How Voice Assistant Technology Is Transforming Customer Experience across Industries

July 2, 2018 | Data Analytics

The key to success for any business is to meet customers where they are.

A comScore study recently predicted that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice-based. Voice is quicker and more convenient than typing. So, it is inevitable that in next 5 years, a good part of customer-facing services will be backed by voice-enabled technologies. Just like many such services have shifted from desktop to mobile in past 10 years.

The increasing popularity of smart speakers (AI-backed smart voice assistants) such as Amazon Echo and Google Home among customers also indicates that voice technology is the future.

On the other hand, businesses across industries are also aware of this on-going shift in the technology and customer behavior. In fact, many have already begun their voice journey and are transforming the way how customers interact with their brand.

As the above graph depicts, Amazon currently leads the pack in the voice assistant market. In fact, most brands are delivering their voice enabled services to the customers via Amazon Alexa on the Echo devices. Today, there are about 30,000 third-party skills on the Alexa Skill Store for different operations and services for different industries.

Let’s go through some of these Alexa-based skills that are enriching the customer experience in different industries.

Tour & Travel Bookings (By Expedia)

The hassle of managing your travel arrangements can be a nightmarish experience sometimes. To ease that, Expedia recently launched an Alexa skill that takes care of all your travel details such as flight info, hotel reservations, car rentals, etc., so you can travel hassle-free.

Ecommerce Customer Care (By Trantor)

Going through a bevy of questions just to get the status of your order (whether on mobile, desktop, or call) is such a daunting task. To make things efficient, we recently developed Customer Care skill for Alexa platform that can handle simple ecommerce customer service queries such as checking order status, refund status, scheduling returns, order cancellation, and more.

Hotel & Hospitality (By Amazon & Marriott)

In news recently, Amazon (in partnership with Marriott) launched a new Alexa skill named ‘Alexa for Hospitality’. The skill is bundle of numerous capabilities such as managing guest information, checkout time, pool hours, enableinng guest to request for housekeeping/room services, and can be connected with smart devices/appliances to offer services like adjusting thermostat, raising blinds, and so on.

Finance/Asset Management (By Capital One)

An important and very useful Alexa skill that Capital One launched for its customers a while ago, it offers an end-to-end management of your personal finances and transactions. Saving customers the hassle of keeping a track of their assets all the time. Surely enough, other major banks are also in line to offer their customers similar consumer-centric service.

Home Healthcare (By Orbita)

Libertana Home Health Care recently introduced its Alexa-enabled home health-care assistant for its elderly patients. The skill has several helpful capabilities such as ensuring patients they have their medications on time, sending alerts to patient’s family members about their health status, and so on.

Conclusion

By and large, we have only started to scratch the surface of what can be achieved with voice assistants and other voice related technologies. Besides the handful of examples mentioned above, there are hundreds of many other useful Alexa skills for dozens of other industries, enhancing the customer experience.

Business across industry must start acting in this direction to maintain and enhance the customer satisfaction level and also to survive the race ahead. Another thing to note here is that the market is not limited to Alexa-Echo. Market penetration of other players, especially, Google Home devices is also increasingly rapidly (as the chart below depicts).

So, it is imperative that brands come up with voice enabled services that can be used across devices; thereby, offering seamless experience to a wide range of customers.

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