Improve Customer Experience With The Help Of Voice Assistants

By Published On: September 10th, 2020Categories: voice & assistants

In many areas of everyday life, customer care is already being optimized using voice assistants. In this article, we’ll show you how this works, which devices can support it and how they can be included in your business. 

 

The voice interface technology is accessible to everyone

The best thing about voice technology is that you don’t have to wait to use it. Large companies are beginning to see the benefits of this technology and are taking steps to make it a part of their business. Microsoft and Amazon have partnered to integrate Cortana and Alexa to better serve their customers and increase their productivity.

Teenagers have long used voice assistants on mobile devices, according to a survey by Google:

Figure 1: Google Mobile Voice Survey 2014

Figure 1: Google Mobile Voice Survey 2014

 

The pioneers

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are among the pioneers when it comes to voice assistants and voice technology. Here you can learn more about the history of voice assistants and how they evolved.

Some of the tech giants even closed partnerships, as did Amazon and Microsoft in 2018, which allowed to use their respective digital assistants, Cortana and Alexa, together. With Google and Amazon, on the other hand, things look a little different. Amazon, for example, does not offer Google products such as Chromecast or Google Home, or at least a lot less. If you search for Google Home on Amazon.com, the echo will appear instead. By the way, here’s our opinion on why we think Google Assistant is leading the voice assistant race.

According to research conducted by Gartner in 2015, 30% of our interactions with technology should take place through “conversations” with intelligent machines by 2018. As a result, the giants were already trending in 2018.

The possibilities of using speech recognition and related technology are truly endless. Now we need to focus on how companies can prepare for this while technology and service leaders should invest to improve the currently limited voice interfaces.

 

Also interesting: The Current Challenges Of Speech Recognition

 

How artificial intelligence is programmed

In general, voice assistants programmed with AI respond to voice commands and provide the user with relevant information about their query. Voice assistants are currently already able to process orders for products, perform actions such as playing music, answer questions or start a simple phone conversation with a friend.

The fundamentals of the technology are currently in place, and the next few years will be used to develop this artificial intelligence software even further and enable assistants with more complex skills. 

To be able to program artificial intelligence, IT technologies or programming languages such as C++, Java, Lisp, Python and prolog are used.

The long-term vision for voice assistants is to act as a smart bridge between humans and the vast knowledge and skills that the internet offers. It will no longer be necessary to use any device or screen to interact with the Internet or other people in different places. Soon we will be able to control everything with just our voice as artificial intelligence software continues to evolve.

If you’d like to learn more about chatbots and voice assistants and the technology behind them – check out our whitepaper on “More knowledge for chatbots & voice assistants.”

The impact of voice assistants in different industries

The simultaneous impressive growth of artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) has continued to drive the rapid development of speech recognition technology. These technologies have enabled speech technology to understand and mimic human speech with unmatched accuracy.

According to a study carried out by Juniper Research, the number of digital voice assistants in use will triple to 8 billion by 2023, powered by intelligent “home devices”.

This technology has a huge potential impact on various lines of business.

More Knowledge For Chatbots And Voice Assistants

In the whitepaper “More Knowledge For Chatbots And Voice Assistants” you will learn how meaningful conversations between humans and machines are made possible in automated customer communication through so-called Knowledge Graphs.

Onlim_Chatbot-Whitepaper

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Voice assistants can create a great customer experience and they can be found in companies in the following areas:

 

Retail and e-commerce

The retail and e-commerce sector is the industry that benefits the most from voice technology. With the advent of voice technology, customers no longer have to search the aisles or look through tons of product pages in e-commerce stores. All customers need to do now is to pronounce the product name or related search terms and they will be directed to the relevant product(s).

 

Banking and finance

The banking and financial sector is another area that particularly benefits from artificial intelligence. Voice assistants provide the user with a conversational interface. They also provide customer support that can be compared to that of a human assistant. Customers can use voice commands to perform various functions, e.g. check account balances, check transaction histories and even make payments.

 

Human resources and marketing

The benefits of voice technology extend to recruiting as well, as it simplifies complex and repetitive tasks. HR professionals can rely on an AI-powered voice assistant who sifts through multiple recruitment databases and applicant pools and compiles a relevant selection of candidates for specific job profiles.

woman and voice assistant

Education

Education is another industry that is quickly adopting voice technology. It changes the way things are taught and learned.

 

Legal system

Speech recognition programs are increasingly being used by legal practitioners. They can simplify routine tasks such as email management, legal documentation and data entry. Simply by reducing the need for text records and making them voice-based.

 

Transportation industry 

Voice-based solutions are fast becoming the most important part of the customer experience in the transportation industry. For example, transport companies integrate voice platforms that facilitate booking processes.

 

Healthcare and hospitality

Clinicians can use speech technology to collect patient information. Moreover, they can create and maintain electronic records in an easier and more effective way. Hotels are also an important vertical pillar that can benefit tremendously from the implementation of voice technology. They can offer their guests tailor-made stay experiences.

 

A voice assistant for every situation

Speech recognition has become the most wanted technology trend of this decade. More and more voice-based digital assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana or Samsung Bixby are being used both on the go, at home and at work.

 

For corporate purposes, Onlim is happy to support you with your voice assistants and chatbots developed. You will be amazed at how you can simplify and improve day-to-day business and customer care.

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