Customer Experience in the Web 3.0 Era: The Meeting of Blockchain and the Metaverse

Modern Customer Experience

Customer experience defines what customers feel and think about the brand. The delights and disappointments and the overall feel of the product or service are accounted for. Customer experience has evolved into a new dimension, focusing on the current state of technology, consumer behavior, and market trends. Existing research identified three critical factors linking innovative technologies and customer shopping: channel choice, value dimensions related to convenience and enjoyment, and social interaction (Ylilehto et al., 2021). Modern customer experience can be evaluated in several ways, by way of new technology adoption, increased loyalty, cost savings, and - most crucially - value co-creation. Customers are moving from traditional physical stores to hybrid or fully online stores; hence, customer experience measurements should be hybrid and digital. No matter how strong an offline brand is, the retail organization needs an online presence to maximize customer interaction. Information technology can be used in mapping, enabling, and monitoring the customer journey (Helouani, 2021). Retail companies have already embraced technological innovations in the retailing industry, such as smart mirrors, checkout-free stores, chatbots, and facial recognition-based shopping. However, with Metaverse, the customer experience will be taken up to whole newer interactive level, thanks to its immersive shopping features. For example, chatbots are getting integrated with the Metaverse (Xie et al., 2023). Virtual avatar characters/personalities will now interact with the customer instead of the boring text-only interaction mode that was used earlier. However, marketers should ensure that the availability and usage of multiple touchpoints do not lead to customer irritation. Customers must be facilitated with a smooth passage from one touchpoint to another to create fluidity between them (Vanheems, 2019).