How people use the internet and interact with businesses have changed throughout the years, as more become familiar with voice artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Many companies have embraced AI-powered voice automation and have benefited from real-time speech-to-text automated transcriptions, streamlined processes, and increased productivity.

How Voice AI and AI-powered voice automation works

Voice AI, often called virtual assistants, is a conversational AI tool that receives voice commands and provides you with an intelligent reply. Your smartphone-based helper can tell you when it’s going to rain, or your company’s digital assistant can offer customer support. Voice AI helps you manage time and leverage critical resources.

Understanding Voice AI

How Voice AI works is similar to how two people communicate. When we communicate, we encode and decode messages. How this translates to Voice AI is that AI and automation work together to develop a system of voice and speech recognition.

1. Sound waves generated by the speaker are analysed and grouped in text by the AI.
2. With the help of a neural network, the AI separates words spoken by the person from ambient noises.
3. Voice AI is based on neural networks that are patterned on brain neurons. These neural networks help analyse messages and provide you with the most accurate return results.
4. Using syntactic and semantic techniques (i.e. applying grammatical rules), the Voice AI gets a deeper understanding of the sentences and words spoken by the person.
5. After carefully analysing the person’s query, the Voice AI reaches a range of conclusions.
6. The AI selects a response, converts the data into an audio format, and communicates the best possible response to the person.

The present and future of Customer Support are here.

“Customer experience is the new brand,” said Forbes. For example, 76% of consumers prefer traditional phone calls as their customer service medium (CFI Group, 2020). With Voice AI in place, high-volume, repetitive tasks can be automated to unburden your employees.

Consequently, a contact centre representative doing inbound and outbound calls handle up to 50 calls a day based on historical data. These 50 calls may define your customers’ experience with your brand.

Conversational AI can also help with accurate data collection and analysis, and create a personalised but consistent customer experience. In fact, many progressive companies have started developing branded virtual assistants as they thought of Voice AI as the future of Customer Support. With Voice AI in place, high-volume, repetitive tasks can be automated to unburden your employees.

How companies harness AI-powered voice automation

Voicebots or Voice AI is an emergent technology, in which connected devices can respond to human language. For example, a 2019 study by Perficient Inc, a digital marketing firm, concluded that almost 70% of the consumers use Voice AI—like Google Assistant—to search for quick facts. No wonder it’s dubbed as the “smartest” Voice AI available with an accuracy rate of 98%.

Here are some recent studies (and actual reports) on branded virtual assistants:

• FinVolution Group, one of China’s leading fintech platforms, uses Voice AI to dynamically attend to customer outbound calls. In its Environmental, Social and Governance Report 2020, FinVolution stated that the company’s call centre systems save resources and improve efficiency in outgoing calls through Voice AI. FinVolution also said that voice recognition and semantic understanding technologies help them carry out effective quality inspection analysis. Daily voice recordings of their customer service agents are fully translated into text, identifying sensitive words and potential business risks.
• Kredivo, one of Southeast Asia’s most popular Buy Now, Pay Later platforms, prides itself on AI-powered credit application and customer verification processes. With real-time credit approval upon satisfactory verification, customers can make hassle-free purchases.
• Bank of America introduced “Erica” in 2018, an AI-powered virtual financial assistant on the bank’s mobile app. Erica, which customers can chat with via voice or text, has completed more than 35 million “client requests” from 6 million users in 2019. Customers can be linked to a customer service agent directly from the app. They do not have to re-verify their identity or re-explain their issue, having done so on the app.
• Mercedes-Benz premiered the Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX) in 2018, an intuitive, intelligent virtual assistant. This multimedia system uses natural language understanding to recognise various commands, from providing directions to turning down the air conditioning to flipping through radio channels.

Since Google introduced voice search in 2011 (the same year Apple introduced Siri to iPhone users), voice-enabled applications kept evolving. Forward-thinking organisations are now using Voice AI to set them apart from the competition, drive brand recognition, and boost customer experience and loyalty!

Artificial Intelligence boosts customer experience

Has technology now replaced the need for touchscreen devices with incredible advances like Alexa and Siri? Whether it’s in your car, smart home system, or mobile phone, you must have turned to a virtual assistant quite a few times. The demand for voice-enabled applications continues to grow along with the rise in the adoption of Voice AI across industries like e-learning, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and healthcare.

Is conversational AI worth considering?

With the current trend, the voice and speech recognition market could be worth $26.79 billion by 2025. The Asia-Pacific region is expected to experience rapid growth. This is due to the growing demand for connected cars, high-level authentication devices, and increasing usage of smart devices (e.g. smart speakers).

Here are some tried-and-true benefits of voice AI adoption:

• Efficient workflow. Speech-to-text automated transcriptions have become an essential part of their operations for financial businesses and contact centres. Voice AI streamlines tedious, repetitive tasks and offers excellent research and data analysis support.
• Reduced customer care costs. Handle thousands of repetitive queries with customer support automation, and make your customers happy with prompt service. Save on manual labour costs when “almost half the work activities that people are paid (almost $16 trillion in wages) to do, have the potential to be automated,” according to a report by McKinsey & Company.
• Polished customer journey.  AI-powered voice automation is designed to be conversational, helping businesses cater to their customers better by recognising and resolving issues more efficiently. To make customer journeys as smooth and hassle-free as possible, voice AI adoption leads to high customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Enhanced user experience; better engagements. Adopting a voicebot or chatbot offers speed and accuracy in real-time solutions. A voicebot offering round-the-clock accessibility or brand visibility also encourages better user engagements.
• Real-time solutions. Machine learning algorithms ensure that an AI-backed voicebot can answer your customer’s queries anytime, even in the middle of the night. The experience should be similar to conversing with a live agent.

Businesses are transitioning to conversational AI at a rapid pace. Undoubtedly, Voice AI adoption is the next big thing.

Supercharge your CX with Voice AI

Crunching sales quotas, attending to endless customer service calls, and doing redundant admin tasks are tedious but nonetheless essential work in many businesses. Thanks to AI-powered voice automation, technology has taken over some of these workloads and helped to streamline complex processes to redefine the customer experience.

With powerful AI capabilities such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, your organisation’s virtual assistant could be a game-changer in the industry. If you’re looking to get on board the Voice AI ship, turn to us to find out more.