5 Ways Voice Technologies are Reshaping Businesses

Voice assistants have made huge leaps over the past few years. What was once a technology used only by adventuring tech enthusiasts have now become mainstream. People are using voice assistants for all types of daily tasks.

This includes searching the internet, making calls or even controlling some internet-connected systems. Instead of having to use any buttons or interfaces, people can just talk to their gadgets and ask them to do whatever they want.

It goes without saying that the perks of using voice commands are pretty obvious. It’s easier, more convenient and opens the room for new use scenarios. And that’s why many of the world’s leading tech companies have poured millions into voice technologies research.

The result is the voice assistants that you are familiar with today. Amazon has Alexa, Google has Google Assistant, Apple has Siri and Microsoft has Cortana. Since the products of these companies are pretty much in everybody’s life right now, there is a good chance that you’ve used one of these assistants.

Revolutionizing How Businesses Work

Asides from being helpful tools to use, voice technologies have revolutionized the way many businesses work. In the past, communicating with different business was done either through typing or a graphical interface. That’s how things worked.

At that time, voice technologies didn’t have the required sophistication to be adopted at a wide scale. As a result, businesses that wanted to harness the power of digital technologies didn’t really need to take them into consideration. They were just “fun” technologies.

For example, if you’re an e-commerce business, you need to have a website that provides your users with the best experience. This is something that will help you improve your conversion rates, and make your business more successful overall. Nowadays, if you want to be really successful, you must incorporate voice technologies one way or the other.

The following are five ways in which voice technologies are reshaping how businesses work.  

1. Personalized Customer Relationships

One thing that you’ll get from cutting-edge voice technologies is a level of personalization that exceeds anything that was possible before. Before voice technologies came along, chatbots were the pinnacle of personalized responses.

With smart voice technologies, you can have an actual “voice” that can communicate with your clients, and answer their question. Share on XWithout this technology, you’ll need a small army of customer support agents to make this happen.

2. Seamless User Experience

Different systems/devices are one obstacle that faces business when they try to go digital. Due to the specific limitations/requirements, it’s hard to achieve a unified user experience across different platforms. However, this is something that can be done using voice technologies.

Businesses can provide their customers with the same experience across different devices, which is better for client satisfaction rates. People expect something specific when they interact with your brand. With voice technologies, you can give that same great experience every time.  

3. A New Way to Search the Internet

Search engine optimization and organic traffic, in general, are essential for any business that wants to succeed online. For years, search engine optimization has been all about text-based search queries. With the rise of voice assistants though, this started to change.

As more people are using voice tools to search the internet, companies have started to include this in the SEO strategies. In Q2 of 2018 alone, Amazon sold a whopping 4.1 million Echo devices. By the year 2020, 50% of all internet searches will be voice-based.

As a result, voice searches are becoming increasingly important for any successful SEO strategy.

4. More Voice-Compatible Products

Back in the day, voice command was an extra smartphone feature. It was something that you can use to ask your phone to call someone or do a quick Google search. As the technology evolves, so does its uses.

People now expect more products to be compatible with their favorite voice assistants. You probably noticed the increase in products that are “Alexa-compatible” on Amazon. These range from larger home appliances to robot vacuums. This integration allows people to control their TVs, home security systems and even the lights with voice commands.

The effect that this will have on you as a business is that you’ll need to start incorporating this in your products as well. If you sell a digital or electronic product, voice commands are something that customers expect by default now. The sooner you start adopting this technology, the more future-proof your business will be.

5. High AI Compatibility

Artificial intelligence is another technology that’s redefining the applications of technology in businesses. Since voice technologies are highly compatible with AI, there are expected to keep getting better, as they benefit from machine learning.

That’s voice incorporating both voice technologies and AI in your business process can improve things dramatically. Each of these technologies is powerful on its own. The fact that they play nicely together makes them even better. Imagine a voice assistant that handles all your customer interactions and teaches itself how to serve them better.

Conclusion

No matter what industry you’re in, voice technologies can make your business better. In addition to allowing you to serve your clients better, voice technologies allow for better process automation, especially when used with machine learning.

We will be exploring AI-powered voice automation in our next blog post. Stay tuned!