The excitement around voice technology has been going on for some time now, with the number of AI-imbued device users rising to 133 million globally, in 2019.
What are virtual digital assistants?
Virtual digital assistants or voice assistants are automated software applications designed to respond to queries and accomplish basic tasks for users.
Voice-based virtual digital assistant technologies like Siri by Apple, Alexa from Amazon and Microsoft’s Cortana use voice recognition, speech synthesis and natural language processing to listen and respond to specific spoken commands.
Business uses of virtual digital assistants
Widely used in household setups, digital voice assistants can also be very important tools for streamlining and effectively managing successful businesses. According to a recent study, 88% of leaders in business believe that their companies can improve competitiveness and become more successful by integrating a voice assistant into their daily operations.
In a bid to entice businesses to adopt the technology, leading tech companies like Google, Apple and Amazon provide a set of management tools and API’s allowing companies to integrate virtual digital assistant software with existing applications.
With virtual digital technology being the next big thing on the market, here are a few ideas on how you can use voice assistants to add value to your business.
Organise Business Operations
Streamlining day-to-day processes can improve the operational efficiency within enterprises. Through the use of AI and deep learning, digital assistants can access reports, analyze data and keep crucial systems updated, ensuring that your businesses’ key operations are consistently monitored.
Thanks to their ability to remember dates, times and schedules, voice assistants can help you manage a range of administrative tasks like monitoring upcoming leave days for employees, automating meeting coordination, setting up team deadlines, receiving regular up-to-date sales reports from eCommerce stores and many more.
Connect with Customers
Google Assistant lets you create Actions that can save time and improve direct interaction with targeted users. Some of the world’s top brands like Spotify, eBay, WEMO and Uber are already making full use of Google Assistant Actions. The Localized Actions feature in Google Assistant, for instance, permits you to provide tailor-made content and experiences based on a website user’s language of choice and physical location.
Manage Infrastructure
Alexa’s Voice Dashboard permits you to monitor the health of backend computing services, provided that those services are linked to Amazon Web Services. Using the Voice Dashboard on Alexa, you can ask how specific systems are performing, which security alarms are active and what resources are available. Alexa is also capable of tracking site health using Vigil Website Monitoring and you can program it to give alerts should there be a website crash.
Optimize your Marketing
Voice assistants can personalise systems and attain enhanced consumer insights, helping to complement and improve your marketing initiatives. Marketing expert Marty Weintraub observes that“ There is potential for encouraging customers to select higher-priced products than the one selected through virtual digital assistants.” Voice assistant technology can, therefore, increase your eCommerce store’s bottom-line revenue if you enable voice-driven chatbots that are capable of upselling and cross-selling products and services to users.
Improve Productivity
Because they use deep learning, voice assistants reduce the amount of time it takes to resolve issues and queries, allowing employees to invest more energy on other critical areas of the business.
At Out of the Box Ideas we provide quality web API integration services grounded on broad project experience and tech skills. Our unique internal workflow process enables us to deliver projects in record time without compromise to quality.
If you would like to discuss how a voice assistant can be successfully integrated with your website or CRM, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at info@outoftheboxideas.co.za
REFERENCES
https://www.jbidigital.co.uk/blog/the-business-case-for-voice-assistants
https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/d/digital-assistant.htm
https://www.smartsheet.com/voice-assistants-artificial-intelligence
https://www.mondo.com/blog-business-benefits-of-voice-assistants
https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/reality-check-will-smart-voice-assistants-revolutionise-our-shopping-behaviour
https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/07/voicebot-smart-speakers-hit-133-million-global-installed-base
