtual tour can even download information.
“Displaying our products at exhibitions will always be desirable however this is a way to bring exhibitions to customers in regional areas or anyone who cannot attend an event on a specific date,” he said.
At the same time they are supporting technicians out in the field with online tutorials that can be accessed from any mobile device.
Manufacturers who are serious about product support, find inventive ways to assist technicians and You Tube is the ideal platform for How-to videos.
More than 500 hours of content is posted on You Tube every minute of every day and most of these videos are created in North America.
But the Hitachi video series was produced locally making it easy for Australian technicians to identify with the content. Plus, visuals have been found to improve learning by up to 400 per cent.
According to Shift e-learning 90 per cent of information transmitted to the brain is visual.
What is even more remarkable about these tutorials is that they are short, precise and informative.
We all know how challenging it can be to keep how-to videos interesting while still being thorough.
Fortunately, this series gets straight to the point and is surprisingly entertaining. The presenters are a trio of superhero styled technicians known as the Solvers.
The team tagline for the Solvers is ‘Be professional and Enjoy your work’.
The Solvers are made up of Johnny Trust, Amy Smart and Max Snappy who was born ready when it comes to solving technical problems.
Each video deals with a different problem and covers specific error codes relating to commercial air conditioners.
For example, there is 31 error code on centrifugal VRF, VRF and Utopian systems as well as other error codes. Interest in VRF systems has sky-rocketed in recent years because of their high energy saving potential and easy maintenance.
According to research firm marketsandmarkets the VRF system market was valued at $US17.6 billion in 2020.
This figure is expected to reach $US31.9 billion by 2025, as the market is growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.7 per cent.
With VRF systems growing at this rate technicians will increasingly look online for tutorial videos that can solve setbacks in record time.
Each video provides the causes of each problem before going onto the solutions.
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