This scenario outlines a very near future omnichannel customer experience (CX), which seamlessly integrates several different physical and digital retail methods. Today, customer interactions happen through mobile, desktop, email, artificial intelligence chatbots, social messaging, and more, but in the metaverse, customer touchpoints will be even more diverse and connected.
“Metaverse will be available in a number of different ways — VR/AR glasses, smartphones, tablets and PCs, chat rooms with video, but also through upcoming things like holograms, digital signage, digital assets, and digital content,” said Ramon Llamas, research director of IDC’s virtual reality/augmented reality (AR/VR) group.
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about companies “switching” to the metaverse, but this is a bit misleading. Brands aren’t turning to the metaverse as much as they’re expanding into it — connecting it to their traditional, two-way channels. However, the potential of the metaverse cannot be overstated to reshape how customers and brands interact. Over the next decade, the metaverse will transform CX in the same way that e-commerce rocked retail in the 1990s and social interactions were reimagined on mobile in the early 2000s.
“The metaverse is a whole new virtual world – just like social media,” said Sidharth Mukherjee, chief digital officer at Teleperformance, a global company providing digitally integrated business services. introduced a new CX channel 15 years ago. “We are starting to see diverse adoption across industries such as retail, consumer goods and healthcare, beyond social media, gaming and the broader tech industry.”
The evolution of customer experience
Now, omnichannel CX isn’t just a “good-to-have” thing — it adds tangible value to a business’ bottom line. Follow “State of the Connected Consumer Report 2021” by Salesforce, 76% of customers want to use different channels to interact with brands based on the context of their needs or queries. The International Institute for Management Development reports that retailers 10% to 30% loss of sales if they don’t offer a strong enough omnichannel shopping experience.
Omnichannel is also a growing trend in marketing—a discipline distinct from CX but with significant overlap. In one analysis Out of more than 135,000 campaigns, automation software company Omnisend found that companies that use three or more channels for marketing achieve 494% higher order rates than those that rely on just one.
In addition to providing more ways to reach customers, the metaverse has the potential to address the real-world operational bottlenecks. “The world is a 3D place — or 4D if you count time. It’s not a 2D experience, and in fact, the 2D experience feels like an artificial one, said David Truog, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. “There are so many experiences that benefit from three dimensions, from touch and manipulation, where the metaverse would fit.”
Conduct staff recruitment and training. Remote work, a change accelerated by the covid-19 pandemic, looks likely to be long-lasting — according to a Gallup survey, nine out of 10 employees want to continue working remotely in some capacity post-pandemic. As traditional definitions of “office” continue to evolve, the metaverse could provide an ideal venue for recruiting and training geographically dispersed employees, as well as organizing team building activities. and company-wide events.
