Most organizations invest in meeting room technology and then wonder why no one uses it. The problem usually isn’t the hardware. It’s friction, connectivity issues, inconsistent room setups, and interfaces that require troubleshooting before a meeting can start.
That friction carries a real cost. IT Pro cites technology as a barrier that consistently ranks among the top obstacles to effective hybrid collaboration. When the technology adds steps instead of removing them, adoption drops, and the investment sits underused.
Anna Holder has watched this pattern play out across hundreds of customer conversations. As Mersive’s Director of Inside Sale, she works at the intersection of customers, forecasting, and internal operations. She hears what’s working and what isn’t before most of the organization does.
The Bar for “Just Works” Has Never Been Higher
Users compare their meeting room experience to their phone. That expectation, Anna says, is not negotiable. Organizations that deploy complex systems and assume users will adapt are underestimating how quickly friction leads to avoidance.
The pattern shows up across industries and organization sizes. A room that requires troubleshooting gets abandoned. A system that behaves differently from building to building creates hesitation. Small frustrations accumulate, and over time they drag wireless collaboration adoption numbers down, regardless of how powerful the underlying technology is.
The fix isn’t always a new product. It’s consistency. And that starts with how you deploy, configure, and manage what you already have.
What a Solstice Cloud Migration Actually Changes
The shift from an on-premise management tool to a cloud-based one looks like a technical upgrade on paper. In practice, it changes what IT teams spend their time on.
Anna points to multiple higher education and corporate customers who moved from managing their Mersive Solstice pods from Solstice Dashboard, a centralized, on-premise tool, to Solstice Cloud, Mersive’s cloud-based management portal.
The visible change was remote access: IT administrators could monitor, configure, and troubleshoot devices from anywhere without walking room to room.
The downstream change was more significant. As teams spent less time responding to basic support requests, they gained capacity for strategic work. End users experienced more consistent room setups with digital signage, standardized welcome screens, and centralized configuration templates applied across every space. Adoption climbed because the experience became predictable.
The best technology improvements, Anna notes, are often invisible. They quietly remove friction and make everyone’s job a little easier.
Sales Is Relationship First, Transaction Second
A common assumption about sales is that it’s about closing. In Anna’s experience, that framing misses most of what the job actually requires. The strongest sales teams spend more time understanding problems than presenting solutions.
That means listening carefully, coordinating across teams, and staying invested in customer success well past the initial decision. Building trust over time produces better outcomes for customers and more sustainable results for the business. The goal isn’t a signed order. It’s a customer who gets the value they were promised.
Advice From Eight Years in the Field
Anna’s advice for anyone starting out in sales, learn to listen before you learn the product. Early in a career, it’s easy to assume success comes from having the right answers. The professionals who advance are the ones who ask better questions.
Curiosity, adaptability, and strong relationships carry further than product knowledge alone, especially in a market where customer needs shift faster than any playbook can keep up with. The most valuable skill isn’t just knowing the technology, but rather knowing how to help someone figure out the best solution.
Where Collaboration Is Headed
Ask Anna where team collaboration is going, and her answer is less about technology and more about invisibility. The future she describes is one where the tools fade into the background. Where in-person and remote participants share the same seamless experience. Where no one needs to think about how the platform works to use it.
That vision shapes the work she’s most focused on right now, helping organizations transition to Mersive’s next generation of collaboration solutions, including the Mersive Collaboration Suite. The goal isn’t just new hardware. It’s a rethink of how people connect, contribute, and collaborate — from any location, without the friction that gets in the way today.
See the Difference Fewer Friction Points Make
If your meeting rooms are underused or your IT team spends more time troubleshooting spaces than improving them, the problem is probably simpler to fix than it looks. Connect with our team to talk through your current challenges. Also, you can explore the Mersive Collaboration Suite to see how organizations reduce IT burden, standardize room experiences, and drive real wireless collaboration adoption across their entire deployment.
Want more perspective from the people behind Mersive? Follow Anna on LinkedIn to stay connected.