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Creating the best Alexa Skill Content: The secrets for an improved voice experience! Learn from +13K bad reviews

Launching a successful Alexa skill is dependent on an infinite number of variables-from content quality to content delivery network. The no. 1 component for which a user enables a voice app from his Amazon Echo device is the Alexa Skill Content.

For a Skill to become successful, apart from technical and code-related factors, the content it delivers has a great impact. Especially in the Alexa Skill Marketplace.

You need to pay close attention to the skills that your customers are using over and over again. We have found that the most popular Skills are those created by developers who have focused on meeting a specific customer need and providing useful Alexa Skills. Therefore, they are used by customers regularly, or at least frequently.

Key Findings

While focusing on understanding what works best for an Alexa Skill, we decided to focus our take on another perspective. Towards a better understanding of what makes a Skill scoring low on reviews.

We made this our focus considering that many brands, rushing to have their Alexa Skill published, left the skills with gaps in content quality and structure. We took under study more than 13K bad Alexa Skill reviews

This without considering simplicity and connectivity issues.

From our analysis, we were able to unveil 3 key findings when talking about Skill content:

1. The 4 main problems with Alexa Skill Content we analyzed.
2. The top 5 Alexa Skill categories reported containing bad content.
3. What users consider an inconvenient, inaccurate, and repetitive skill when it comes to content?

However, let’s take a deeper look so we can understand each category in detail.

4 main problems when it comes to Alexa skill content

Inaccurate and limited Alexa skill content are the main issues we encountered.

From a total of 22.36% of reviews complaints related to content issues, the ones complaining about inaccurate and limited data occupy the most of it, at 9.79%.

In categories like Food and Drink, Weather, Travel & Transportation are the ones where these problems are found the most.

Trending Bot Articles:

1. Chatbot Trends Report 2021

2. 4 DO’s and 3 DON’Ts for Training a Chatbot NLP Model

3. Concierge Bot: Handle Multiple Chatbots from One Chat Screen

4. An expert system: Conversational AI Vs Chatbots

The impact of inaccurate & limited Information on your Alexa Skill

Mostly related to saving user data, retrieving necessary or requested information. These, along with inaccurate information or coordinates, limited voice app scope, functionalities, and information.

While most Alexa Skill publishers cannot fix all issues immediately, it is important to work continuously in order to solve them one by one.

If issues like inaccurate & limited content keep impacting an Alexa Skill for an extended period of time, it will cause severe problems in the future.

The average user might have one bad experience with a Skill, but it is unlikely this will prevent them from engaging with your skill again. However, if you fail to deliver a seamless and natural experience for your users, they may not engage with your skill again.

% of each category with inaccurate & limited information

As we have seen above, there are several categories of skills having a lot of negative reviews related to inaccurate & limited information and content.

The category with the highest number of negative reviews related to inaccurate Alexa Skill content is Food & Drink at 31,36%. Next comes Business & Finance at 13,33% and Health & Fitness at 11,02%.

Another factor to consider is the fact that for these three categories issues related to inaccurate content are the ones causing the most damage.

The majority of inaccuracy-related negative reviews impact mainly Skills about Food, Cooking, Health, and Fitness.

These types of Skills have issues with saving certain pieces of information or retrieving them when the user requests it. It can be for cooking recipes, health advice, dietary or training exercises, and programs.

However, we cannot leave apart Business & Finance. For this category, from a total of 33,33% negative reviews related to the content, nearly half of them (13,33%) belong to inaccurate information. Considering the kind of category, providing inaccurate information can make a user not use the Skill anymore right from the start.

As for the reviews related to limited information and functionality, the two most impacted ones are Weather at 59,14% and Travel & Transportation at 50,73%.

Considering the high percentage of content issues related to this exact topic, it is not one to be ignored.

How to solve these content issues?

To create a good voice experience, your skill must be tested across the entire experience — including the opening dialog, asking for commands, and offering response options.

Because of all the technological developments and intricate functions available in voice tech, delivering a voice experience that is natural and engaging for the user is no simple task. Alexa’s capabilities are available across a wide range of devices, so it’s important to test your skill across the entire experience.

But, this is only the first step at providing a pleasant Alexa Skill performance.

The use of Alexa Skill Analytics can completely change Skill ratings over time, benefiting both the user and the brand. From the Alexa Skill examples we examined, the ones providing accurate information are bound to reach higher Skill ratings. This translates to more users and larger brand awareness.

The same goes for the ones with limited content. Expanding the information you provide with several subcategories can be the key to success. Especially for the ones mentioned above.

Surely, expanding the information you provide will be technically harder, but it will also expand the user base you can reach.

Top 5 categories with bad Alexa Skill content

This report shows the top five categories with the highest total of negative content-related reviews.

This list includes Skills that offer daily needed content and entertainment like Music & audio, Weather, and News. But, it also includes Skills that maybe we might not use daily like Travel & Transportation, and Skills that offer Local content.

Bad content % for each category

Considering that these 5 categories include Skills that we use most, it is important to understand the impact that bad contact has on them.

• Music & Audio: 69,23% where 62,86% is related with inconvenient content.
• Weather: 67,74% where 59,14% is related with limited content issues.
• News: 66,96% where 59,42% is repetitive & out of date content.
• Local: 72,58% where 66,13% has to do with various issues of their content.
• Travel & Transportation: 54,36% where 50,73% is for limited content.

However, here are two things to consider:

1. For each category, there is a dominant issue that causes their high number of negative reviews.
2. Having content issues on a single subject makes it simple to improve your Skill ratings in the Alexa Skills marketplace

Why do Local Alexa Skills have 72,58% of reviews for bad content?

As mentioned, Local Skills have more than 70% of their reviews related to bad content. More specifically, 66,13% of these negative reviews complain about problems with lack of variety, options, and connectivity. To better understand what reviews complain about you can simply check Alexa Skills examples about local Skills in the Alexa Skill Store.

Local Skills will often be about Event Finders, Food Delivery & Takeout, Movie Showtimes, Public Transportation, Restaurant Booking, Info & Reviews, Schools, etc.

It is true that Skills for Event Finders, Movie Showtimes, and Public Transportation we might not use so often, but the ones about Food Delivery & Takeout, Restaurant Booking, Info & Reviews are used way more often.

Being so, a brand or company cannot afford to have their users not use their Alexa Skill because of minor issues.

These minor issues can heavily impact the user’s experience in the long term, and cause him to not use the Skill anymore.

With this said, improving an Alexa Skill Performance based on users’ feedback can be a good starting point. It will help to solve initially the most impactful problems and improve the user experience.

Once this is set on regular support, you can start expanding the options available for the user and adding variety to the Skill experience.

How to find a solution for each case?

As we noticed before, there is an important thing to consider when trying to improve our Alexa Skill performance. Is the fact that most bad Alexa Skill content reviews are related to a single issue.

This means that the work can be primarily focused on that exact issue.

For example:

In both of these cases, a periodical check of Alexa Skill Metrics can help in preventing or improving faulty content and features.

What is considered an inconvenient, inaccurate, and repetitive Skill when it comes to Alexa Skill content?

When it comes to Alexa Skill content, having an issue, however minor it seems, if left unchecked can cause a loss in users numbers.

Issues like repetitive or inaccurate content can affect the user’s experience heavily, and even cause them not to use a Skill again.

Considering this, let’s see in detail what we can learn from the collected and analyzed data.

Analysis on data

From the collected data we say for sure that the provided content has a great impact on most Alexa Skill categories and a fairly important one on the rest.

From more than 13k Alexa Skills taken understudy, distributed on 21 different categories, only for a few of them the content quality makes a little difference. Here we can include Skills meant for Smart Home control, Connected Cars, or Games & Trivia.

For the rest of the categories, content quality importance varies from a minor impact on user experience to a crucial factor on Alexa Skill quality and usability.

However, a minor impact left uncontrolled for a long time can have the same impact as a significant one.

Inconvenient Alexa Skill Content

Before we mentioned that when referring to inconvenient Skill content, it is related to the creation and management of customizable features along with needlessly complicated, incomplete, or inconvenient processes and voice commands.

We also mentioned that simplicity is the key.
This indicates the necessity of using simplified in-skill processes, steps, and customization. This can improve the user experience and increase usability. No user wants to go through a lot of unrequested content and questions to obtain the needed one.

Inaccurate Skill Content

This is an issue mainly related to Skills having a problem with saving or retrieving relevant information, or with inaccurate coordinates & temperature information.

For example Skills about Food & Drinks at 31,36%, Business & Finance at 13,33%, Health & Fitness at 11,02%, and Productivity related ones at 7,55%.

No one would like to receive inaccurate information when it is about business & finance topics, incorrect recipe measurements, or maybe incorrect information about diets and exercises.

Making a fine-tuning on the data the Skill provides and giving the possibility to correctly save and retrieve user data can have a positive impact on solving these issues.

Repetitive & Out of Date Content

For these types of Skills, the problems are that content is often old, repetitive, outdated, too long, or frustrating.

These issues mainly impact Alexa Skill about Movies & TV at 33,77% from the total of negative reviews and News Skills at 59,42%. They also affect Skills about Novelty & Humor at 15,83% and Sports at 18,18%.

Now imagine a user having a Skill that is stuck at the same news or humor content for an extended time. This situation would definitively force him to try another Skill with the risk of never returning to the previous one.

This is why imputing fresh content is a necessity, with the intention of creating a plausible experience for the audience.

Alexa Skill building & maintenance strategy

From all these Alexa Skills examples we saw, now it gets easier to understand what many of the negatively reviewed Skills are lacking in content. It makes it clear that, for you to improve your Alexa Skill performance & Skill ratings, you need to keep continuous attention to what is going on with the Skill.

Not only checking your Skill reviews but also by checking your Alexa Skill analytics & metrics.

Alexa Skill Analytics allows you to have a wide view of the Skill performance, discover the user needs and prevent any harmful impact that might come from malfunctioning Skill features and content errors like the ones we mentioned. For a more detailed understanding you can read about +13k Bad Alexa Skills Analysis.

And it’s exactly what Ipervox makes available through our platform. Not only the possibility to successfully create and publish an Alexa Skill. it gives you the tools to maintain and analyze the growth of your Skill along with continuous support and advice. Also, offering our experience in voice design and voice marketing as a way of empowering your brand awareness.

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !

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Creating the best Alexa Skill Content: The secrets for an improved voice experience! was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you’ve done any kind of copywriting, you’ve probably got a swipe file. (And if you don’t have one, get crack-a-lackin! In fact, start here.)

Swipes are collections of hook-worthy copy snippets that make you click, read, act, ponder, laugh…and most importantly move deeper into a conversation with a brand. Lean on your swipe file when you need inspiration (and a kick in the pants). The whole point of a swipe file is to give you a starting point without reinventing the wheel.

As I’ve jumped into conversational marketing, I’ve started grabbing chatbot swipes too. They help me think about copy as conversation and tap into the rhythm of speech.

How to collect chatbot swipes

(I’m not taking credit for this method. I found it on CopyHackers: check out the article!)

Sometimes one line is all you need, in which case I copy it into a Google Doc or Notion. But when you need more context, grab a screenshot and pop it in Google Drive or Dropbox:

Chatbot Swipe Categories

While I’m still evolving my process, I started by organizing chatbot swipes by conversation elements like these:

Greetings: A warm hello to start a conversation. Can be formal or informal depending on the relationship with the visitor (eg. is it a returning or new user).

Informing: For giving information that is either requested or pertinent to the conversation.

Error: When the chatbot doesn’t understand or fails to fulfill a request.

Asking: For engaging or seeking information. Bit of help keeps the conversation going.

Checking: For testing the user’s understanding. Restating details and information for clarity.

Apologizing: For politely acknowledging the chatbot’s shortcomings. Should be brief and serve as a bridge to alternative solutions.

Suggesting: For presenting the user with relevant actions or options.

Conclusion: A clear end to the conversation.

Chatbot swipes

And here they are!

Like most of us, I learn fastest when I have examples to follow. Use these phrases and prompts “as is” or for inspiration.

Greetings

Hey there, friend! I’m [NAME]. I can help you [DO ALL THE THINGS]. To get started, let me know if you [SOMETHING] by selecting one of the options below.

Welcome to [NAME]! What brings you to our site?

Thanks for reaching out! What brings you to our site today?

Hi I’m [NAME] and I help [DO ALL THE THINGS]

Hi [NAME]! I’m BOTNAME, your friendly [BRAND] virtual assistant. You can interact with me by clicking on the buttons

Hi, this is [BOTNAME], the [TYPE OF] assistant bot. How can I help, USERNAME?

Great! Let’s get started. Is this QUESTION.

Welcome. I’m [NAME], [BRAND’S] digital assistant. Choose from popular topics below or type a short, direct question.

Hey! What are you looking for? I know all about [LIST ALL THE THINGS]

Want to chat about [BRAND] software? Can you tell me what you’re looking for?

Would you like us to send you a free tip sheet to help you [DO THE AMAZING THING]?
Click one of the options below. [LIST CHOICES]
Awesome! Please tell us your email address.
We got it! Thanks for visiting our page 🙂

Hey [USERNAME], welcome to the [#BOTNAME]! Click “Get Started” below ⬇

Hey, there. Can I help point you in the right direction? [OPTION 1] [OPTION 2]

Welcome to [BRAND, OR BOT]. Are you looking for [LIST CHOICES]

Hey, there. I’m here to make sure you get the information you need today. Can I help point you in the right direction? [SALES, MARKETING, SUPPORT]

Hey, there. Can I help point you in the right direction? (list 2–4 options to click)

Thanks for reaching out! We’re not always on Messenger, but we can still help you even when we’re away. What can we do for you today? [I have a question] , [I need community], [OTHER QUESTION, what’s my size?

[CEO OR COACH] has asked me to keep an eye on her messenger while she’s out coaching and spreading joy. Scroll through the images below and click a button to let me know how we can support you.

Hiya [USERNAME]!
Thanks for joining us on Messenger. We are super excited to have you!

Our [BOTNAME] will help you when we’re not here in human form. While we’re away doing things only humans can do like finding cool snacks and answer phone calls, please send [BOTNAME] a message.

Until we can get back to you, here are some options: [OPTIONS]

Trending Bot Articles:

1. Chatbot Trends Report 2021

2. 4 DO’s and 3 DON’Ts for Training a Chatbot NLP Model

3. Concierge Bot: Handle Multiple Chatbots from One Chat Screen

4. An expert system: Conversational AI Vs Chatbots

Informing

Sure pick a topic, and I’ll help you [DO SOMETHING]

You can also sign up to get exclusive VIP discounts and offers via text message, starting with $10 off your next order! [SAVE $10? SURE!]

Here are a few ways we can support your journey; whether you need advice, inspiration, or community, we’re here for you! [JOIN XYZ] [READ THE BLOG] [FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM]

This may take a minute. Here’s a tip while you wait:
Tip: [link to article or tip]

Comparing [PRODUCT A] to [PRODUCT B]? Click the button below to see the differences between Product A and Product B. Check it out

Error

Sorry I didn’t get that!

If you asked me to [DO SOME WEIRD THING] I would do it. But I didn’t understand this.

That’s funny!

Sorry, I don’t understand.

Oops, didn’t quite get that. Try again?

Sorry, I was trying to charge my phone. What were you trying to say?

Sorry, I didn’t understand you. I can only help you with the following. [LIST]

Sorry I didn’t understand you. Do you want to directly content [NAME, TECH SUPPORT]?

Is there anything else I can help you with?

Asking

Great! Drop your question here, and one of our Customer Care superstars will get back to you as soon as possible!

Sure thing! This is NAME OF BOT. Reply with your question and HUMAN NAME will be back to answer ASAP

Hey [NAME], are you interested in receiving [NEWS, TIPS, ALERTS] from [BRAND]? We promise to only send you big, breaking stories. We won’t spam you. Typically, this would be 1–2 stories per week.

[Doing something] soon? I can help you dig thru some ideas. Ready?

Questions about Pricing or Sales?

Checking

Looks like you are planning a getaway to [name of location]. I’ll hit you back with some recommendations.

We have this email on file for you right now:

youremail@gmail.com

Is that right? Click below to let me know

I’ll deliver the [TRAINING, LEADMAGNET, OTHER THING] to you there as well for easy access.

Hey there, just checkin’ in so we can get on with it and help you [DO ALL THE THINGS]
Is this the right email for you?
[youremail@gmail.com]
Just click below to let me know

Apologizing

“So, I’m good at talking about [TOPIC]. Other stuff, not so good. If you need help just enter ‘help.”

Suggesting

Get notified: Want to get a [FACEBOOK, EMAIL, SMS] notification about our next new product?

By clicking “Notify Me”, you may receive one message from [BRAND] in the future about this topic.

Our Customer Service team is here for you Monday through Friday from 9am to 4pm PST. We are currently experiencing more requests than usual, and apologize in advance for any delays you may encounter with our response times. Rest assured that we are working diligently to support your needs and appreciate your patience during this time.

Let’s get started… Choose how you’d like to discover [ALL THE THINGS]

Let’s narrow it down a bit so you only see what you want to see.

Hey there! You can grab a time on [NAME’S] calendar here

We’re pumped you want to get a demo! Just a couple of questions to get you over to the right member of the [BRAND] TEAM.

Conclusion

Got it. Talk to you soon!

Will not disturb you anymore without a reason, I swear!

Want to return to main menu? Type “START OVER”

Ah, [USERNAME], I understand that you are busy now… It’s ok

Would you like me to send you a reminder regarding our offers later?

I really don’t want you to miss out. ​ [REMINDER PLEASE] [NOPE UNSUBSCRIBE]

Got any more chatbot swipes to share? Let me know and I’ll add them to the list!

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !

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Building a chatbot swipe file was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

submitted by /u/Veerans [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/deepyanti199
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A chatbot is becoming a must-have add-on for customer-facing websites and SaaS products. Their role is usually either a customer engagement tool designed to help generate leads or a cost-efficient alternative to human customer sales or technical support.

It’s fair to say not everyone is a fan of the chatbot trend. But it’s equally fair to say the technology is not going anywhere. Like the offshore call centres and tech support they often replace, which in turn replaced local in-house equivalents, the right chatbots make strong commercial sense for organizations.

There has also always been plenty of grumbling about offshore call centres. But as AI/machine-learning technology rapidly develops in terms of both its capabilities and cost efficiency, chatbots will get much better and cheaper.

It will be a few years yet before chatbots replace most call and support centre functions, but I am convinced they will. The increasingly sophisticated machine learning that powers the best chatbots are improving every month. The essence of machine learning is that it gets smarter and smarter as it is fed with an ever-growing data lake.

It won’t be long before the best chatbots can better answer customer queries than human staff who simply aren’t biologically capable of assimilating the same amount of information. Or connecting it as efficiently by joining the dots between disparate data points and facts.

If you are still not convinced, let’s throw out a few stats on chatbot predictions put together by Backinko:

1. By 2022, 70% of white-collar workers will engage with chatbots daily.
2. By 2022, 75–90% of queries are expected to be handled by chatbots.
3. In 2021, close to 1 in 6 global customer service interactions will be handled by AI.
4. Gartner predicts that by 2021, over 50% of enterprise companies (like Google, IBM, and Facebook) will spend more money each year on chatbots than mobile apps.
5. By 2021, $4.5 billion will be invested in chatbot technology.
6. Juniper Research believes that by 2022, chatbots will save businesses an aggregate of over $8 billion per year.
7. In 2022, the banking industry could see the success rate of bot interactions reach over 90%.
8. Juniper Research estimates that chatbots will account for $112 billion in retail sales by 2023.
9. By 2024, the global chatbot market is projected to be over $994 million.

Trending Bot Articles:

1. Chatbot Trends Report 2021

2. 4 DO’s and 3 DON’Ts for Training a Chatbot NLP Model

3. Concierge Bot: Handle Multiple Chatbots from One Chat Screen

4. An expert system: Conversational AI Vs Chatbots

Ok, I’m Convinced Chatbots Are The Future! What Are My Options?

If you have heard enough to start exploring and testing integrating chatbot technology into your organization, the first decision to make is what chatbot to use or which to test.

You have three option:

1. Hire a software development company experienced in chatbot development or a qualified freelancer to custom-code your chatbox from scratch.
2. Hire a chatbot specialist to develop a custom chatbot on a development framework like the Microsoft Bot Framework, Botpress, or IBM’s Watson.
3. Customize an out-of-the-box SaaS (software-as-a-service) chatbot solution like Crisp or ActiveChat.

Whichever of those three directions makes the most sense; your organization will depend on what you intend to use the chatbot for and several other competing priorities.

Should I Commission A Custom-coded Chatbox Built From Scratch?

It simply won’t make sense to build their own from scratch for the vast majority of organizations using chatbots.

A very simple custom-coded chatbot developed by an established company would be expected to start at around $30,000 (you might be able to bring that down a little by working with a good freelancer, but that involves more risk) and could rise to anywhere up to a few hundred thousand dollars for a sophisticated, complex chatbot.

It will probably only make sense to invest in your own proprietary, built-from-the-ground-up chatbot if your organization has very specific or advanced requirements around its functionalities and capabilities. Stringent data security requirements would be one other reason.

And the most common reason to build a chatbot from scratch is to sell it to other users as a SaaS product.

Otherwise, it probably just doesn’t make commercial sense.

Should I Build My Own Chatbot On A Development Framework?

For large organizations that can afford it and want to build chatbots closely tailored to their needs and/or have customer data-security requirements that preclude using a SaaS chatbot, it may make sense to go halfway and develop a proprietary chatbox on one of the established frameworks.

Some chatbot frameworks work in roughly the same way as other open-source software frameworks like Angular and React, which are popular JavaScript-based frameworks for building the frontend of websites. They are like a halfway house between custom-coding from scratch and using a customized SaaS product.

A good metaphor for building a chatbox on a framework is modular construction, where buildings are put together from pre-fabricated components. These components can be mixed and matched to create very different spaces customized to completely different needs. But the designer and end-client are still limited to creating their space from a combination of available, pre-defined components.

For most, the balance between significant freedom to customize and some limitations to the finer details of what can be fully customized works.

Should I Use A Customized Out-Of-The-Box SaaS Chatbot?

For most chatbot users, a customized out-of-the-box SaaS solution will perfectly meet their needs and budget.

SaaS chatbots are designed to meet the general needs of a particular industry or functionality like an e-commerce site answering typical questions on things like the returns policy and procedure. If they don’t, they aren’t commercially viable products.

If you need a chatbot to do things like invite website visitors to inquire, answer common FAQs, or even memorize a huge technical user manual and serve the right information in response to queries, there’s probably a customizable out-of-the-box solution that meets those needs.

If in doubt, make sure you thoroughly research the SaaS options on the market before investing time and money in software developers to build you a proprietary chatbot either from scratch or on a framework.

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !

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Should You Develop Your Own Chatbot On A Platform Or Customize An Out-Of-The-Box Solution? was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Voice assistants have taken off in recent years, and the number of devices equipped with voice control is growing. Marketers and developers alike are turning their attention to these new voice-enabled devices considering the growing need for a voice app developer.

What is a Voice Application?
A voice application is every app that relies on the users expressing their requests or searches queries through spoken commands and then responds to you by completing the required action or providing information based on the users intent.

The Amazon Echo, the Google Home, and the Apple HomePod are becoming more integrated into consumers’ daily lives. We are using such devices to provide us with useful information and entertainment.

Voice-activated devices, and the apps that control them, are a promising new area for both businesses and brands.

For a guaranteed success in this new world, every brand needs to learn a few tools and the basic Voice UI design principles, which normally are covered by a voice app developer. They’ll need to learn some of the best practices for building and launching them on different platforms like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

Planning a proper voice strategy

As a voice app developer, the first thing you need to do to attract customers towards a voice app is to know what they want. This can be a daunting task since you could be entering an entirely new and unknown marketplace. However, it’s just like any other marketing strategy. The first thing you have to do is understand how your customers use voice — where, why and how they use it.

To create a voice app, the critical things needed in order to start the building process are understanding what type of skill is best one for the use case of your app and what will be its purpose

Skill type will determine what components you need to complete the application. Those components are the voice user interface, customer journey, free and premium content, and so on.

Voice technology is simply too new to provide the accuracy and unique insights that businesses need. That’s why a voice app developer needs to use multiple data sources to get reliable, usable information. This way you can provide highly targeted, personalized, and frictionless experiences.

Another important factor to consider is how your competition is using the same platforms and how to overcome them. If none of them has a voice strategy, that’s even better because you will have a chance to get ahead of the competition.

VUI Design as a Voice App Developer

VUI designers are responsible for creating a smooth digital interface between the user and their voice-activated smart assistant. They ensure users have easy access to the features they want, including those needed for day-to-day tasks.

The designer has to consider how the user interacts with it, whether it’s through a smart assistant built into the user’s smartphone or a speaker situated in their house

The VUI design is where a voice app designer settles how functional and user-friendly a voice app will be.

Voice is an important new form of user interaction. You must design it with consideration for the complexities involved in working with voice. Voice designers design user interfaces that use voice to solve customer problems. Also, for providing solutions to user needs while maintaining a high level of user experience.

Therefore, the questions to answer for a VUI design, in this case, are similar to those encountered by UX designers. Questions like who the persona is, implementing a solution to the user’s pain point, and what problem is being solved.

Trending Bot Articles:

1. Chatbot Trends Report 2021

2. 4 DO’s and 3 DON’Ts for Training a Chatbot NLP Model

3. Concierge Bot: Handle Multiple Chatbots from One Chat Screen

4. An expert system: Conversational AI Vs Chatbots

Voice Search Optimization

Another important skill for a voice developer to learn is being able to optimize content for voice search.

It’s all about the smart optimization of a site for voice-activated searches. Also, a voice-activated search is different from traditional search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

These types of searches are executed through the use of voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Samsung’s Bixby.

There are two main points to consider:

1. Voice searching is mostly made using naturally spoken phrases and not stimulated ones. That’s what normally happens with queries written on a search engine like Google.
2. The type of contents written in a conversational tone are the ones that tend to rank higher in voice searches.

However, finding the right information you need to become a professional voice app developer is a hard task. Especially if you want it all in one place.

Here at Ipervox we had it easier thanks to our Founder and CEO, who is an Alexa Champion. His long experience developing voice apps for numerous companies and brands has given him all the skills needed to plan, build and launch a successful voice application.

The best of all is the fact that such experience is that now we have accumulated into a full training. It is available for you and everyone interested in building voice applications for Amazon Alexa or Google Actions. You can use it to build a full-time career or for your company. Just follow this link and check it out yourself.

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !

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The Competitive Skills you need to become an awesome voice app developer was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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Conversational AI allows making human-like interactions. This set of technologies empower the applications to send automated replies.

Conversational AI is the next wave of satisfactory customer experiences. It is the linchpin for any customer-oriented business nowadays. It, indeed, is the core objective of companies nowadays that needs to be prioritized.

The mantra of keeping the customer happy rests in the idea of being completely available to them and being highly responsive to solve their queries and concerns.

Customers appreciate the responsiveness and availability that businesses can deliver them and there is no denying that Conversational AI is an ideal solution to do so.

Simply put, intelligent AI tools can help evolve the complete customer experience and deliver modern-day enterprise solutions.

Source

For example, a company’s decision to outsource their call center service will probably save money. However, the fact is that until the chatbots are indulged in the process, the firm will barely be able to deliver a satisfactory customer experience.

Eventually, employees alone (without AI tools) will fail to do many tasks like storing all important mails, important voice messages not recorded, and not interpreting the data or information as it originally was.

“In a report, Gartner predicted that almost 40% of the users would majorly rely on the new apps that support conversational UI with AI. By 2022, more than 20% of customer service will primarily be handled and managed by conversational agents.

These numbers are shocking, and it is an alert siren for all the companies and managers who did not introduce themselves to Conversational AI. It is advisable to roll out your conversational AI strategy soon within three to six months to keep going in this market.

In fact, by 2025, as many as 95 percent of all customer interactions will be through channels supported by artificial intelligence (AI) technology, according to Servion Global Solutions. And AI-powered chatbots will be a crucial component in helping the next generation of customer experience. — Source

Conversational AI — What is it?

It is a programmatic, innovative, and intelligent approach to deploy a conversational experience to mimic conversations with real people using telecommunication and digital technologies.

The whole idea of bringing in AI and its tools in interaction with customers is that businesses have started to understand the importance of communication in the organization.

Conversational AI refers to technologies, like:

• Voice Assistants
• Chatbots

(that can help chatbots to enhance their customer experience further talk to the users in replacement of the human)

Source

Components of Conversational AI

Conversational AI uses massive data, natural language processing, and machine learning to imitate the interactions, identify the speech patterns, and send text messages in different languages.

Related Read: Emerging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Trends [Updated]

The significant role of NLP is to flow into the constant feedback loop with ML processes for improving the algorithms of Artificial Intelligence. Together these processes allow Conversational AI to understand the process and generate an intelligent response in the most natural way.

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3. Concierge Bot: Handle Multiple Chatbots from One Chat Screen

4. An expert system: Conversational AI Vs Chatbots

Here are the components of Conversational AI explained:

1. Natural Language Processing or NLP

Usually popular as NLP, it is an intelligent method to analyze the language (using ML) in conversational AI. Deep learning is believed to be advancing NLP in the future, allowing businesses to experience much more advanced NLP for better customer service.

NLP or Natural Language Processing involves four significant steps:

1. Input generation — Users provide particular input and the format of which can either be text or voice.
2. Input Analysis — In the case of text messages, conversational AI will use NLU or Natural Language Understanding to interpret the meaning of the input. If it is voice-based, then NLU and ASR or automatic speech recognition will generate the natural reply to the user.
3. Output generation — Natural language generation (a component of NLP) generates a response to send to the user.
4. Reinforcement learning — ML algorithms refine the responses to ensure accuracy in the replies.

The entire process is about transforming the unstructured data into an accessible format quickly understood and readable by the machines/ computers. The machine learning algorithms prevailing in the algorithms enhance the quality of response, with time, as it learns the process. It completely supports the idea of automated conversations and responses for any business using cloud telephony.

2. Machine Learning

It is a sub-field of AI, an innovative and intelligent combination of algorithms, data sets, and features bound to grow and improve with time. With time and capacity of input, recognizing machine learning patterns better deploy chatbots much smarter predictions for intelligent customer service.

Source

Advantages of Conversational AI for Your Business

Conversational AI is a cost-effective solution for improving the customer service of your business. There are considerable benefits that any business can experience if they incorporate effective business communication solutions like Conversational AI in their processes.

Here are some notable benefits of using Conversational AI:

1. Cost-Effectiveness

A customer-oriented business will always find new ways to improve the results for their customers. And, staffing a customer service department is nothing new that companies won’t think of. However, the cost, in this case, would be pretty unpredictable and definitely on the higher side.

On the other hand, if you opt for Conversational AI, it is easier for you to reduce the business costs that would otherwise have gone into training the staff. Besides, their salaries become a significant constraint for the company too. Conversational AI saves all these costs while delivering much more intelligent and quick responses to the customers.

Take chatbots, for example — they will be available 24×7 to your potential customers, without needing you to be there all the time. Besides, chatbots ensure the response is quick so that your customers don’t have to waste time waiting for the replies.

With a projected worldwide market size of more than $1.3 billion by 2024, chatbots will be a driving force for business communications. (Intellectyx, 2019)

Apart from the quick response, chatbots even minimize the errors in the response. It is intelligent enough not to send repetitive messages to customers, unlike humans. Hence, a better customer service experience for your customers.

2. Higher Customer Engagement

Customers are constantly engaging over their mobile phones nowadays. Hence, businesses need to prepare themselves to provide real-time information for the customers. Conversational AI allows the customers to engage with the brand using AI tools using mobiles easily.

With conversational AI, businesses establish a quick connection with customers so that the users don’t keep waiting for hours. It is a good sign for your business, as you are not letting your customers wait for a response from your end. You have a great chance to promote your products or let them know about your brand.

3. Scalability

Conversational AI gives you complete access to add infrastructure to support it at a much affordable cost and quickly. That’s not the case when you hire a staff to do so. One example of it could be expanding your product market in another country or a geographical area within the shortest possible time. Conversational AI can be a helpful tool to do so without adding to your budget or time.

4. Optimal Collection of Data

AI is an intelligent and innovative tool that helps you collect data. It analyzes the favorite products by your customers for future purchases to improve marketing and sales practices.

You can easily connect with customers and offer them more information about the products of interest. Conversational AI can even help you determine the best way to connect and engage with your customers to deliver satisfactory customer service within time. With optimal utilization of data, you can efficiently have a sufficient customer service experience for the users.

5. Reduce Churn

Conversational AI delivers instant support to customers for solving their problems almost instantly. Since customer’s issues are resolved immediately, it is easy to keep the customers for longer. Besides, this benefit of Conversational AI enhances customer satisfaction.

6. Unlimited Stream of Patience

Customer queries can sometimes be silly and repetitive, which can visibly irritate customer service agents. The constant similar questions and complaints can make customer service reps bothered sometimes. However, when you use Conversational AI, you can avoid such situations. Unlike humans, AI tools like chatbots and virtual assistants offer an unlimited stream of patience.

7. Multilingual Support

Customers prefer speaking their native language when possible. They expect a response from you in the same language to establish a good connection with your brand. So, even if businesses consider the English language as the lingua franca of today, it will not always serve your customers.

With Conversational Tools, you can convey your message in multiple languages, allowing you to better communicate with them. Besides, there is barely any need to hire a translator or interpreter to conversate with customers in their language.

AI tools use multilingual chatbots or voice assistants to show the customers that you are trying to connect with them in their language. Hence, customers will count those extra efforts.

67% of millennials in the US reported that they would likely purchase products and services from brands with chatbots. (Chatbot Magazine, 2018)

Challenges of Conversational AI for Your Business

Conversational AI, undoubtedly, is beneficial for your business. However, it still is a technology, and every technology has some advantages and disadvantages.

Here are some challenges that Conversational AI brings in:

1. Language Input

That can be a pain point for Conversational AI where the input from the user is voice or text. Text messages (to a certain extent) are acceptable to address. The issue is faced when the voice inputs are taken care of. AI can have difficulty understanding the voice input in terms of dialects, accents, and background noises, which can impact the quality of the input.

Besides, the biggest challenge for Conversational AI tools is to bring human value and emotions into the conversation. The emotions, tone, and that human connection will probably not be that strong when such tools are used.

2. Security/Privacy

Conversational AI highly relies on collecting massive user data to give proper responses to customer queries. The security and privacy of user data are at stake, and it can even be exposed to security breaches sometimes. Hence, a conversational AI that supports high security and confidentiality should be invested in. So that both the customer data and their privacy are entirely secured.

3. Data Sharing Constraints

Users can be apprehensive about sharing their sensitive data with businesses. They may doubt sharing personal data with machines too. Hence, it is difficult for people to share information with conversational AI. Data sharing constraints will exist until a robust security system is designed for the technologies and tools.

Hence, there is a strong need to educate customers before expecting them to share their data with you. Once they understand what you (as a business) are trying to share with them, it would be much easier for them to trust you. Plus, they won’t hesitate to share their data to enhance their customer experience further.

Conversational AI Helps Businesses Improve Customer Service

Honestly, conversational AI is a reliable technology for improving customer service. However, it is time we bust the misconception that AI alone can handle all incoming inquiries from the customers.

Without human support, it is quite a slippery slope to handle or improve customer experience. So, your business needs to identify a balance between conversational AI and human help to enhance your customers’ overall experience.

AI can optimize the workflow of your business. However, it can not understand the emotions of a human. Hence, a healthy balance between both machines and humans is required.

So, go ahead, strategize your business accordingly using your staff and conversational AI for optimum customer satisfaction.

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !

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How Conversational AI Help Businesses Improve Customer Service? was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The advantages of conversational AI for both companies and customers

Imagine having an important online meeting ahead, and the internet isn’t working. As you call customer support, the voice that picks up the phone introduces itself as a robotic assistant.

You might get hesitant if your issue can be solved anytime soon. The robot, however, quickly understands your problem and provides clear instructions on how to restart the router. No repetition and unnecessary questions are needed. Everything works just fine in a few minutes. This is exactly how the call centres and technical helpdesks might look soon.

In some parts of the world, digital voice assistants and voice bots are a common part of the call centre structure. This trend is slowly coming into the Czech Republic too. In the past, Czechs could only encounter artificial intelligence on helpdesk chats. Today, this technology reaches a new level — the voice level, and it is profitable for several reasons. Voice bots help not only the companies but also the customers and clients.

Studies show that over 80% of people are willing to spend more money on a company they had a positive customer experience with. Although they may not seem so at first glance, voice bots are a great step towards improving that experience. Both companies and customers are often afraid that digital voice assistants will not fully replace human interaction. At the same time, they often overlook many benefits that a voice bot’s involvement in the contact centre brings.

Between the IVR and human interaction

The digital voice assistant takes the communication with customer centres to the next level. Voice bots never sleep, and they can solve different routine problems at any time. Additionally, they have essentially unlimited call capacity. These advantages significantly help to reduce waiting times during, for example, mass outages, when many people suddenly need the help of a helpdesk. Besides, compared to an interactive voice response (IVR) system, that people often mistake for digital assistants, communication with a voice bot equipped with humanlike manners is much more enjoyable.

In comparison with IVR, digital voice assistants excel in every possible way. During interaction with voice bots, you do not need to repeat questions constantly and press buttons to proceed in the answer scheme.

Artificial intelligence itself will ask you to describe the problem and quickly understand its nature. If it can, it will propose a solution.

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1.Chatbot Trends Report 2021

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4. An expert system: Conversational AI Vs Chatbots

Furthermore, digital assistants easily recognize when they reach the conversation dead end. Instead of bombarding you with more unnecessary questions, they connect you to an available and qualified human operator.

Artificial intelligence and natural language processing prevent digital assistants from getting stuck in the wheels of absurd questions. Whenever you call a voice bot because your internet isn’t working, the assistant first asks you to describe the problem. You can explain the situation in your own words because the assistant already knows all the related words and phrases. “I can’t use the internet, our router has stopped working, the wifi is not running again.” It doesn’t matter how you phrase your issue because an assistant armed with artificial intelligence understands and proceeds to ask an additional question.

Helping hand in the Covid times

There are even more advantages to digital voice assistants. One of them is undoubtedly security. If someone calls bank support and requests a forgotten credit card code, the human operator does not have the authority to look for it for obvious reasons. These restrictions do not apply to artificial intelligence since it will not reveal the card code to anyone but your authenticated self. Similarly, it is beneficial to use a voice bot while addressing topics such as health conditions. The digital assistant is discrete and will never make fun of your medical conditions in front of his colleagues.

Today, when everything is affected by Covid-19, other benefits of digital voice assistants have emerged. Some institutions, such as health insurance companies, face an enormous number of callers asking various questions related to the epidemic. The capacity of their helpdesk is unfortunately often limited, sometimes even due to preventive measures. At that moment, the voice bot, which can learn to deal with dozens of often repeated requests quite quickly, has the opportunity to shine. He manages a variety of routine problems as well as his human colleagues and saves them a lot of time to deal with more complicated topics.

With all the advantages mentioned above, the development of technology towards digital voice assistants seems logical. After all, the spoken word is the most natural way for people to communicate their needs and desires.

And although we may see an increasing reluctance to make phone calls in many ways, research still shows that more than half of people prefer oral communication when solving problems.

Of course, artificial intelligence still has a lot to improve in comparison to the human brain. But if, by any chance, you will be connected to a digital voice assistant while calling customer service, do not worry. If it was programmed to solve your problem, it will do it as good, maybe even better, than its human colleagues. If not, it will happily transfer your call to an operator who will.

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !

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Digital assistant on the line. Ready to solve your problems was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.