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The ultimate resource in the voice space. Conversational interfaces, voice interfaces, smart speakers and smart assistants, voice strategy, audio branding.

Flashbriefing 3 – How can you leverage voice tech for your business today?

Voice technologies reduce friction for consumers and you could make the most of the new voice platforms. We recommend start thinking about your voice strategy today, how do you want to sound and what’s your sonic identity. Here is some ways where you could leverage voice tech.

  1. Giving out specific information about your product and only when asked for.
  2. Dedicated attention to all your customers without involving manual interference.
  3. Take orders, subscriptions or service requests with just a simple voice command.
  4. Collect invaluable feedback without troubling your customer much, by just asking relevant questions.
  5. Educate and inform about new services and products based on context and user interests
  6. Personalized affinity based recommendations to upsell products and services.

Other services include:
Round the clock service: Service can be booked at any given time.
Automation: Processes that occur again and again can be automated easily with tools. This saves so much time.

Find full note at:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-miss-out-latest-technology-boom-voice-vishnu-saran/?published=t

Flash briefing 2 – Resources to create voice apps without knowing how to code

There are several apps that allow you to create Alexa skills and Google actions without knowing how to code that are good to experiment with the platforms. So here’s a list of resources that you can use today without coding:

  • Voice apps. That’s voiceapps.com. Create Alexa skills
  • Also for Alexa is Storyline. Storyline has a very active Facebook group where they answer user questions very quickly. Website it’s getstoryline.com
  • Conversation.one. Conversation allows to build for Alexa, Google Actions and chatbots. Website it’s conversation.one.
  • Dialog Flow seems really complete as it lets you create chatbots for Facebook messenger, Google actions, Alexa skills and Microsoft Cortana. Check them out at dialogflow.com
  • Other resources include books, tutorials and even a Twitch channel for Alexa developers. If you want to learn more about these check out voicefirstweekly.com/flashbriefing.

Books:

https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/2784c5a4-4709-409b-8c09-a780fcefcbcd/7-great-books-podcasts-and-videos-for-voice-designers

Courses:

Course for developers of Alexa skills:

Codeacademy:

  • Introduction to Alexa
  • Conversational Design with Alexa

Google Actions:

Udemy

Disclaimer: We are not affiliate or associate with the companies mentioned including but not limited to Amazon.com, Udemy.com or any other site mentioned above.

Flashbriefing 1 – Branding in voice platforms

Today we are discussing psychology and the meaning of life, hahaha, not that much we’ll be talking about whether companies should assign a gendered voice to their skills/actions, their brand in voice platforms. Here is the tweet that sparked our interest.

Here’s the deal with gender. Ultimately, AI is about delivering a fast, context appropriate interaction with your service, not foisting a new friend on your customer. Brands aren’t gendered. Their websites aren’t either. Google got this right. 

Found in this tweet

Well, we disagree, I think it’s inevitable that consumers will anthropomorphize brands in voice platforms. Whenever we talk about this issue I remember the movie Her. And I think this is more or less where the VoiceFirst movement will lead us, people naturally assign personality to voices, even computer-generated voices like Alexa. And the same will happen to the voice of your brand. Like the logo is today an important branding element for your company, voice and sonic identity will be in the years to come.

Find the tweet we are referencing here at voicefirstweekly.com/flashbriefing.

Voice Shopping estimated to hit 40 billion accross US and UK

Voice shopping estimated to hit $40+ billion across U.S. and U.K. by 2022

The growing popularity of smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home will lead to an explosion in voice-based shopping, according to a new market research report from OC&C Strategy Consultants out this week. The firm is bullishly predicting that voice shopping will grow to a whopping $40 billion-plus in 2022, up from $2 billion today across the U.S. and the U.K.

This sizable increase will be driven by Amazon’s smart speaker sales, in particular, the report said.

This forecast far exceeds earlier estimates of voice shopping revenues in the years ahead. While not an exact comparison, RBC Capital Markets recently predicted Amazon would generate $10 to $11 billion in sales from Alexa devices – including device sales themselves and voice shopping – by the year 2020.

To the fullest possible use

I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. Hal9000.