Dive Brief:
- Nearly 3 in 5 consumers say they would be more likely to try a brand that incorporates voice technology in their customer service, according to a survey of 1,000 people released Tuesday by Telus Digital Experience.
- The top benefits of a voice-driven experience are speed, efficiency and convenience. More than one-third of respondents said speaking is faster than typing, and nearly one-third said voice commands are simpler than navigating menus.
- Voice technology still has room for improvement, however. Two-thirds of respondents said their voice assistant has misunderstood their commands, and more than half want to see improved accuracy in responses.
Dive Insight:
The future of voice technology could see it blended into a unified customer service experience that spans websites, apps and live agents. More than two-thirds of consumers say they increased their use of voice tech, from assistants to smart speakers, in the past year.
Voice technology is best suited for resolving simple, uncontroversial issues like rescheduling appointments or paying bills, according to Thomas Randall, director of AI market research at Info-Tech Research Group. More complicated problems are better addressed by humans.
“Customers calling for service are often already emotionally charged, and having a voice option to tell them ‘they understand’ leads to an inauthentic experience and demand for a human agent, which defeats the purpose of investing in the voice option,” Randall told CX Dive in an email.
Companies may not want to discount the opportunities for an automation-to-human handoff, however.
For example, a customer seeking to change their airline ticket may start with an automated voice assistant on the airline’s app, said Tobias Dengel, president of Telus Digital Solutions. If any problems arise the conversation could continue with a live representative who is prepared to continue the conversation from where it left off.
“The primary shift that companies and brands need to make is to view the entire customer journey as a cohesive multimodal voice experience, rather than segmenting it into apps, bots and human interactions,” Dengel told CX Dive in an email.
Another area where voice technology is falling short is accent recognition. Nearly half of respondents said voice tech should have a better understanding and interpretation of accents and dialects, according to Telus Digital Experience.
Generative AI is improving the power of voice technology when it comes to accent recognition, as well as other customer frustrations, according to Dengel and Randall.
“A sticking point for voice technology is the lag time in responses or misunderstanding accents or key phrases,” Randall said. “With larger datasets to draw on and quicker response times, voice technology can reach real-time performance for a seamless customer experience.”
