Voice commerce: what is it?

The smart speaker revolution took off in 2014, when Amazon launched Echo to a select group of Amazon Prime members. It is no accident that Amazon was the first to bring this influential example of voice technology into people’s homes. The e-commerce giant had bet that consumers would start making purchases by voice command, and that bet is starting to pay off.

Voice commerce is only in its infancy. In its first years, even Amazon’s Alexa could only accept orders for products that had already been bought before with a mouse or a touch screen. That changed in 2017, and today consumers can buy almost anything they want on Amazon by talking to Echo. By the end of the following year, more than one fifth of smart speaker owners were buying products by voice alone, and not only on Amazon. Since then, voice shopping has become the latest area of disruption in the e-commerce sector.

But it is an emerging channel, and many retailers do not yet know exactly how they can make use of it. Here are our answers to some frequently asked questions about voice commerce.

What is the definition of voice commerce?

Voice commerce is only a few years old. It can still grow and develop, changing the way we use the term. But for now, here is a broad definition:

As this definition shows, voice commerce is not limited to the exact moment of purchase (although that is certainly an important step). Voice technology plays a role at every stage of the buyer’s journey, and the term “voice commerce” includes each of those stages. Let us look at this concept in detail.

How does voice technology affect commerce at the different stages of the buyer’s journey?

The buyer’s journey is a model that marketers use to attract and retain prospects effectively. In its most basic form, the model has three stages: Awareness and discovery, where customers realize they have a need. Consideration, where they start comparing the products that meet their needs. And Decision, where they make their purchase. To this we would add Support, because great brands do not usually abandon their customers as soon as they have opened their wallets. Here is how voice technology can help brands at each of these stages, along with a few examples of voice commerce from around the world:

• Awareness and discovery: At this stage, brands can help shoppers by providing information (optimized for voice, of course) that identifies solutions. Brands provide useful content, optimized for voice, to drive engagement at this stage. This is a great example of voice search in e-commerce, although search can also trigger purchases more directly at later stages of the journey. Brands can also bring voice into this early stage by sponsoring apps. For example, the dental care brands Crest and Oral-B both sponsor an Alexa skill called “Chompers”, an audio tooth-brushing program for children. Parents appreciate the help at bedtime, children love the endearing characters, and the sponsoring brands like having their names associated with tooth brushing itself.
• Consideration: Then comes the consideration stage, during which customers actively research products. At this stage, technology can help shoppers build their shopping lists, among other things. These list-building apps help shoppers make purchasing decisions by suggesting products based on previous purchases, the popularity of items or other criteria. Monoprix was the first grocery chain to launch a shopping list app on Google Assistant, in 2017, at a time when voice commerce options were still limited, even at Amazon. Other retailers followed this example in the years that followed.
• Decision: Once shoppers have researched the brands and decided on a product, it is time to close the transaction. Voice technology lets customers make purchases through smart speakers, voice assistants on phones, in-store ordering kiosks and other voice-enabled devices. Several retailers have launched shopping apps, among them H&M, Easyjet and Domino’s Pizza (more than 50% of whose sales are made online).
• Support: After a purchase, customers still need to check the status of their order, contact technical support or get useful tips on new ways to use the product. Apps make these tasks simpler. The Fnac Darty group designed a collaboration with Google Assistant called Le bouton Darty, which saves customers time on support calls. Users simply describe the problem they have with their product and Darty has a technician call them back, which avoids long waiting times on the line. But the real innovators in after-sales support have been the spirits companies. The Johnny Walker Alexa skill offers buyers a guided virtual whisky tasting, and Patron’s provides cocktail recipes on demand.

Could your customer service channels use a little boost? Find out in our free ebook how voice technology can help.

To learn more about voice commerce throughout the buyer’s journey, read the article by Oxana Gouliaéva, voice strategy consultant and co-author of the book “La révolution des assistants vocaux” (The voice assistant revolution).

Which devices support voice commerce?

Today, voice commerce takes place mainly through the platforms of the leading smart speakers, Amazon and Google, and through third-party apps launched by brands and used on smart speakers and voice assistants. But every day, companies open new voice channels through which customers can interact with brands. Besides smart speakers, consumers will soon shop through voice bots on websites and mobile apps, and also on IoT (Internet of Things) devices such as smart mirrors, smart appliances and more.

But the voice commerce experience will not stay confined to the home. The fast food sector has already turned to smart screens for takeaway orders. And since the 2020 pandemic forced businesses to offer contactless experiences and purchases, the in-store voice experience has become an essential solution for retailers.

In short, voice commerce is a multi-device, multi-channel sales process. It takes place not only on smart speakers but also through voice assistants, websites and in-store screens: wherever there are voice user interfaces.

What are the benefits of voice commerce for consumers?

Voice is a natural and simple way to interact with devices. And as more and more objects join the IoT, voice user interfaces will become increasingly accessible. Voice commands let people use e-commerce even when their hands are not free.

Voice commerce is especially useful for everyday, low-cost purchases such as lunch, groceries or public transport tickets. These are purchases people make every day and that need no research or careful thought. They are perfectly suited to the simplicity of a voice purchase, and consumers agree: a survey by Voicebot.ai of 6,000 people around the world showed that twice as many people would rather order their lunch than furniture or household appliances with a voice-enabled device. (Voicebot.ai is, by the way, an excellent source of voice commerce statistics and other industry information.)

The COVID-19 pandemic created a need for contactless shopping experiences. Voice-enabled devices in stores, such as ordering counters or kiosks, create a safer shopping experience by avoiding any contact with shared surfaces. At a time when the pandemic is raging, the ability to shop by voice command in stores is more than essential.

What are the benefits of voice commerce for brands?

Smart speakers and voice assistants give customers a whole new way to connect with their favorite brands, learn more about products and make a purchase. Consumers are getting used to voice technology, which makes voice channels essential for customer engagement. When brands create custom voices, these channels also help identify brands and increase their visibility. In short, voice technology extends the reach of the brand.

But to get the full benefit of voice commerce, sellers need to develop dedicated, custom voices that stand out from the competition. This distinct identifier creates a consistent experience at every stage of the buyer’s journey: listeners know they are talking to one brand and not another when they hear this dedicated voice.

What is the biggest challenge to the growth of voice commerce?

Natural language understanding (NLU) is the branch of AI-powered reading comprehension that allows computers to understand human speech in all its subtle variations. Although the technology has made incredible progress in recent years, it is not perfect. Because voice user interfaces still struggle to understand the people speaking to them, the experience is far from ideal. This can help erode the trust a shopper needs to authorize payments and slow down the adoption of voice commerce.

The good news is that the powerful neural networks behind speech recognition and NLU keep improving from ever richer datasets of the human voice. (To learn more about voice artificial intelligence, click here. ) The accuracy with which the speaker’s intentions are understood can only improve, and ever faster. Familiarity will build trust and, as voice user interfaces become more common, more and more consumers will make purchases through these systems.

Can you give us some examples of growing trends in voice commerce?

Voice commerce is spreading quickly in restaurants and grocery stores, and will soon reach every branch of the retail sector. Customers will be able to buy whatever they want through their voice channels. For brands, voice will become a standard channel for selling their products.

Better internet connectivity will allow voice commerce to grow even further, creating ongoing relationships between brands and consumers. For example, smart fridges or pantries will be able to monitor the consumer’s stock, alert users when supplies of food or other products to replenish are running low, and let them place their orders by voice command.

Voice devices, for their part, will keep improving so that they understand the user’s intentions better and better. This will lead to more natural interactions, smoother transactions and wider adoption of voice technology, including for commerce. To learn about other trends in voice assistants specifically, read our article on the subject here .

How do brands develop custom digital voices for voice commerce?

To bring users to voice commerce, sellers need a text-to-speech voice that identifies their brand. ReadSpeaker is one of the leading providers of text-to-speech services, including dedicated custom voices. Customers can choose from more than 90 existing text-to-speech voices or work with ReadSpeaker to develop a unique text-to-speech voice that authentically expresses their brand identity.

ReadSpeaker uses powerful, advanced deep neural networks (DNN) to train voice models, creating with growing efficiency the most human-like digital voices there are. This DNN technology allows ReadSpeaker to offer an incredibly short development time and to quickly develop dedicated, custom text-to-speech voices across every voice-enabled customer touchpoint.

ReadSpeaker’s dedicated custom voices support branding initiatives at the company level, but can also help promote individual products or applications, making it possible to distinguish an unlimited number of profiles from one another and from the competition. To learn more about custom DNN voices for brands (and for voice commerce), click here, or contact us to schedule a consultation.