3 Things Every Startup Needs to Know About Voice Assistants
Voice assistants like Alexa and Siri are changing the way people search for, and interact with, your business.
In recent years, we’ve all seen articles spouting lofty predictions claiming that this year (insert any of 2017, 2018, 2019…) will be the ‘year of voice’. Now, I’m not suggesting that 2020 will finally be ‘the year’, far from it. Nevertheless, we have found ourselves in circumstances that can only accelerate uptake in the use of voice assistants, particularly within our homes.
Since April, more than one-half of the world’s population has been living under some form of lockdown or government restriction. As a result, people around the world are spending more time with voice assistants and using them in ways that were still firmly in the realm of science fiction only four or five years ago.
Since March, users of Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri have been encouraged to ask their respective voice assistants for help diagnosing symptoms of Covid-19. As CNBC reports, questions like “how do I know if I have coronavirus” and “do I have coronavirus” now trigger functionality that asks users about their travel history, symptoms, and likely places or contexts which could have resulted in exposure to the virus.
The hands-free nature of voice technology may play a significant role in further growing its appeal.
According to eMarketer, in 2019 around one-third of Americans regularly used voice assistants. While more recent numbers from the pandemic are difficult to come by, one survey of smart speaker users by Morning Consult, conducted between 31 March — 1 April, estimates that usage has increased almost 35% in the U.S. Similarly, telecom services in South Korea are reporting a nearly 40% lift in voice assistant queries and conversations since the beginning of the crisis.
Furthermore, the longer COVID-19 remains a defining part of our lives, the more conditioned we will become to remaining aware of what we do and do not need to touch. Even within the safety of the home, the hands-free nature of voice technology may play a significant role in further growing its appeal.
For those of us invested in growing businesses, we must recognize that this will have far-reaching implications for how people interact with our brands in the future. It may not be this year, but COVID-19 has certainly propelled us further down the line.
While many businesses have been slowly building their capacity to take advantage of the inevitable ubiquity of voice assistants and smart speakers, now is the time for future-focused marketers to reappraise how voice and voice data can be used to create experiences that people love and drive the consumer actions their brands need.
With this in mind, there are three distinct areas that businesses need to address in the coming years in order to take advantage of the changing landscape that voice technology will inevitably unleash.
The Rise of the Fleeting Thought
As voice recognition technology improves (Google Home currently answers a shade over 80% of queries correctly), we will see people increasingly take action on their most fleeting of thoughts. With ubiquitous voice technology, thoughts and ideas that had previously never been worth further investigation will be just a “Siri, how does…” away
At first glance, this may seem quaint at best and infantile at worst. Yet allowing people to take action on their fleeting thoughts has serious implications in enabling spontaneous behavior.
As most voice assistants are designed to provide users with a single ‘best’ answer, the smartest businesses will be grasping with both hands every opportunity to make possible these spontaneous moments.
Every fleeting thought is an opportunity for the right brand to provide real value to prospective customers by delivering that one ‘best’ answer.
A Deeper Understanding of Your Customers
As the user-based of voice technology grows and voice-enabled devices appear in ever more diverse spaces, brands will have myriad opportunities to provide their customers with richer and more personalized experiences — the Holy Grail of addressable marketing.
The smartest businesses will actively seek out ways in which voice can open up new touchpoints between customers and their brands. Furthermore, it will be imperative for companies to optimize existing owned assets for voice.
Those who fail to adapt their online footprint to the way in which people actually talk about their brand will quickly fall behind, while those who do will reap the benefits of a deepened understanding of their cultural relevance and position within their customers' lives.
An Evolution in ‘How-To’
Finally, the voice will be fundamental in shaping the ongoing evolution of guided-learning and discovery, similar to how the rise of easily digestible “how-to” videos revolutionized the written instruction guide.
According to SEO consultancy BrightLocal, “How” is the most used word across all English language voice searches. With this in mind, any “how-to” moment is instantly transformed into an opportunity for guided-learning and deeper interaction.
Of course, for businesses, this is not without risk. We all know that there are few things more annoying to consumers than a brand inserting itself where it doesn’t belong. But in the right context, brands can empower people to learn new things and achieve their goals through a meaningful value-exchange.
Although, this in itself raises interesting questions: how do you construct a brand’s personality in a world where competing experiences are delivered through the same, indistinguishable synthetic voice? How can brands convey differentiation and distinctiveness? And frankly, does that even matter if the experience is seamless and provides the best solution for the user?
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned at the start of this article, 2020 will not be the ‘year of voice’, at least not for most businesses. There is still a long way to go before we begin seeing the predictions of the past few years come to fruition. Yet, as we have seen during this crisis, voice assistants are addressing the real needs and desires of people at an increasing rate.
As voice assistants grow in penetration around the world and truly connected homes become the norm, there can be little doubt that those brands taking voice seriously will be the ones in the best position to take advantage of the opportunity on offer — the ability to connect with customers in ways previously unimaginable.
