Voice First Series

The EDGE in Voice InnovationAccelerating Growth in a Voice Driven Environment

Social Media, Big Data, Mobility – in rapid order, have put many of Marketing’s SOPs in the back of the closet, under the heading of; ‘we used too’…

But these new MarTech apps are themselves starring into the abyss. The blindingly fast adoption of AI-for everything, and the even quicker arrival of Voice-First are creating a movement fraught with urgency, excitement and confusion. According to research from ComScore, by 2020, 50% of searches will be done by voice. I am betting it will be sooner than that. Already light-years ahead of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) – Voice-First is mapping ‘utterance to intent’ – leveraging multiple modalities to create an interaction model that literally brings an object to life. Voice enables the product to come alive and ‘be the marketing’– it’s alive!!!

With product as the marketing, the priority becomes translating content into Voice interaction involving the end consumer and all the entities along the path to solution. Price, Promotion, Place still have mean-ing, but it is now more about the ‘why’ of the brand and interestingly enough; about how brand communi-cates its’ role in solving the consumers ‘job that must be done’.

Voice-First – Slow, then sudden – What happened to the slow?

All this is made possible by harnessing an ecosystem of applications and services, to a whole new gener-ation of machine-learning, conversational interfaces and sentiment analysis. The result? A concierge for scheduling, a digital agent for healthcare, a planner for activities and; even a digital friend to chase away: alone.

For Marketers this is clearly a game-changer. The holy grail has always been customer experience. Under-standing the customers ‘job that must be done’. Guiding the customer along the journey. Being ready to take the customer’s order at the point of decision and; overlaying the whole process with a comfortable, convenient, seamless experience.

The Killer-App potential is clear, but why is adoption happening so blindingly quick? Providers were ready, with Skills for training and Connectors already in place. Plus, an understanding of how to turn a task from ‘Oh-God to No-Problem’. Example: Show of hands, please. How many people have a ‘box of bills’ from their last medical maze? The overly complex and cumbersome system of referrals, unidentifiable insurance codes, unrecognized provider names, bills without insurance paid, invoices for after-insurance paid, re-minders of invoices, maybe even collection – because you keep throwing them into a box, hoping that the Genie of Healthcare will straighten it all out.

What if there was an intuitive, intelligent Digital Agent that could help maneuver you through the maze? Alerting to what was in-coverage, what was not, what needed referral and what didn’t. And whether you could by-pass the whole chal-lenge by going to the local CVS or Walgreens, having their walk-in clinic treat you quickly and efficiently. After all, you are the customer, right? Talk about saving money, time, angst and; from a global warming POV: Trees! Spoiler-alert, there isn’t such a Digital No-Problem Bill Payer Agent for Healthcare….yet. But there are companies; like Orbita.ai (and of course; Apple, Google, Fitbit/Am-

azon, etc) closing in on coordination and journey-management solutions.

By now we’ve all seen the commercial for the in-car voice system, talking a driver through road-kill avoid-ance and subsequent, landing in a ditch. She is injured and alone. The AI helps; leveraging sentiment analysis to calm and assure – help is on its way. Another use case; the Art of the Possible – plays through an example of Amazon Connect with AI-powered automation and an ecosystem of AWS partner solutions - an entertaining Voice-First application, with lots of drama and cute ending.

These use cases are just the ‘tip of the berg’. In the very near future, companies in virtually every industry will be thinking ‘Voice-First’ in creating new brands, products & services. As mentioned in our previous white-paper, this is not a shift away from omnichannel interaction, rather an onramp to multimodality – a new way of thinking about accelerating growth in a Voice-driven environment. Voice interaction - in what-ever form of delivery - will become the powerhouse medium for; marketing, sales, distribution, fulfillment and service center – all rolled into one. Every element of service you can imagine – will slowly, then very suddenly become dominated by Voice interaction.

So, this is what’s happening in Marketing. It’s also a bit about why it’s happening. Now the question is; are you part of the 66% of marketers who haven’t started their plans for Voice? Or are you thinking how can I; as a Marketer bring my offerings to life; right now?

Getting Off the Bench and Into the Voice-First Game

Ask yourself: how does your offering fit into the job that must be done? How do you empower your of-fering to have a more active role? How does your offering become a digital agent; shaping a path, guiding the customer along the right decisions that both consume your offering and solve (or at least participate in the solving of) the problem.

Now; do your homework – who is it you are crafting the conversation for? What is their role, what are the options for interaction, and what do you want the outcome to be? Let’s say you have a product. You want to leverage Voice to empower the product - your goal: springboard growth. Sticking with the Healthcare industry, (but the model applies to a wide range of industries), what’s a marketer to do?

Building the offering’s Voice interaction starts with the End-Consumer. The game is to solve their problem via consumption of your offering (product, service, etc.). Here is what Orbita.ai sees as Voice engagement skills for the Healthcare end-consumer:• Focus on Wellness - track and assess progress towards wellness goals and adherence to treatment plans• Align with a Care Team - Connect and communicate with a Care Team for support and encouragement• Become Knowledgeable about your challenge - Creating content that guides, educates and engages, will help offerings own their space, especially if the offering’s Voice helps the consumer access relevant options, delivered when it is most needed• Be Data Collectors - Use smart device integration to record vitals, complete surveys, and input wellness information • Engage with voice across all the apps – Leveraging mobile, web and voice devices to track and manage their unique conditions and needs

Empowering the product with voice doesn’t just target the end consumer. Like any campaign, you want to go omni-channel – and with the natural, engaging power of voice; you can shape, influence and engage with everyone (and everything) involved in the solution.

For instance; you will want to engage those that Influence the end Consumer: Caregivers, Family & Friends – where might you want them to interact with the Voice of your offering?• Around Care Coordination - manage and coordinate care tasks and activities• Around Care Communication - Communicate with Care Team members, leveraging mobile messaging and digital collaboration tools• Around Setting-up & Tracking Wellness Goals – Keeping track of end-consumer/patient’s progress against wellness goals, intervene with information and actions delivered when most needed• Around Learning the options - Receive content and information relevant to providing best possible care as efficiently as possible

Here is something unique about Voice. We foresee that the Influenc-ers group (‘Caregivers, family & friends’) will help people step up –stimulate their engagement with each other and utilize their capa-bilities as part of the solution. Voice will be the stimulus that helps communities come together. We’ve seen this on Facebook. People sharing what is happening in their lives with others – now they have a voice enhanced digital assistant that will make keeping in touch easier, warmer, more human. Seniors have put aside their reluctance with technology, as it helps them connect and be less alone, making your offering an indispensable element in experience, lifestyle and

real wellness. This is what we mean when we say: Voice enables the product to ‘be the marketing’ that is integrated with a myriad of life enhancing activities.

Continuing with our Healthcare example, there is of course, one more group: Clinicians & Care Coordina-tors – they too can interact with your Voice offering – rather than listing the interactions – you imagine the Voice interactions between & amongst the actives in the graphic below:

Once you’ve laid out the model for your interactions, it’s time to experiment. Learn what it takes to bring your product to life. Explore where you can engage a community, align them around the journey and make them part of both the decision process and solution.

The Voice-First model laid out above is one example in one industry. Over the next year, our Voice-First EDGE program will surf and dive into numerous other industries and cases. In the interim, make sure you take a look at our recent insight paper on Voice-First; reshaping customer interactions.

One More Thing

In our next article we will begin an exploration around the combination of marketing and technology. Marketers have always been in the driver’s seat for innovation. Technology has always been the car. Com-bine the two, and start steering towards a role of ‘innovation marketing technologist’ – a combination of Martec, Adtech AI/Voice & Experimentation. But these will be topics for the next blog in our Voice-First series.

EDGE is an outgrowth of Innovation Scouts ‘emerging technology’ communities. It creates the opportu-nity to do deep dives and interact with a range of start-ups, digital giants and companies leveraging each technology to power new offerings.

About the Author

Michael Glavich is Chief Business Accelerator & Change Catalyst for The Innovation Scout. He excels at helping companies combine digital strategy and emerging technologies to achieve market leadership. He is the innovation leader whose concepts have led to the original Big Data company; AC Nielson, creating Nielson’s Confectionary Index. The Killer App folks; Diamond Technology Partners, for emerging electronic payment offerings; and the inventors of business process re-engineering, CSC/Index, for the concept ‘Farm as a Factory’ for a global agriculture/manufacturing leader. Michael ‘changes the playing field’ by envisioning whole-product development and value propositions that lead to innovation and accelerated growth. mglavich@theinnovationscout.com