If all good ideas work out well, Metaverse will become relevant for customer contact professionals within a few years. Sander Hesselink comments on the TechUpdate that Ziptone published about the new medium.
What does metaverse mean for customer contact? Is it part of omnichannel customer contact? What can companies do with it? Metaverse can best be seen as a new development phase of the internet, says Sander Hesselink, sales and marketing manager at Telecats. “By combining different technologies – all of which have already been proven – something is added to our classic internet that mainly takes place on a flat screen. With Metaverse that becomes 3D. Now when you look for a website, you are usually alone there – you are visible based on your IP address. In the Metaverse, visitors can see each other.”
Do you want to do business? Identification required
People can enter the Metaverse in different ways, according to Hesselink: “You can walk around as your digital self – in the form of a 3D avatar or a synthetic representation of yourself. You can assume different capacities in different rooms, just like in real life: at carnival you look different than during a business dinner.”
Those spaces in Metaverse are based on open standards, meaning you can pay for your digital assets with cryptos and take them with you to other spaces.
“Data sovereignty is a starting point anyway, but you will have to identify yourself in different places if you want to make transactions. On the other hand, anyone who moves in the Metaverse should take into account that that route will be recorded,” Hesselink expects.
No hard limits
“The physical world and Metaverse will soon merge. Think of a smart mirror in a fashion store, where you are physically present and can see how certain clothes look on you. Or digital gatherings, such as a meeting.”
One of the technologies that Hesselink believes will play a major role in Metaverse is artificial intelligence. “AI can be used to quickly and automatically create new environments. You can give your imagination free space, not via code but via text or speech: 'I would like a blue country house with a green roof and a balcony at the front' or 'make a chair in the shape of an avocado'. ”
What can customer service do with Metaverse?
Hesselink has high expectations regarding the significance of Metaverse for customer service. “In any case, due to the corona pandemic, we have started working together much more digitally. It looks like hybrid working will continue, especially in customer contact. You don't want to limit that to Teams or Zoom. Metaverse lends itself well to collaboration. It is also an environment that you can set up completely according to your wishes, so you can also build a contact center environment in it that you would like to have yourself. And for a meeting you design a different environment than for a co-creation session.”
Metaverse is also extremely suitable for sales or service objectives. It is possible that you as a customer go to the Metaverse together with an employee; for example, to have questions about products answered in a virtual room.
Hesselink gives examples: “Think of a TV screen: does it fit in your own living room? Or how do you solve connection problems? In a virtual room you can easily explain things using virtual devices. You can also arrange to meet up with someone to go shopping together while you are both in different physical locations. Or you let customers meet for product demonstrations, for example.”
From that application it is only a small step to training in customer contact, where you have employees meet virtually in a room. You can adjust the space to the purpose. Why should you let new employees come straight to the office? In addition, verbal information transfer in combination with showing – when it comes to retention – works better than reading.
Where is the entrance?
The VR headset, your mobile, your computer screen, the smart mirror in a store: these are the devices that will soon provide access. Of course it is not practical to have to wear heavy VR glasses for a long time. Moreover, they still close you off from the outside world. The technology to make this easier and better is already there, think of semi-permeable screens and 3D projections. Perhaps in a few years we will be projecting more and looking at screens less, says Hesselink.
As a company, how do you build your own presence in Metaverse? Hesselink: “There are specialized consultancy firms that can help companies: with the purchase of land, designing an environment or entering into interactions.”
For now, there's still a lot to do to make Metaverse real to build. Expectations range from fifteen years to several years. Hesselink considers the latter estimate more realistic. IDC expects a lot in headsets for at least the next five years. By 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the Metaverse for work, shopping, education, socializing and/or entertainment, according to Gartner Research.
Nike is a good example of a company that set up a space on Metaverse. The company has launched 'Nikeland' on a gaming platform. Nikeland resembles the brand's headquarters, where visitors can play virtual games, design games, and shop. The company itself can test new products and will in any case start selling real and virtual sneakers and clothing.
Add Metaverse to your WFM solution
The question remains what companies should do to start offering customer contact in the Metaverse. For customer service departments, metaverse is a new form of online presence, so familiar territory. “Just as you have people walking around in your physical store, you will also have to schedule employees in Metaverse who will speak to customers or who may take over conversations from the Metaverse,” says Hesselink. “In any case, customer contact in Metaverse will be multimodal: you can talk, exchange messages and literally show things. In many cases you will come to a solution faster. And finally, a key promise of Metaverse is that you can delight your customers with completely new experiences. Metaverse is just a name. We don't know what it will look like in a few years, but it is certain that we will certainly interact differently and in new places in the near future. Technology is developing at lightning speed.” (Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)
