Employees Rule. Metaverse Swallows The Customer Experience: Plus 3 More Predictions for The Crazy Half Decade Just Ahead

Offices are no more. 

The Metaverse is the new customer experience. 

The Customer takes charge. 

Say what? 

Below are 5 predictions for 2025 - just three short years from now -  and they’re based on connected events happening right now. And they all had their beginnings several years back. 

Some folks look at the year just passed. I prefer to look ahead. 

Prediction # 1. By 2025, the Office as we know it, will be gone.  

As “the great return” stretches further and further out, more and more people are questioning the purpose – and need really – for the office at all. 

Workplace researcher Envoy is saying 68 % of workers remain hesitant to return to the office. While Insurance giant Prudential reports that 66 % of employees they spoke with recently say they prefer a “hybrid workplace” (combination of in – office and out-of-office work choices). 

And finally some workplace research companies are saying that there is a sizeable percentage of workers who may never return to the office at all.  

 No matter which of these predictions eventually come true, the office landscape has forever changed.  

And although the traditional office will never completely go away – as I say in the headline above meant to get your attention of course – it's got commercial realtors scrambling to reimagine their business the next few years.  

Prediction # 2. The Customer takes charge. 

With the competitive landscape becoming increasingly crowded, Customers are getting an improved spot in the “driver’s seat” daily. 

And financial publication Forbes reports that Customers continue to demand more from companies they do business with today. For one, Customers these days expect a really quick response time from businesses – in some cases “5 minutes or less!” 

Customers are also taking charge in the area of the environmental impact of products including factors like sustainability. In fact, Forbes says that 91 % of consumers they recently interviewed expect companies to be socially responsible! 

Prediction # 3. Talent (finally) gets clout. 

And Employees – Talent these days – are also beginning to flex their muscles. It hasn’t always been this way either s we all know. 

Economic researchers Glassdoor predict several new developments in the Talent arena. They say that after the last two years of burnout, stress and financial unpredictability, companies are working on areas like better Employee attraction and accessing a larger talent pool with more lucrative remote work financial packages.  

Prediction # 4. Sales closes every deal they chase. 

Used to be that Sales folks closed around one in three deals they were pursuing. That number has remained constant for the last thirty years.  

Until this year.  

Artificial Solutions magazine had much to say about the major impact the Artificial Intelligence or A I will have the future workplace. For one thing, they report that some 97 million new jobs will be created by 2025 in the A I related area, one key area being Data Analysts and Scientists. 

So the new Sales organization will be able to better target their Sales Prospects. And when they do, their success rates – deal closures – will likely skyrocket!  

No more one in three. More like 2 in 3 or even 3 and 3.  

It’s just going to happen!   

Prediction # 5. The Customer Experience is now the Metaverse. 

$ 280 billion.  

2025 forecast value by researcher Earthweb of the global “Metaverse” marketplace and said to be exploding in size almost daily (BTW, it was worth just $ 46 billion in 2020). 

And the Metaverse will radically change the Customer Experience.  

So, with the current 5 Key Steps in the Customer Experience (i.e. Investigate, Evaluate, etc.) consisting mostly of online – human – interaction, adding the “realities” (Virtual, Augmented) to the mix means something entirely new.  

Suddenly, as an example, “Investigating” a new product or service need could become a “real world environment” in a safe space with say an avatar for a potential supplier acting in a “chatroom-like” mode answering an Investigator’s questions or even giving a short demo of a potential product on demand – all in a virtual setting!  

Wow! Talk about a personalized Customer Experience! 

So, there you have it.  

Five (5) big Predictions for 2025. And things will be changing. Really changing. 

So, until you and I get together again to talk about the new workplace and the customer experience in 2025, I’ll see ‘ya. 

Thanks for hangin’ out with me this past year and Happy New Year! 

Ciao.