The future of customer experience (CX) in the metaverse is on the horizon. As per 2022 Gartner research, 25 percent of people will spend at least an hour every day in the metaverse by 2026 – engaged in work, shopping, education, social activities, and entertainment.
Indeed, it also predicts that 30 percent of companies worldwide will have metaverse-ready products and services by 2026, which begs a fundamental question – what will the future of CX look like in a metaverse environment?
What Is the Metaverse and What Does it Mean for CX?
The metaverse refers to an integrated virtual environment built on a blockchain architecture, which users can access through virtual reality (VR) and other interfaces. It aims to recreate lifelike interactions in a digital world using 3D user avatars, 3D renditions of physical surroundings, spatial anchoring, realistic navigation, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Companies will enjoy an incredible degree of flexibility in the metaverse. For instance, they could create a simple storefront that reflects their retail outlets in the real world, recreated with exacting accuracy. Or, they could all out and reimagine the brand experience as a themed VR amusement park that can break the laws of physics. As such, brands can execute any CX strategy that they envision inside the metaverse, no matter how futuristic.
Currently, a few metaverse platforms are available to consumers, such as Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Roblox. Bloktopia and Meta Platforms' official metaverse offering are two of the most awaited products in this segment. Despite its infancy, brands are already taking advantage of the virtual real estate available on the metaverse to engage with customers in new ways. For example, Nike has its own Nikeland virtual world on Roblox, which is essentially an innovative brand activation campaign.
For more of the fundamentals of the metaverse, check out our video interview with Alex Black, Chief Technology Officer at Enghouse Interactive.
Implications of the Metaverse on the Future of CX
The metaverse may influence customer experiences in the following ways.
1. Breaking Down Global Barriers
The metaverse may break down the barriers between more and less mature economies and negate international brand outreach restrictions.
For example, customers can log into a metaverse platform to discover, experience, and access whichever brand they want. Such accessibility may revolutionize purchasing journeys.
2. Turning Experiences Into Products
Large-scale efforts like Disneyland illustrate how profitable it could be to weave an experience around a brand, product, or service. In the future, it will likely have an enormous impact on customer loyalty, far outpacing short-term wins.
The metaverse provides every business with the opportunity to envision and productize experiences. Not only will this change the value of CX, but it will also drive long-term outcomes.
3. Blurring the Line Between Self-Service and Contact Centers
Already, technologies like conversational AI allow self-service to closely resemble human agents and in-person support. Customers can type in their queries as natural language questions, and the AI can synthesize the input to provide a prompt response.
The metaverse will blur the line even further as AI-powered digital humans attend to customer issues, face-to-face and in-person.