Bringing Customer Experience to Life in the Metaverse
The amalgamation of AR and VR on the internet has created a “phygital”, virtual world best known as the metaverse. CX experts are transforming their customer experience by conquering this popular trend – read on to find out more.
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Technology is rapidly evolving year-on-year, at rates that seem unimaginable. Do you remember your very first computer? Those old, thick PC screens with incredibly loud monitors? Fast forward to 2023, a small device with automatic voice recognition will sit on countertops and interact with us about almost anything – how to roast the perfect potato for instance.
The evolution of technology does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon, it is becoming faster, more efficient, and much more intelligent. For example, Meta and Microsoft have been making significant strides in presenting the vision of the metaverse as the next generation of the internet. Could it have the potential to change how businesses engage with one another and their customers?
The metaverse is a mixed reality experience, blending both physical and virtual environments using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to create an immersive space that facilitates social connection and interaction.
The metaverse is a complete rebrand on how businesses could provide on-demand or remote services to customers by guaranteeing service anywhere, and most crucially, in real-time. The technology can be a blissful resolution to many time-consuming jobs that take the work of employees who cannot be in 1,000 places at once.
MIT Technology Review has predicted: “Over the next decade, the metaverse will transform the customer experience (CX) in the same way e-commerce shook up retail in the 1990s and mobile reimagined social interactions in the early 2000s.”
The segue into the realities of the metaverse is already hitting home for customers. Inc. magazine reported that 25% of consumers have moved to the metaverse because it is bringing customer service from a phone call to a virtual environment that enhances human connection in a remote environment through avatar-to-avatar or hologram programmes.
The burgeoning world of the metaverse is becoming something that CX experts cannot ignore.
New Generation Needs
Customer care is paramount to the success and longevity of any business. As generations shift, customer behaviours will inevitably transform the style and method in which a company distributes its CX.
Tech Target highlighted an example: “there are several reasons companies are eyeing the metaverse. […] But one of the main reasons companies are targeting the metaverse is to reach Generation Z and millennials.”
In a study led by Nokia and Ipsos to understand the kinds of experiences people wanted to receive from the metaverse, they identified people’s general awareness of the metaverse was low but engagement in the metaverse among Gen Z was high. For Gen Z users, the metaverse was merely seen as an extension of the world they already live in as the “lines between their virtual and physical worlds are increasingly blurred, and better understood as a spectrum of activity than separates spheres. Gen Z looks to the virtual to offer them experiences they cannot have elsewhere”.
The Metaverse in Retail
The retail industry has seen a fast-paced change from physical, brick-and-mortar shopping to online shopping experiences, and now retail brands are experimenting with the metaverse to enhance customer engagement and experiences.
IKEA, for instance, has launched an AR application called Place that allows customers to virtually “place” IKEA products in their physical space to simulate their own dream room with true-to-scale 3D models. The app aims to help decrease, or even eliminate customer returns or complaints as it allows a customer to “try before you buy” at any time, in any space. The app enhances a more seamless journey for IKEA customers, they can follow on from the app to purchase products online or confidently go in-store to purchase exactly what they know is needed.
What message does this send out to businesses today? The future of great CX continues to be online. Customers want to access their food, and their goods, and get in contact with customer care from the comfort of their own homes – right here, right now. If CX experts utilise the metaverse economy, a portal can be created to ensure that the 2023 customer has everything they need in one place, whenever they require it. This portal can provide answers and resolutions derived from the information that has been uploaded by the company, assisted by the intelligence of the internet. CX will transform tremendously if, as a business, you are able to provide customer care at any time, with customer agents waiting in the virtual world whenever they are needed. It is both cost and time effective.
The evolution of the metaverse is happening as we speak and seems to be the future of an otherworldly connection that has yet to exist. AR and VR are skyrocketing throughout industries with intense popularity, and they are on their way to conquering the customer management industry too. CX in the metaverse will eradicate the chances of customers feeling disconnected from the companies they choose to engage with. Customers are the backbone of any business, and their satisfaction is synonymous with a business’s success. It is important that as industry trends change and transform, a business should adapt with them. The metaverse promises to deliver results to the customer management industry by saving companies money, and time, and ensuring that every single customer’s needs are met as and when they need them to be. The metaverse is a world where anything that you can imagine can exist – let’s make customers happy with the helping hand of this wondrous digital world.
