What is a voice-first strategy?
First of all, what is a voice-first strategy?
If a strategy is a plan to meet an objective, a voice-first strategy is a plan that uses voice as one of its primary communication channels.
So far everything is clear. However, today, having a voice-first strategy in which your customers can receive the quality care they require at any time is not only very expensive... it's also unprofitable. High staff turnover, operating costs and human limits make it impossible to scale such a strategy without sacrificing quality.
However, there is no more humane and information-rich form of communication than voice. It is not necessary to train the customer to learn how to use it, it has no buttons or requires an internet connection. In addition, it generates a higher level of closeness than any text. Wouldn't it be a waste to leave it aside in your strategy, then?
But all is not lost. Personalized and scalable voice communication that complements your e-commerce is not only desirable; thanks to artificial intelligence, It has been a reality for years in the United States, Asia and Europe.
It's definitely an interesting point to take into account.
In this session of Vozy Unplugged we set out to dissect the reasons why it's a good idea to complement an e-commerce business model with a voice-first strategy. We were joined by Lucero Díaz, Project Manager at Prodequa, and Susana Mesa, Sales Manager at Vozy. We concluded that in order to increase the commitment of your customers to your brand, it is necessary to:
- Eliminate unnecessary friction with the customer and generate conversations that lead to conversions.
- Adapt to clients' needs—physical, emotional, and mental—, and not force them to adapt to those of the company.
- Improve the predictability and transparency of your logistics, since they sustain your ability to fulfill the promise of value to your customer. Without them, you'll lose more opportunities than you win.
We'll dive into how to address each of these points in the rest of the article to give you actionable steps to start having more happy customers... and more conversions, of course.
What e-commerce challenges should you face with a voice-first strategy?
You don't have returning customers, or your rate of Churn It's very tall.
As Susana said, in Latin America”we have become experts in sales. We know very well how to sell, how to put the product so that the customer loves us, wants to see it everywhere; but everything that follows after the sale (...) that is not visible to the customer, such as (...) the whole part of logistics and customer service, I think is a big challenge”.
It's certainly not easy to win back a departing customer — and acquiring a new one will always be more expensive than keeping a returning customer. But it can be difficult to understand why a customer is leaving if you are not clear about the path they take when buying your product. The relationship with the customer does not end when the sale is closed; It ends when the customer returns to search for another product in your e-commerce... and restarts the cycle.
This is why it is very important to have a personalized service that accompanies you at all times and monitors your delivery at every step. E-commerce that is truly inclusive knows this, and that is why they have a very high percentage of assisted sales, as Susana pointed out.
However, it's very difficult to scale it up to a business where All sales are assisted.
With a voice-first strategy, however, you could identify where the customer got stuck in the buying process and offer help before they ask for it. If you had a problem with the payment, or if the product you were looking for ran out of stock, your team would have valuable new information about your business: you may discover that, due to lack of inventory on a product, a significant number of people abandoned their cart this week.
This way you can increase your visibility of the landscape with greater agility, retain a greater number of returning customers and reduce your rate of Churn.
You can't improve your conversion rate
According to the report “The Reality of Online Consumers” carried out by the consultancy firm KPMG, The number 1 factor in building customer trust and increasing their commitment to your brand is to make it easy to communicate with your company. As Lucero Díaz mentioned, offering proactive rather than reactive support shows the client that you have the situation under control.
Do you want to improve your conversion rate? It makes it easy to contact your company and get information quickly and in a timely manner. For example, if you already have a purchase order and you know what the order is, where it needs to arrive and when, call your customer and confirm the information.
Give the customer the peace of mind that everything is going from strength to strength — and with the help of a personalized voice assistant, to everyone your clients—it won't take more than five minutes and will lay the foundation for a lasting relationship. This quality of support and quick attention will undoubtedly lead you to a better conversion rate.
KPMG, “The reality of online consumers. Global Report on Internet Consumers”, p. 27,”https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/es/pdf/2017/06/la-realidad-de-consumidores-online.pdf”, 2017.
Your logistics are not transparent or predictable for the customer.
Logistics is one of the most important aspects of any e-commerce, since it is the means by which it materializes and fulfills its promise of value. As we said before, give you a timely follow-up (read: being aware of the customer) demonstrate with actions that you have the ability to keep your word as a company.
In a world where uncertainty is one of the main causes of death of any type of relationship, predictability and transparency are crucial to creating real relationships with your customers. With a voice-first strategy, you can complement your logistics process to automate that tracking. Call the customer to review their order, to confirm delivery, to let them know that you have promotions that may interest them; or let them know that you have a line for quick questions, where they won't have to wait their turn and can talk to a human if they need one.
Your logistics will never be the same again. It will be much more transparent, predictable and reliable than ever.
You don't know your client well.
Are you bringing your brand closer to your customers, or pushing them away by creating unnecessary friction?
Too often we design processes thinking about what is most effective for the company, and it makes sense. It's important to find the most direct (and least expensive) path to our goal. However, sometimes the best path for us is not necessarily the best path for the customer. As Lucero pointed out, “we often let the customer learn on their own and we don't really know their needs.” And it's true: we often force them to use channels and technologies that are uncomfortable for them, or to which they don't have easy access. Not all your customers are comfortable shopping online; they don't trust digital platforms, they fear for the security of their financial data, or they just don't know how to use them. The digital divide in Latin America is a reality that we must take into account.
This is why it's so important to know your customers: if you don't know how to support them in the buying process, you're missing out on valuable opportunities. By putting ourselves in the client's shoes and experiencing the process in its entirety, you can identify loose ends or potential conflicts.
However, that alone is no longer enough. Even if your customer is constantly giving you feedback on your product or your processes, if you don't have the right tools to collect and analyze it, it's impossible to take advantage of it.
In short: the data exists, but the volume is so high that it's impossible to process it without the help of artificial intelligence to help you read all those recordings. After all, as Susana pointed out, we are only human beings, and our resources are finite: we don't have time or life to read and hear everything.
But thanks to voice technologies, neither We have What to have.
Solving these obstacles will go a long way in your process of accelerating your results in every way. As Lucero explained, gaining the trust of your customer and guaranteeing them a good shopping experience will not only do wonders for your company's image; it will also bring you more customers, and it will ensure that those you already have don't go away with another one.
However, to achieve this, you must be very clear about what the points of contact with the customer are and in what order they occur. The efficiency of your process is closely linked to your knowledge of the customer cycle, as we will now see.
At what point in the buying process is it most efficient to use voice technology like Vozy's?
This will depend on where the biggest pain in your e-commerce is, Susana explains, but usually in the post-sales phase. That's where questions and conflicts start to arise: when does my package arrive, why hasn't it arrived? Why wasn't I billed for my discount? Why did I receive a different product than the one I ordered, and how do I return it? Particularly in times of cyber, when peaks of activity saturate agents and there tend to be more incidents, conversational artificial intelligence can be especially useful for managing customer requests.
Conclusions: Should you use a strategy? Voice-first AI-based to complement your business model?
Although it's not necessarily a new world —in The United States, Asia and Europe are already relatively common—, in Latin America it is an expanding world.
AI-based voice technologies have only gained traction over the past five years. In addition to being a highly inclusive technology —which will allow you to capitalize on more opportunities and offer a better service, as Susana pointed out—, it's also a way to make our lives easier and expand the potential of our resources.
Now you know how to increase customer engagement with your brand through a voice-first strategy. Are you ready or ready to join the pioneers? Schedule here to chat for 15 minutes with our team!
If you liked this article, you might be interested to know Why do people tend to trust machines more than other people, and how to add value for the customer in financial processes by voice.
