Having a Voice Strategy Has Shifted from Novelty to Necessity
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Life with COVID-19 means touch has become taboo making stores and public spaces downright dangerous. Rising consumer demand for contactless experiences, frictionless commerce, and deeper connections is transforming voice into a sound strategy that can help brands unlock growth and add value to the customer experience in meaningful new ways.
Consumers are raising their voice
Smart speakers and voice assistants are a part of our daily life. The pandemic has pushed consumer adoption of smart speakers beyond critical mass reaching 87.7 million U.S. consumers. According to Juniper Research, consumers will interact with voice assistants across 8.4 billion devices by 2024; growing 113% from current levels. The trend is seeing particularly strong growth among millennial families as 71% of smart speaker owners with children plan to buy more devices to entertain their kids. Voice apps are also saving lives through innovations like Carnegie Mellon's COVID Voice Detector that analyzes the probability of a user’s infection by examining the sound of their voice and cough.
As retail goes touchless – sound steps in
With retailers slowly opening up, shoppers feel psychologically vulnerable in stores creating new challenges for brands. Coronavirus can live on surfaces like cash, credit cards, buttons and doors leading to new liabilities and logistical challenges. Touchscreens are some of the worst offenders according to Dr. Paul Matewele, senior lecturer in microbiology at London Metropolitan, "We were all surprised how much gut and faecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines." The in-store experience needs to be entirely reimagined with a low touch high value mindset. Amazon, unsurprisingly has something in the works. Whole Foods shoppers wearing Echo Buds can now ask Alexa to help them find any product, then be taken directly to it. As voice plays a bigger role in-store, plan for a near future where Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant get more involved in what we buy.
Demand for voice shopping grows louder
While voice based shopping has been growing steadily, coronavirus will accelerate adoption bringing $40 billion in revenue by 2022. According to Business Insider’s Voice Payments Report, "31% of U.S. adults will be using voice payments by 2022. Three factors will fuel this growth: an explosion of voice-enabled devices, generational gains in AI, and a strong consumer value proposition for voice payments." Add in a desire for contact-free commerce, the appeal of voice shopping grows even stronger. Considering 62% of smart speaker owners have already purchased household items, apparel and entertainment via voice, we are at a tipping point that brands can no longer ignore.
Conversations deepen connections
When we connect with a brand on a personal level it helps us feel more understood, building bonds in the process. Scaling this level of intimacy with voice is possible through bringing emotion, empathy and levity into the conversation. Snack brand MoonPie for example, built an Alexa powered "virtual roommate" app for lonely quarantined consumers, inspired by the brand's quirky Twitter persona. The MoonMate character offers to pay rent in the form of MoonPies, avoids doing household chores, tries his best to keep you from going outside, overshares about his own life and ponders life's bigger questions in an entertaining way. Surprise and delight moments like these make living in isolation a bit easier and give brands a chance to show their human side.
Key Takeaways
Quarantine culture has increased consumer adoption of voice assistants, creating an opportunity for brands to add value in new, contact-free ways.
As in-store experiences evolve to be increasingly touch-less, voice powered interfaces offers safe, personalized solutions at scale.
With double-digit growth expected for voice shopping in the next two years, conversational commerce will become table-stakes for consumer brands.
Voice gives brands a new way to express themselves across devices and channels, deepening customer relationships in the process.
This article originally appeared in the May 19th, 2020 issue of Moving Image & Content’s agency newsletter. Register here to subscribe.