Voice search is coming to e-commerce: how to prepare now and get ahead of the competition

Have you heard about the growing trend toward using personal voice assistants instead of traditional search engines?

We have a new feature to prepare for the shift in format and offer an invaluable change for customers. We’ll be sharing our new search feature in this article and our advice for getting ahead of the competition.

The Future Of E-commerce

Technology is advancing, shopping habits are evolving, and customers anticipate more options in light of both these things. Whether it be expecting faster response times or a more user-friendly experience, expectations are changing. As customers will rarely hesitate to find a more efficient site if they are unsatisfied, there is a huge opportunity for e-commerce sites to offer innovative features, grab attention and guarantee sales.

Consumers are becoming more reliant on voice search, and 22% of smart homeowners have actually made a purchase using their device. Voice assistants and newer search options are clearly transforming ecommerce, making them vital tools with great potential.

Voice searches are even making up almost a third of the 3.5 billion daily Google searches!

So what does this mean for your sales? According to Gartner, by 2021, brands that redesign their websites (and search options) to support voice search will increase digital commerce revenue by 30%.

Let’s Talk Voice Search…

Voice search enables customers to find answers in the most natural way – by asking for it!

Voice search has huge potential for online stores and will ensure that your business is prepared for the future of shopping habits and e-commerce. Comscore has said that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches, so the trend is set to stay.

Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa and a whole host of chatbots have introduced everyone to more exciting benefits of AI. This combined with the emergence of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) within eCommerce means that more and more users are shopping on devices other than a desktop computer.

They are now more focused on devices that lend themselves better to voice search and mobile plays a big part of this. According to Google, 20% of all mobile searches are currently voice-based so making this available to customers has never been so important.

How does it work?

Klevu’s Voice search works as a two-step process. It works by transcribing voice search into text, which our regular search engine then processes:

1 – The voice search is translated into text. This is completed by the browser or application in use.

2 – The text search is heavily enriched by Klevu to break down exactly what the customer is looking for, allowing highly relevant results to be returned.

Conversational speech

The key takeaway is that it’s more than just simply capturing voice; the system must also comprehend commands and conversational speech. This makes the shopping experience more tailored and authentic. For this reason, Klevu and Voice enabled search to complement each other perfectly. As voice is a more natural form of communication than typing, customers are even more likely to rely on Natural Language Processing (NLP) than with text-based searches.

Aside from ensuring the user’s language returns a relevant result, it will also learn and make suggestions that are unique to that particular user, making for a frictionless experience when searching for products or content.

Conclusion

Voice search has the potential to increase interactive engagement, reduce browsing time (if this is what the customer requires) and ultimately improve the search experience and purchasing journeys for customers. Companies must anticipate change and adapt in order to thrive in the digital sphere, and this is an exciting time to be doing just that.

Optimizing sites with Klevu’s new voice feature will be extremely beneficial for online retailers, as they can continue to transform data into personalized shopping experiences, and more satisfied customers as a result.

For more information on how you can engage more shoppers with voice search, schedule a live demo today!