Voices carry, but is business ready for where Alexa will carry us?
Brent Leary is not only one of the foremost influencers and experts in CRM but also has become equally as expert and influential in the world of conversational interfaces. One of the reasons that he took interest to begin with was his expertise in Amazon's daily doings, to the point he and his bud John Lawson, another influencer in his own right, began the very popular Watching Amazon show on Facebook Live. Even more than Brent's influence is his general outlook on life which is to be as good a person as possible and he succeeds wildly. He's one of the most likable human beings you will ever run across and a genuinely great person to be able to call a friend. He's one of the best.
So, pay attention to what he says because as many Tuesdays as he possibly can, you will be seeing him here in addition to my content as always, doing a regular post on conversational interfaces and it will be called "Voices Carry" because as the 21st century continues to wind its way, they do and will do for a long time to come. So welcome to the first in the series.
Take it away, Brent. And Alexa, listen up.
I've been fixated on smart speakers since I got my first Amazon Echo device in November of 2014. And three and half years (and four echo devices) later, I'm even more fixated on the potential they have to change the game from a CRM/customer engagement/ customer experience perspective.
I can bury you in stats and figures to show you just how quickly AI-driven voice-first devices like the Echo and Google Home and others have captured the attention of consumers. In fact, I'll do that starting next week as I get further into this weekly series Paul has graciously allowed me to do here. But for now, here are some things I think are important to consider about where we are with this stuff, and more importantly where I think we're going with this...and how quickly we're moving.
Customer adoption is the most disruptive force in digital transformation
At the heart of most digital transformation projects being undertaken today is the need for companies to better position themselves to stay connected with tech-happy customers -- whether those customers are retail consumers or other businesses. And as fast as new technologies are being introduced today with the potential to disrupt the status quo, it only really happens when customers adopt it at scale...and at speed. And the technology that customers adopt at scale and speed tends to be things that make it easier to do things easier -- things that should have been easy to do all along.
And nothing is easier for us than to use our voices to ask for things, to make requests, and to communicate what's truly on our minds. This is one of the reasons why smart speakers - and the digital assistants that live in them - have come out of nowhere in just over three years to be in millions of homes already.
They're Not Smart Speakers - They're Interaction Platforms
I got my first Echo before it was generally available back in November of 2014 when it was offered to a few lucky Amazon Prime members. I didn't have a clue as to what it was, but it looked interesting and it was 50 percent off of the eventual list price. And after setting it up and trying it out a bit, I got hooked quick, fast and in a hurry... as illustrated in the YouTube video I made the day I got it.
Now, people can and are doing do so many things with their smart speakers, but it's because of the smarts in the speakers. And those smarts - aka the intelligence coming from AI/machine learning platforms in the cloud connected to the speakers - are being put in more and more devices all the time. And those devices are getting smarter and smarter all the time, because interactions between us and these devices is growing exponentially. And those interactions are more important to the usefulness of the devices than the number of woofers and tweeters in them.
Amazon gives Alexa a memory, better conversational skills
The bottom line here is that smart speakers are members of a growing smart ecosystem of connected devices that we'll be able to talk to wherever we are that are designed to make it easier for us to get more things done more easily. And if that happens, it will lead to increased interactions between customers and vendors through these devices.
Conversational Interfaces is the Peanut Butter to AI's Jelly
For the better part of the past two years, everybody is talking about AI. (As a side note I've been talking about AI since 1995, because Allen Iverson literally was the reason I bought season tickets for the Sixers back in the day, when he was talking about practice. But I digress...)
Every industry event has focused on what AI will do in terms of improving a company's ability to create customer experiences and extend/improve relationships with them. And with billions of dollars being invested in AI/machine learning, in order to gain the biggest bang from the bucks invested in this you need a way to communicate those insights back and forth between vendors and customers.
Also: How smart are Alexa, Cortana, Google Assistant, and Siri in answering your questions?
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Also:The promised Cortana-Alexa integration is getting closer
Zoho has introduced Zia, their conversational AI interface focused on helping sales teams, that earlier this year debuted a voice interface. Pegasystems introduced their intelligent assistant platform that has voice capabilities. And I suspect you'll see CRM vendors pick up the pace as Amazon and Google plow even more investments into the voice-first foundations and ecosystems they have created. And niche players will begin making even more noise and help to infuse new dimensions into digital transformation efforts.
Early Days Mean Voices Can Carry Where They Shouldn't
With most technologies in the early adoption phase, some bad stuff is gonna happen, especially at the speed this voice-first stuff is moving. And just last week a report came out of a couple's Echo device mistakenly recorded (according to Amazon based on a perfect storm of events that took place) their private conversation and emailed it to a person on their contact list. Now that's about as wrong as you can go with this stuff. But, just like it happened before, I suspect the interest and demand for this from consumers will still hit the mainstream - as long as these types of situations are handled openly and honestly, and are completely fixed.
Amazon proves the smart home is as halfwitted as we are
Thanks to Mr. Greenberg for allowing me to share my observations and experiences here as I dive even further into what's happening in this area, and the potential it has for shaping customer engagement over the near and long term. As the old '80s song from the group 'Til Tuesday says, voices carry. And that's especially the case with the voice of the customer, which is quickly becoming the main interface of the voice-first computing era.