In voice, as in life, there are not second chances to make first impressions. Particularly at this stage in a technology that has not gained all users attention. To increase engagement with your voice app – start with the welcoming experience.

Voice adds a new dimension to how customers interact with your service, brand, or content. A customer’s first interaction with your skill will leave a lasting impression, which is why it’s important to ensure your welcome experience is positive and memorable. Also, providing a guided experience is vital for both new and repeat customers.  A welcome prompt (something as simple as “Welcome back to MySkill”) reinforces to the customer that they are in a skill experience, and that they correctly invoked the desired skill. Customers may not realize they invoked a skill and a generic question like “What would you like to do?” could cause confusion.

In addition to helping new customers have a positive experience, the welcome message is your first opportunity to establish your brand identity on Alexa and create a memorable first impression.

In a separate article by The Verge, How to get voice-enabled apps right in the age of smart everything there’s an interesting observation “It doesn’t make sense to only study what people want from voice interactions using traditional UX research methods like lab-based usability studies, and yet that’s what most brands are doing.”

Voice is the platform for context. And to better define what your users want or expect from your app you need to observe them on their environment and in the context they are in. Forget content, for a voice-first world, context is king and your welcoming experience is the door to that kingdom.

Thank you for listening and until next time. Find us @voicefirstlabs on Twitter, @voicefirstweekly on Instagram. 

Adapted from bits of:

https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/06/23/how-to-get-voice-enabled-apps-right-in-the-age-of-smart-everything/

https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/cdbde294-8e41-4147-926f-56cdc2a69631/best-practices-for-the-welcome-experience-and-prompting-in-alexa-skills

Your car will talk way before it flies. We were promised flying cars instead we got talking, connected cars. And that might be a good thing. We are not ready for flying cars.

In the late 2017 Smart audio report by NPR and Edison Research, is said that 64% of Smart Speaker owners are interested in having Smart Speaker technology in their car.

Mercedes Benz recently announced voice control for models A-B-Class, CLA and GLA. The app is available in 10 languages and can be used from your phone connected to the car. Featuring weather reports, navigation and music playing, Mercedes built their own assistant, a decision that separate them from other manufacturers that have chosen Google or Amazon assistants.

Lexus also announced that the seventh generation of ES 2019 will come with Apple play and Amazon Alexa compatibility.

Tesla, which will have voice controlled commands in its Model 3, according to a tweet by Elon Musk it’s another one of the car companies announcing features with voice tech. Connected cars have arrived, we are not sure about all the implications it’ll have, but it’s clearly one application of voice it’s hard to argue against. After all where is more convenient to use voice that when you are driving or using your hands? Until we get self-driving and flying cars, voice tech is here to command it.

Thank you for listening and until next time. Find us @voicefirstlabs in Twitter, @voicefirstweekly in Instagram and our website is voicefirstweekly.com/flashbriefing. That’s voicefirstweekly.com/flashbriefing

Sources referenced:

https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/me/voice-control-how-to-get/

https://www.chron.com/cars/article/Posher-sleeker-2019-Lexus-ES-will-have-Apple-12998441.php

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-voice-commands-features-musk/

We talked in one of last week flash briefings how businesses should pay attention to voice search. The trend in voice search uprising pose a new challenge for marketers and search engine optimization practitioners: Optimizing for voice search.

For industrial marketers the advent of voice search could change how their potential customers look for parts and services. Imagine a procurement manager who holds up his phone and shouts out a keyword like this (formatted the way a search engine would process it): “Ok google search for aluminum suppliers.” Or maybe it would be “Alexa show me CPVC pipe manufacturers.”

Some real keywords that illustrate how people in the manufacturing and industrial world are voice searching. In this example they are attempting to find solutions for sound and noise-related problems.

• Ok Google show me a product for stopping noise
• Ok Google give me install instructions on ibn f10 noise filter
• Ok Google looking for legalities of noise in business
• Ok Google i’m looking for soundproof panels
• Alexa show me how to soundproof a room

Here are two about finding companies that provide craning and relevant equipment:

• Ok Google crane companies
• Ok Google crane companies new london county connecticut
• Alexa show me an overhead crane

Some of the queries are structured exactly like standard typed searches, while others are more conversational. Manufacturing companies will need to account for both styles to fully succeed in optimizing their content for search engines. This means you have to pay closed attention to what users are searching now so you can optimize your content for it.

Sources referenced: https://blog.thomasnet.com/voice-search-optimization-industrial-marketing?hs_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

You decided to enter voice tech and smart speakers market. You want to be ahead of the game and you took the leap to create Alexa skills and Google Actions, now what?

As a brand you should be considering your strategy for voice platforms and how consumers can reach you in those channels. Begin with defining a persona for your brand, how will it sound, what language will it use, will it be relaxed, formal, even good morning vs hello makes a difference. In what channels should you launch first, should it be smart speakers, if so, which first, Amazon Alexa, Google, others, voice actors or the platform’s voice, chatbots or all at once? And when you finally deploy your conversational solution in front of users, two more questions arise. One measuring how the users are interacting with your chatbot/skill/action, you should look into this as soon as possible to see how users are reacting to your conversational design, if they are getting frustrated and how can you improve the interaction. And the second, and most important, what role will this collected data of conversational interaction of users with your service will have in your decision making process. Part of the answer depends on the goals and key opportunities you have set and part you’ll need to discover it on the way, but you have to be willing to. This is the time for experimentation to figure out what is the best returns on voice technology for your company.

Thanks for listening!

Did you know that Alexa can now run on the Apple watch?

Thanks to Voice in a can app, a standalone Apple Watch app, which means you don’t need to tether to an iPhone to use Alexa.

Apple has restricted the Apple Watch to easily access Siri and no other digital assistants, but Voice in a Can uses a watch complication to make it easy to launch the app from the watchface. As this is a third-party Alexa app, it also means you won’t be able to use it to make calls, play music, or do Echo announcements. However, it will fully support the smart home features of Alexa, you’ll be able to trigger your lights or other devices like an Alexa-enabled coffee machine while you’re out of the house. This is the best alternative out there for Alexa on your wrist since Amazon still does not support the Apple Watch. You can buy the app for $1.99 at the App Store.

Sources: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/7/17437446/amazon-alexa-apple-watch-voice-in-a-can-app