The voice search technology was first introduced by Google a decade back in 2011. Since then, the technology has become a crowd favourite as it is user friendly and has brought in a significant paradigm shift in mobile and web apps. Various data researches also show that 41% of smartphone users use voice search at least once during the day.
The increase in voice-based mobile apps' demands has brought in a paradigm shift in mobile apps developed after 2011. Apart from transforming mobile apps worldwide, voice-based apps have also changed how many smartphone users perform online searches daily.
One of the most significant reasons behind the steep increase in voice commands-based mobile apps is that it is useful to every kind of audience, irrespective of their age. Also, it has given business organizations a way to render more personalized services to their targeted audience.
Enhancing personalized services
With voice search technologies, companies can unlock new ways to serve their customers and provide experiences to fit and relevant to their needs. There are three phases in which the changes in search dynamics enable business organizations to offer more channelized services.
Simple Personalization
For the past three decades, billions of online users are served fantastic experience based on their tastes, past behavior and preferences. For example, The AI-powered voice digital home assistants can segment personalization as they can easily distinguish between multiple users and serve them according to their needs.
In their more evolved stages, the voice search devices will use the simple inferred information about the users, even if they are using the device for the first time and provide them more relevant experience.
Advanced personalization
In advanced personalization, the voice assistant devices will provide services on a more emotional level related to the user's health and well-being.
We all are aware that when a person speaks, many things are conveyed through their voice tone. Companies, for example, Huawei, are working to ensure that the future voice command apps and devices are capable of accommodating the data gained through voice recognition and being able to relate with the users on an emotional level.
It is expected that more and more voice search technologies will work on this level of emotional personalization shortly.
Why does your organization need to start the use of voice-first technology?
The emerging realm of voice search technology applications allows businesses to focus more vividly on enhancing their productivity and customer experience level. In addition to this, it will enable them to save a ton of money. For example, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) introduced a chatbot that answers general questions about taxation 24/7. The chatbot used natural language understanding so that the users could ask questions more conversationally.
The impact was that within the first 18 months, ATO chatbot was handling 88% of the queries with no intervention required from the ATO staff. It helps the ATO save $9.7 million during the time of the year.
Like the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), US Military handled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder using virtual therapists. Before the virtual interviewer, the soldiers' mental condition was analyzed through a written survey or a test. With the virtual interviewer Ellie, the barriers of fear are removed, and the virtual machine can respond more supportively to the soldiers by interpreting their facial and verbal cues. The result was that the military personals could get better assistance compared to their previous sessions.
Size and growth of the conversational economy
Researchers believe that voice assistants like Siri and Alexa will reach more than 1 in 5 global consumers in 2021. With the increase in demand, the mobile apps working on voice commands, Google Assistant and Alexa have been open to third-party mobile app developers. Also, leaders in different business fields like Domino's and Uber have developed applications that allow Google Assistant and Alexa to request the users.
The emergences of voice-first applications in the purchase of books, clothes, etc. are on a high. It is estimated that the growth will exceed the expectations and reach a whopping $80 billion by 2023. Google Assistant is forecasted to lead the voice assistants' market as the number of voice assistants used worldwide is believed to overtake the world’s population in 2021.
The voice-enabled applications have all the potential to impact government and non-government organizations in a significant manner. Organizations can use voice-enabled devices to design their future delivery process, enhance the users' experience, and increase their service level.
Steps to prepare for the upcoming conversational economy
The new-age businesses should realize that these days consumers expect personalized and intelligent responses 24/7. The organizations that don’t do this are bound to be left behind and get extinct sooner than later.
The initial steps to sway away from the problem mentioned above are to harness the conversational economy's transformational power carefully. Then, the business owners should completely understand their organization's capacity and what substance they will handle the conversational economy's opportunities.
For instance, the United Kingdom Government Digital Service found that the voice assistants use databases like KnowledeGraph, WikiData, etc. to provide a relevant answer to its users. Therefore, the Digital Service department is now taking concrete steps to create more synchronized and structured data, specifically for this purpose.
Likewise, it would help if you also devised roadmaps to engage your business organization in the conversational economy. The conversational economy's roadmap will allow your organization to lay out a strategic plan to meet the voice assistant solutions' demands. Moreover, you can design the conversational system according to your targeted customers' needs and wants through the roadmap. Because the voice assistant fails to make the end-user comfortable, user retention and a higher engagement ratio will be almost impossible.
Expanding the footprint of your brand
To develop a successful and crowd favourite mobile or web app working on voice commands, the companies should understand that just the interface's aesthetics will not prove enough. Also, the voice search assistant needs a tone, phraseology, language, etc., to woo the consumers and reflect your brand correctly.
For example, VISA and Mastercard have released sonic brand marks as audio can trigger a robust memory response from the consumers. With the increase in voice assistants and other channel devices dependent on audio, many big organizations invest in the sonic brand to enhance the consumers' audio experience.
Voice Search technology striking the right balance
Voice recognition devices are striking the right balance between ease of use and more personalized services. For example, Google's voice search on mobile devices is now available in over 100 languages. Moreover, the voice-enabled devices are also used for local and hyper-local searches, and more than 58% of the consumers have founded local business using voice search in the past year.
Almost 2/3rd of the people who used voice-activated devices say that they have become a part of their daily routines. Apart from the impressive statistics, apps and devices working on voice commands like Siri, Alexa, Google Duo, etc. help alleviate issues of spelling mistakes and improve accuracy. Moreover, with the 'speech to text' facility, people at home or work are transcribing speech to maximize their productivity.
The future Predictions of voice search
Researchers predict that consumer spending on ecommerce platforms and other online platforms via voice assistants is expected to reach 18% by 2022. In addition to it, the voice-based ad revenue for business organizations would reach up to $19 billion by 2022.
Top leaders like Apple, Google and Amazon are competing to attain the top position and become the king of the conversational economy. But as it always been the case, the future will only belong to those who will evolve according to the targeted audience's changing needs.
