With eCommerce’s rapid growth, the way customers purchase is changing. At one time people used to search for a product or service by typing or clicking the mouse. But now people love to search for a product by voice search which is in trend these days.
Voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri are famous voice assistants. With the help of a voice assistant, you can order a product, service, music play, etc. In this article, we will broadly discuss the impact of voice assistants on e-commerce, its benefits, drawbacks, and how you can get ready for your eCommerce for the voice assistant, and so on.
What are Voice Assistants?
A voice assistant is software that accomplishes tasks through voice commands. It’s a digital assistant that uses voice recognition, listens to voice commands, and performs specific functions. Voice assistants run on any type of device. The voice assistant brings machine learning and AL together to recognize human voices.
The voice assistant is becoming a favorite communication system since it saves time and effort for users because they don’t need to type or click the mouse.
In many circumstances, people use a voice assistant. As for road directions on the map, weather forecasts, ordering food or a cab, and many other daily activities.
For an eCommerce business, the voice assistant is becoming popular and preferable for internet users. It points out that eCommerce businesses should adopt this technology in their marketing tactics.
According to Statista, there will be 142 million voice assistant users in the United States in 2022, which is predicted to increase by 157.1 million users in 2026. Young people use it most.
How Does The Voice Assistant Understand Us
At the first time a voice assistant sounds like what is it, is the technology easily adaptable? The answer is yes. Voice assistant technology is easily adaptable. It’s very simple and easy to use. When you use it you will forget that once you thought that it would not be easy to learn.
There are some steps by which voice assistants understand us:
- To use a voice assistant first you need to activate it. For Activation, you need a text first. When you command your voice assistant with a keyword like “ I would like to buy a headphone”, it processes and transforms the human voice into text.
- In the next step, the voice assistant detects the command.
- After analysis, the voice assistant decides what answer would apply to the user. Then the system turns the voice into text and transforms the text into audio.
Benefits of Voice Assistant in Ecommerce
Improve customer shopping experience
Using voice assistants improves the customer shopping experience through recommendations based on individual preferences. When a customer uses Alexa to purchase something, Alexa searches for that item and also recommends other items that match the customer’s search products.
Brand recognition
Once your customers get used to voice assistant technology and want to connect with your company they will decide to purchase from your store. This is how customers recognize a brand and they get back to buy again. The voice search also helps your business to identify purchasing behavior and habits.
Improves marketing
Voice assistant improves marketing by customizing systems and providing marketers with customer insight. The eCommerce voice assistant chatbot is capable of serving its customers, especially people with adaptability. Therefore it provides an excellent customer experience. Chatbot is very useful for eCommerce business. You can collect customers’ data, payment methods, locations, and interests. Through this data, you can improve your marketing strategy and also boost search engine optimization.
No language barriers
Voice assistant technology combined with translation services. Your business will not face any language barrier. Because of the language problem, most customers aren’t able to purchase their desired item. One of the best examples is Google Assistant which is frequently used worldwide.
Time-saving
Voice search is helpful and time-saving. An average person types 25-30 words per minute whereas a voice assistant can process 100 words per minute. Voice assistant allows you to communicate fast and get results quickly.
Easy to collect customer review
Sharing feedback from customers has become easy with the help of voice assistants. Consumers can easily add reviews because they don’t need to type and log in for reviews.
Boost SEO
As the day passes, marketing tactics are changing. Also, customers change their shopping behavior. To meet up with online searches focus on search engine optimization and keywords. Do keyword research properly so that your consumers can find you easily on search engines. First, you need to focus on your local SEO. It will bring more new customers to your eCommerce website.
Improve customer service
Voice assistant smoothes customer service. They are always ready to give updates to your queries, product tracking, etc.
Improve business productivity
Voice assistant technology not only serves your consumers but also improves your business productivity. Automating repetitive tasks saves more time for your employees. Your employees can focus on generating more growth and revenue. You can schedule a voice assistant to distribute all your daily tasks to reduce the tasks of your employees so that they can focus on important tasks.
Limitations to The Voice Assistant
We know that voice assistants are beneficial but they also have some limitations also. Choosing the right voice search technology is difficult sometimes because they have some barriers or limitations.
Language
One of the main concerns of voice assistant technology is language limitations. Most voice assistants don’t support all languages. It’s a very concerning issue. Global brands should focus on natural language processing.
Security and privacy
Voice search and natural language processing require people to speak on their devices. Businesses must provide them with a privacy guarantee. People should trust your app to make sure that you are not listening and sharing their information.
High costs
Voice assistant software is highly costly. For that small business owners can’t afford it. International brands should make this software affordable for all users.
How to Optimize Your Ecommerce Website For Voice Assistant
There’s no doubt that the future of voice assistants is bright. With the evolution of technology, people are shopping online more than before. People are restless. They don’t want to wait, they just want results instantly. It is important to optimize your eCommerce website for voice assistance.
Fast loading time
For Google ranking a fast loading time is essential. If your website is not loading within 3 seconds, the voice search app can’t fetch all the information asked by the customers. If your page takes much time to respond Google will ignore your page.
Search queries
When people use a voice assistant their search queries are something like this, “ where is the grocery shop near me”, “Find me a cab”, etc. These types of queries are known as question keywords. Your site must be optimized for these question types of keywords.
There are also long-tail and short-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are less competitive. In voice search, long-tail keywords are used the most. Optimizing long-tail keywords brings more engagement to your site.
FAQ page
FAQ page or frequently asked questions is crucial for the optimization of an eCommerce store in voice search. The FAQ page saves time for the website by adding the potential question or common questions asked by the customers.
Local business listing
Local business listing means creating a Google Business profile and presence in the online listing. Voice assistant presents online listing first. List your business in local business listings.
Final Thought
Voice assistants had a significant impact on eCommerce and it’s changing the way people shop. Adapting new technology is a way to success for the business. Before your customers embrace something new you should embrace it first. You will give options to your customers, not customers giving you options.
