If marketers aren’t already thinking about voice search optimisation they need to start, according to a customer experience specialist, who anticipates the use cases for voice becoming increasingly sophisticated.

These are currently simplistic, Douglas Nicol, partner at The Works, told a recent Sydney conference, where he outlined findings from the customer experience agency’s recent research in this area.

Checking the weather, setting an alarm, getting directions, making a phone call and playing music were the top five use cases for Australians. (For more, read WARC’s report: VSO is the new SEO: How voice is taking over the world of search.)

However, in the second half of the top ten some more sophisticated examples emerged, such as cooking (35% of respondents).

“Cooking and going through a recipe with a smart speaker is quite a prolonged conversation that requires repeating detailed instructions,” said Nicol. “As the repeat rate goes down, use cases like cooking will be used more and more.”

The repeat rate is an area marketers will have to address as The Works found 45% of Australians are still having to repeat command questions, while just 30% are getting it right on the first attempt.

“The repeat rate is really important,” Nicol stressed. “Until this repeat rate comes down and the majority of users are experiencing getting it right first time, we’re not going to step forward into more sophisticated use cases for voice."

He said natural language processing – that bridge between the human voice and code – has to be trained over time and has to get better to propel us into more sophisticated use cases.

Marketers should also consider voice content in a holistic context, he said. “Don’t think of voice in a bubble, it’s not – it’s part of a bigger picture for your brand.”

Sourced from WARC