They’ve been around a while but voice search and conversational interfaces like Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri, and now ChatGPT with voice are so ingrained in day-to-day life that businesses need to adapt to how these services fit into conversion rate optimization.
Personalized Voice Driven Funnels
Using conversational AI and chatbots, companies can start to personalize the customer journey using spoken queries. Instead of relying on landing pages and traditional linear funnels, focus on intent detection and contextual awareness using AI or a chatbot on your site.
When a customer says, “what is the best blue widget near me,” you can use their question intent and even their tone of voice to run sentiment analysis (chatbots on owned platforms only, for now) to better understand which products make sense for this specific request. Unlike text-based chat and search, you can customize every single discovery journey by user in real-time.
Conversion Strategies for Voice Only Interfaces
While voice is likely a key piece in the future of finding and discovery, it’s still early enough that companies need to build habits and simplify the process until it becomes second nature. Make the process as simple as possible – voice only interfaces work best when users have to make one decision at a time. If a customer asks: “Alexa, where can I find blue widget?” Your interface needs to make it easy – “Blue widget is 10% off on our website right now. Say ‘add to cart’ to order now.”
Habits are hard to start but a successful voice strategy requires a well thought out, habitual voice triggers. Use email, SMS, and other retention channels to remind your customers to reorder by voice. Create habit forming phrases such as “Alexa, reorder widgets from company xyz” or reminder capabilities via Alexa Skills, Google Actions, Siri Shortcuts, and eventually, ChatGPT Custom Voice Experiences (not available for public use but possibly in the future). Encourage your customers to use Alexa Routines or Siri Shortcuts for use in regular reordering in their day to day life.
Localizing Voice SEO for CRO
Everyone knows the key local phrases to target – “near me,” “open now,” “same-day delivery,” and “industry in city, state” – but voice needs some help beyond typical SEO tactics. Some ideas to consider –
- Create conversational FAQ’s that fit voice search more than a typical text search. When creating FAQ’s, use voice friendly answers under 30 words to increase the chance Alexa, Google, and others will use your structured response
- Encourage customer reviews to include the location so that conversational interfaces can associate good reviews with individual locations
- Many voice searches end in a call – make your phone number visible and clickable on mobile and GMB listings
- Schema markup is essential – LocalBusiness, FAQ, HowTo, Speakable, Product, Review, and Event schema are critical to enhancing visibility and promoting a voice first environment
Post-Purchase Voice Journeys
Build loyalty and repeat sales with a highly targeted post-purchase voice journey. Using skills, actions, shortcuts, etc. you can promote your brand via voice to create a seamless voice journey.
While at AC Lens, our team built the very first contact lens reorder skill on Alexa. It was the only company with a quick way to buy contact lenses with a very simple statement – “Alexa, reorder my contacts from DiscountContacts.” Since then, voice journeys have evolved to more advanced features like reminders, subscription management, and AI drive product recommendations.
Post-purchase voice journeys are now much more advanced than that gen1 version from AC Lens. Here are some critical components of CRO driving customer satisfaction with voice –
- Reorder reminders – set up your voice assistant to ask for a reminder post purchase
- Delivery updates and notifications – incorporate tracking and order updates into your voice solution
- Subscription management – allow users to cancel, extend, or change their subscriptions
- Upsell & Cross-sell – post purchase, remind users of complimentary product with personalized product recommendations
- Voice feedback and reviews – allow users to give you a 5 star review directly from their voice activity device
Conversion rate optimization via voice is in the early stages with a number of exciting updates in the near future. Start a voice search and conversation interfaces CRO plan to create a significant edge over your competitors.