Voice Commerce, effortless purchasing

Apple HomePod, Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

What is Voice Commerce?

The re-emergence of voice technology — or more accurately, voice-enabled bots (this is a totally different space and technology than yesterday’s painful IVRs) — is also paving the way to change consumer habits in areas far beyond our weekly shop.

Essentially, Alexa is a “chatbot” but done in an audio format. We are seeing similar trends quietly taking off in text-based bots across a huge range of industries; voice technology is following a similar trajectory. After the hype of 2015 and 2016 a false dawn for bots – there is now real activity and momentum, with successful products such as Vodafone’s TOBi chatbot and customer service initiatives such as RBS Assist.

"It’s only a matter of time that people discover the immense convenience, speed. and ease of voice commerce and rely on it for online shopping. Given the consumer’s rising comfort level with virtual assistants and chatbots, widespread adoption of voice commerce is inevitable. No wonder then that Amazon Echo Dot smart home assistant was the highest selling item on Amazon Prime Day Sales."
Voice Commerce and Amazon Prime

As a business owner, how can you adopt Voice Commerce? 

Research suggests that "Australian retailers can respond by making sure their data, SKUs, and tagging are high-quality, as this is foundational for adding new commerce channels."
On the Front Lines of Commerce in Australia

Among Alexa owners, over 70% have bought something using the product and 45% of owners have done so repeatedly, according to data from LivePerson.

That’s quick uptake for such new technology and it’s set to grow further in popularity as it becomes more sophisticated and affordable.

We’ll see a huge shift to bots as we move into 2018. LivePerson’s data shows that 50-70% of customer service discussions could be probably answered by bots, which has huge implications for how companies communicate with customers. For brands, the costs savings versus human labour are far too high to sit back and ignore.

So, as Apple releases their all new HomePod into he market, how could you leverage off such technology. Could you integrate your products/services with a voice commerce platform?