Want Alexa to help you with first aid? There's a skill for that.
Want Alexa to help you find movie tickets while driving? There's a skill for that.
Want help assessing your dog’s symptoms, finding a new recipe, or even cleaning your floors with a robotic vacuum cleaner? Yep, there are skills for all of that, too.
In fact, there are now 100,000 skills—and counting. Some are silly. Some are basic. Some, such as the multi-modal skill that we built for Butterball, are enabling improved engagement between companies and their customers.
It was just three years ago that Amazon announced that Alexa skills passed the 10,000 mark. And while that the 10K milestone was evidence that Alexa was making her way into the mainstream, there are now more than 100,000 skills available. This phenomenal growth affirms: Voice is here to stay.
Implementing voice into your omnichannel digital strategy
Amongst the myriad of skills, some are certainly more useful than others. It is important for individuals and brands to experiment and learn where voice applications gain traction and build retention, through utility and delight. For the longer term, a brand’s Conversational AI strategy should bring compelling benefits to users in tandem with all other modalities of interaction. Tying voice skills to a fuller omnichannel experience that really works well and provides compelling benefits is a worthy pursuit.
So, why voice? Trends in voice and eCommerce
Not surprisingly, growth has been brisk in the uptake of smart speakers as more people, including Baby Boomers, welcome Alexa into their homes. A 2019 survey by Voicebot and Voicify found that one in four U.S. consumers (26.4%) now have access to a smart speaker. As of 2019, more than 40% of people who own smart speakers have more than one device, up from 34% in 2018.
Aside from using Alexa to ask a question, listen to a streaming music service, and check the weather, a 2019 survey also found 10% growth in the use of voice commerce. Fifteen percent of respondents reported buying products through Alexa or another voice assistant. More than 40% indicated that they’ve used their voice assistant to search for products; 28% do so on a monthly basis.
Voice also enables businesses to provide customer service
Beyond skills for supporting commerce, there’s opportunity to deploy skills that deliver voice-activated customer service. The Voicebot/Voicify survey found considerable appetite for such capabilities, with 31.4% of U.S. consumers interested in using their smart speaker for that purpose. Another 30.4% are unsure and 38.2% said they wouldn’t be interested. In other words, more than 20 million adults welcome voice-powered service and about the same number are open to it.
Working Conversational AI into your digital strategy
For their part, marketers at brands and agencies see Alexa and other voice assistants as a viable marketing channel. In another Voicebot/Voicify survey, 88.5% of marketers cited voice assistants as at least a somewhat significant marketing channel. Echoing the consumer survey, most marketers (69%) also believe that voice commerce will take off for product searches AND purchases.
But while they’re bullish on the potential of voice skills and voice-powered apps, the percentage of marketers who have actually launched a voice app is smaller. At Mobiquity, we’re working to change that—helping our clients design and deploy Alexa skills and other conversational AI solutions that align with their business goals and greater omnichannel strategy.
So, what will you build with voice? Get in touch with Mobiquity to discuss your options.
We believe that addressing customer challenges gives you opportunities to delight. Using our proprietary Friction Reports and strong industry expertise, we dig deep into customer sentiment and create action plans that remove engagement roadblocks. The end result is seamless, relevant experiences that your customers will love.
