What Is Experience: Redefinitions In The Metaverse World
Experience can be a noun or a verb.
As a noun, it denotes the “practical contact with or observation of facts or events.” In other words, experience is the sum total of knowledge and learnings gathered through executing tasks, observing events, and witnessing incidents during our days.
Experience, as a verb, is “an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone.” It is therefore the culmination of the feelings and emotions that one goes through as a result of the happenings in their surroundings.
In a day and age when motion and activity define our being, let’s focus on the verb ‘experience,’ and see for ourselves how it impacts the noun.
REDEFINING THE EXPERIENCE PARADIGM: UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS
Why am I speaking about ‘experience,’ and that too in its verb form?
Ever since the IT industry was born in India in the early ‘90’s, organizations have obsessed with defining, delivering, and driving the next frontiers of ‘customer experience.’ Even today, we continue to focus on leveraging customer satisfaction/delight measures to get an understanding of the pulse and sentiments of our clients — sometimes, almost on a daily basis.
Scores of papers have been written on the Customer Delight Index (CDI), with deep industry-academia discussions taking place around the need for more insightful customer satisfaction surveys and enhanced ratings. Engineering services companies have continued to push the boundaries with a plethora of technologies such as 5G, Machine Learning and VR, creating new avenues to engage and delight customers.
So, What is Customer Experience?
Let us first look at some examples from the most commonly available index — that from the retail industry. Imagine this. You go to a small shop selling clothes and garments. We have all come across such shops, and there is a probability is that we would have also sat down at their display counters as they showcased their merchandise.
We would have browsed through alternates, bargained on rates, and finally picked what we wanted, returning home with our shopping. We would be happy with ourselves for making a wise purchase. The shopkeeper, on the other hand, would also be happy that he had a reasonable customer and could sell his goods at a fair price and decent margins.
There would be days when we wouldn’t, however, have had the best of experiences. The price may be too high, the quality insufficient, or even the preferred alternate may be missing. Again, we might just choose to delay the purchase at a whim — nullifying the shop assistant’s efforts to make a sale.
Experience quotient this time around — not very high!
And then, there could be those seemingly terrible days with no one attending to us in the first place. And when they do, they don’t really seem to care about what we want — attempting to sell only what they have. The customer is left to fend for themselves, with no one to handle queries.
Frustrating — but true.
All these experiences find a parallel in the digital world. We may get what we are looking for right away, or we may end up searching for hours and not find what we are looking for. Support may be inadequate or missing, underscoring a feeling of helplessness, frustration, and annoyance.
But come to think of it, how many times have we had the pleasure of using intuitive and brilliant apps which streamline and ease our digital-driven buying journeys? And how many times have we had to deal with an app that clearly tests patience? In the case of the latter, we might have thought that it would have been better to do the task physically than relying on the virtual storefront/task platform.
WELCOME TO THE METAVERSE!
What we experience in a physical world — the way we enter a store; how we touch and feel the merchandise; the manner in which the shop assistants help us around the store; the ease of access to trial rooms for checking an outfit; streamlined finalization of choices, billing and exit from store — all this and more can be done effortlessly in the virtual world today.
You do not have to take your vehicle, navigate the mounting traffic, or worry about shop hours. All you have to do is to take a seat in a comfortable nook in your house or workplace, switch on your connecting device (laptop/TV/mobile), and choose the shop from where you wish to buy.
Start looking at the merchandise in your avatar form when you log into the store. The sales assistant’s avatar is there to help you go through the digital Metaverse store. Pick your clothes and try them on in the Metaverse fitting rooms. Your digital avatar will not get worn out even if you were to try on a dozen or more options. Pick what you like and go to the payment desk at the virtual store. Make your payments through your card or the already established multifarious payment gateways, check out your shopping bags.
Voila! Your merchandise is shipped to the address shared with the virtual store.
WHAT THIS TRANSLATES TO…
The Metaverse journey can be an exhilarating experience. Brands can create zillions of digital assets (otherwise known as NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens). If what you are looking for is not in the store, you can always try and design it by yourself and go in for made-to-order outfits.
If the shop doesn’t have what you are looking for, you can seamlessly travel the Metaverses and get to the outlet which may hold your favorites.
All this might have sounded farfetched even a couple of decades ago — just like the moon landing would have seemed absurd in the 1800’s. Or, like when Alexandar Graham Bell would have been told that his invention would one day evolve to facilitate video conversations across continents!
But it is as real as that. Metaverse shopping experiences are here to stay.
The good news is that such customer or user experience does not stop with just retail outlets. Banks, Schools, Colleges, Concerts and even the factory shop floor — every outlet can be experienced in the Metaverse world.
What we need is a strong business purpose to create Metaverse for B2C users, while minimizing or even completely avoiding the need for headgears and other wearables. The focus needs to be on improving the performance and reach of interfaces (like a remote or mobile), minimizing latency, leveraging and delivering large data storage and processing
capabilities, and ensuring all round affordability.
Looking at the pace of recent developments in the technology services domain, we are set to reach and exceed these targets within the next decade.
Here’s to an all-round redefinition of experiences.
See you in the Metaverse!
Author
Global Delivery Head — Metaverse
L&T Technology Services
Gayathri Devi Jayan is Global Business Head — Metaverse BU, at L&T Technology Services, based out of Chennai. She has close to 3 decades of experience across the software services delivery landscape, leading large and complex portfolios.
Gayathri is spearheading the evolution of the Metaverse business unit at LTTS, the leading global ER&D services provider with a track record of cutting-edge innovation. She is driving large digital transformation programs for the benefit of end customers in key industry verticals, combining LTTS’ engineering domain expertise in diverse realms such as 5G, Consumer Electronics, Product and Software engineering and AI to create exciting platforms and solutions in the Metaverse.
A keen enthusiast who closely follows evolving software design, architecture, data modelling and development lifecycle paradigms, Gayathri is an expert in managing elaborate, complex programs and is passionate about running mega projects involving multiple stakeholders. She has been instrumental in leading from the front in helping her organizations get assessed at CMM/ CMMI Level 4 and Level 5.
Gayathri has a Master’s degree in Science and Technology from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. She is an avid reader, blogger, and a movie critic, with a passion towards theatre and dance. Gayathri also loves to write in her spare time.
Her favorite quote:
“Of course, in God we trust! All others must bring ‘right’ data.”
Originally published at https://www.ltts.com .
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