How Voice Assistants Could Change the Way We Shop

Smart speakers are the fastest growing consumer technology since the smartphone. A key question for business leaders to consider right now is: How will the voice assistant movement affect the way your customers shop, and how will you, in turn, need to adapt in terms of how to market and sell your products and services? Your ultimate goal should be for a voice interface to overlay all of your customer touch points, from smart speakers and voice assistants to your website, apps, phone lines, and even in-store experiences. For this, you’ll need to develop your skills and understanding of voice user interface (VUI) design practices so that you can match a user’s context and needs with your solution. You’ll want to integrate your voice strategy with your current line of business systems to take advantage of the intelligence you already have. This will enable you to surface products, pricing, stock levels, and previous purchases, and give you a basis for processing transactions and answering product-related questions. You’ll then be in a position to dig deeper into things like personalization, recommendations, and using the data you’ve gathered to improve or even create new product lines or content based on what your customers are actively asking you for.