The Voice Assistant in your pocket
Voice is about more than just smart speakers, almost all smartphones have a voice assistant built in. Interacting with your phone using voice helps initiate people to voice-led interactions, making them more comfortable talking to machines.
A voice-enabled world
Over the past year Amazon and Google have both opened up their system so that other manufacturers can make voice-enabled products with Amazon and Google technology built in. This has led to a tidal-wave of new inventions, with voice-enabled watches, mirrors, bins, cars and furbies bursting onto the scene.
FMCG brands are already embracing Voice
Ocado is encouraging people to adopt new routines with their Action that allows you to add items to your basket with your voice, Johnnie Walker has created a “Guided Tasting” voice experience encourages consumers to engage with the brand, and Quaker made an action which inspired loyal customers to try new “overnight oats” recipes.
Beware potential pitfalls
With emerging technologies, there are always potential pitfalls. Voice Assistants have improved dramatically over the past few years, but they still occasionally mishear queries and give wrong answers. It’s crucial to ensure that your Action or Skill is pulling from a secure data source, otherwise you might have a Burger King situation on your hands.
It all starts with a use-case
Using Rabbit & Pork’s Hackathon winning skill as an example, Daphne took us through the process of building an Action and Skill. Starting off with looking at search trends and volumes to find a use case, through to writing the code, mapping conversation paths, and continually expanding the Voice experience.