As hype around the metaverse dies down, following a year of million-dollar virtual land grabs and companies launching NFTs, experts are starting to differentiate between science fiction and real-world applications of the technology.
From customer service agents as avatars, to holograms, to augmented reality diagnostics, companies are exploring, if cautiously, how to improve customer experiences in the virtual world.
CX Today tapped on the expertise of Dr Nicola Millard, Principal Innovation Partner at BT, who spoke to Senior Editor Charlie Mitchell about how the telecoms giant is thinking about utilizing these new technologies.
Navigating the Opportunities and Challenges of Customer Service in the Metaverse
Millard said being able to provide a rich 3D experience, rather than a flat 2D experience, would allow users to explore 3D spaces in real time, rendered with customer service people within them.
“If you were building a virtual retail experience, for example, it needn't just be the product,” said Millard. “You could also have your people wandering around, or bots initially, to talk to customers and engage with them and then potentially link back into humans.”
But there are challenges around the current iterations of the metaverse. Platforms like Decentraland, which surged in popularity last year and has hosted brands from Samsung to Estee Lauder, are closer in user experience to Second Life than to a true metaverse, where users are fully immersed in their virtual surroundings.
The current technology used to access virtual worlds, such as VR headsets, also present limitations, which Millard described as VR’s “vomit problem”. She added:
Not all of it requires glasses, of course, we can use smartphones, or indeed even just the PC screen to engage. So I think the future is more Pokémon Go! than The Matrix.
Leveraging Next-Gen Video to Create New Customer Experiences
Bringing things closer to reality, Millard expressed optimism for volumetric video, which encompasses technologies like real-time generation of avatars and holograms.
"That's the next generation video. It's bringing video into 3D," she said. "It uses multiple cameras to capture [an object] in real time."
Applications for volumetric video at an enterprise level include recording customer service people to provide a more life-like customer interaction, but experts say that’s just the beginning of its potential.
