Interactive voice experiences through voice technology

interactive voice experience

Interactive voice experiences – it’s the ability to turn simple data inputs, into a joyful experience through a conversational design  which is unparalleled by any other interaction method.

“Experience” is a tricky word. Is it the sensation you get as you unbox an Apple product or browse through the Gucci store?

Voice experience is a user’s holistic perception of their experience with your business or brand. A great interactive voice user-experience is all about how a person feels while interfacing with a voice application. It is not about just making an app usable, but also about creating an emotion. The voice experience is the result of every interaction a user has with your voice app. Everything you do impacts your user’s perception and their decision to keep coming back or not. Providing consumers with seamless experiences is where a lot of experts feel the use of Voice assistants can come in handy.

Interactive voice experiences 

Consumer experiences are changing drastically with voice technology. Professions that rely heavily on consumer interactions are inherently undergoing their own set of transformations.

In this blog, we discuss some of the changes that are happening in the customer experience world as we discuss voice experience. Our objectives are:

  1. Understand voice and interactive voice experience
  2. How voice is becoming an important part of the consumer experience
  3. Why brands need to take notice and work on a voice strategy

Voice is no longer a novelty- it’s a mainstream technology

60% of all searches will be voice searches by 2021 (source: comScore)

Consumer behavior is changing as people are now getting more comfortable and familiar with using voice commands to do their voice searches.

With the advent of smart speakers backed by assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant, voice has grown quickly in both popularity and utility, owing to a large part to its simplicity.

Voice’s ease of use is giving smart speakers a key competitive advantage over the likes of mobile.

Adoption of voice strategy by brands

Brands are now trying to adopt a voice strategy. There is a lot of opportunity for deeper and much more conversational experiences with customers by following the new voice technologies.

Brands are finding alternate ways to create an exceptional voice experience. It includes right from the basic questions as to which voice to adopt to answer the customer’s queries, whether to adopt a male or female voice for your brand, what should be your brand’s voice persona, how formal should the conversation be and so forth.

Brand’s uptake is growing fast too

The world’s biggest brands are already building voice skills which consumers are adopting into their everyday lives, and increased competition between Amazon and Google is bringing new features and increased integration, driving an almost daily transformation of voice capabilities.

Why do you need a voice experience element in your voice strategy?

Voice enables you to have a direct conversation with your customers. You have the opportunity to engage your shoppers, to listen to what they have to say (once asked) and to make business decisions based on that feedback.

You can thoughtfully design an experience that gathers information relevant to your brand.

 Few tips to consider:

  •  Using of Multi-modal devices

Multi-modal devices such as Echo Show and Google Home have the immense potential to enhance and unlock experiences in which both voice and visual are important. Voice only search and browsing can be difficult because as voice is the easiest and most natural way to input a request, it may not be the best way to communicate a response like a list or set of options.

 Now let’s consider an example use case and the rationale behind it.

 Web-search Use case – The user wants to know about a local shop’s store timings. For such a simple question, using a smart speaker might be the most efficient tool to get the required information. However, if the user wants to get follow-up information such as directions, visual content might be beneficial.

The widespread availability of this new channel for customer communication presents enormous opportunities for brands to interact with, and delight, their customers. As with any emergent and developing technology, best practices are still being formed, and how consumers will prefer to interact with brands is still being explored. However, even at this early stage, compelling use cases have emerged, and they’re worth understanding.

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  •  Informational search queries

Brands like Capital One allows their users to check their bank balance or make a payment when one is due. In order to do this, they need to enable the app by name, sign in with a username and password and enter a four-digit PIN.

 That’s why brands need to think “higher in the funnel” with how they need to approach voice skills.

In a skincare industry, one basic example could be “Alexa, what are blackheads?” This is a basic problem that people often have with their skin, but it also isn’t a purely informational search. The next logical question someone might ask after this one is “how do I get rid of them”, and that’s where the true opportunity for a brand in an industry like skincare might be.

In this case, a brand can own this high-level information using these informational questions that consumers are asking every day. Through this, organizations can use smart speakers as a channel for customer acquisition. This opportunity doesn’t halt at simply offering consumers a solution for their most immediate concerns, but also at recommending them new or associated products.  

  •  Product recommendations through smart speakers

Brands should start to think about smart speakers as an opportunity to offer product recommendations that drive deeper engagement and higher value for a brand. By prompting consumers to start a recommendation, whether it’s to find their perfect skincare routine, the best choice of Netflix shows or the right car for them, brands can leverage a natural, conversational flow to keep things open-ended, informative, helpful and generate real insight on an individual consumer. Using voice skills, brands can suggest product recommendations to their customers and encourage them for repetitive purchases.

Voice skill is the best choice for how brands can answer to the requests their customers have instantly and maximize the quality of all customer experience as a result.

  • Emotions are a strong call to action for interactive voice experience

Story telling has always had the power to move people.That is why brands like Disney and Apple have always enjoyed deep relationships with their customers.They use a combination of technology and storytelling to inspire meaningful connections with their audience.

More than just about any other interface, a voice experience will give us the rare opportunity to really humanize a brand and tell its story.A story that is transparent,engaging and poignant narrative that humanizes of what your brand is actually trying to do.

Brands should prepare for this advanced user/assistant relationship by creating content that follows the natural flow of conversation. Voice technology is constantly changing how brands approach their branding strategies, and voice assistants are making big waves. By understanding what makes this technology unique, your brand marketing can evolve with the changing needs of your customers.

Consumers expect greater personalization and continuity within the experiences they get from brands, and brands can’t leave any stone unturned. Combining these solutions with a comprehensive voice strategy, brands can give their consumers the instant, personalized responses which they expect, while also delivering this responsiveness in an automated and accessible way.

Not sure what kind of voice skill could benefit your business?  Contact our VOGO team for your voice skill.

VOGO Voice designs and builds engaging voice skills for industries including education, civic, transportation, business, and nonprofits using our robust voice user interface platform that allows data integration and in-depth customization. VOGO Voice build you the best of class voice app that is compatible with both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Get in touch with our professional team today to hand your citizens, customers, and workforce a high-definition voice-activated solution to keep pace with their demand.