10 Ways The Voice-Enabled Enterprise Can Transform Your Business

Employees now demand less bureaucracy and more intuition. The company intranet used to be the place to search and find information for an employee. But it doesn’t have to be that way with a distributed workforce, capitalise on Voice technology and voice-enable high-frequency functions such as IT service desk, HR Benefits, expense approvals, facilities booking, directory assistance, and document search for every employee. Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant, can now join your workforce by helping other employees and starting a dialogue with your customers.

How Voice-Enabled Technology Can Transform Your Business

Voice search can be done on your existing intranet systems and on any external websites. As an organisation improves its data intelligence and develops a customised report for each customer, it can leverage on Amazon Alexa and Google Home. With employees and customers using the voice-enabled devices for their communication and quick interaction, your business can transform. You can create ‘customers engagements’ by targeting customers who visit your offline locations. You can also implement an ‘internal assistant’ so that your staff can access some information they need from Alexa, without having to leave your desk.

What is voice-enabled technology?

Voice-enabled technology can connect your staff and your customers on their terms by connecting your customers to your employees and employees to customers. You are what you know: Data and the intelligent voice interface technology Your intranet used to be the central repository of information. A knowledge base would report back to you every time a query was made. A ‘so you want to learn about risk management? Well check here’, or ‘here are the policies and procedures for network firewalls’? Now, with voice technology, you can have a system that doesn’t just pull up the answer but actually asks you the question with a bit more information on it that you need. With Alexa or Google Assistant, you can access this via your mobile device.

How to Deploy Voice Technology

IT must work hand-in-hand with the leadership of the business. The leader should define what the voice-enabled enterprise means for the organisation. It is imperative to consider the competencies of the employees and the support available. The voice-enabled enterprise should also have the ability to scale to multiple locations, and a fast reaction to unplanned events. For example, when there is a sudden power outage in the area, the voice-enabled enterprise could send an automatic message to all employees in the area, alerting them and saying what needs to be done. If there are Internet outages and no functioning apps, they could be quickly restored by connecting to the servers over the IP network. The voice-enabled enterprise has the flexibility to respond to any requests made by users.

What are the Benefits of Voice-Enabled Enterprise?

Intelligent Assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, can empower employees to interact with customers in a natural and intuitive way. They can provide immediate support through repetitive requests and triggers. Imagine being able to set a meeting with a customer, arrange a time for a meeting and get an auto reply saying “Yes, we can meet you on that date at such-and-such a location at such-and-such time”. Assistants can now deliver these experiences using natural language. Employees get more time to concentrate on their work as Assistant helps them respond to requests at any time.

How to Prepare for the Voice-Enabled Enterprise

Create a Voice-Enabled Enterprise Mapping As the market shifts, many businesses are willing to give voice to the workforce, but with limited experience. A crucial first step is to take a multichannel approach to voice adoption. While no technology is new, the speed and pace of innovation have made voice-enabled devices a new normal, and enterprises should keep up. Industry leaders, such as Oracle, Amazon, and Microsoft have created a ‘Voice for Enterprise’, where IT must consider the many players, services and the evolving standards for a successful voice strategy. While cloud-based services are the future, there are still challenges to overcome. Enterprises with an existing cloud-based voice strategy should be cautious.

Using voice-enabled technology for HR

Microsoft recently announced Cortana for Business allowing employees to access Microsoft content on demand. There are multiple benefits to having an enterprise-wide voice-enabled enterprise. Employees have instant access to mission-critical software, documents, and information. Employees can respond to queries, address questions and even message someone in the organisation. This technology can also be leveraged for the workforce for various reasons such as scheduling meetings, accessing training manuals, creating and tracking personal goals, or doing an office tour. Alexa and Cortana’s capabilities are in its infancy and have a long way to go in handling complicated corporate duties such as HR, accounting, and finance, and all employees are asking questions.

Using voice-enabled technology for IT

Employee engagement is one of the biggest factors to your business success. They may not show up in the COSMOGR score as in previous times. However, by analysing voice analytics, you can gauge engagement levels across all demographics and shifts in your business focus. Look for employee needs with a more human touch and see how technology can help. Say “Alexa, what’s the Wi-Fi strength in the auditorium?” and “Hey Google, play my desk music,” or “Hey Google, order a new printer.” Voice-enabled technology may mean an end to the IT department, but when it comes to automation, our findings suggests that 70 percent of organisations still think that in-house staff are best-placed to handle routine and back office work.

Using voice-enabled technology for Facilities

Call centers can be a loud and toxic place that no one wants to be a part of. With voice-enabled technologies like Alexa, Alexa for Business, Cortana, Apple Siri, Google Assistant, etc., you can bring a more friendly and inviting voice-enabled calling experience to your call center that cuts down on noise, improves efficiency and minimises costs. And with the advent of BYOD, now employees can go to work, keep their personal phones with them at all times, and easily communicate with you. Voice capabilities can be introduced across the board at your facilities to increase employee engagement.

With more staff working from home due to COVID, having an Enterprise Voice Skill enabled on Staff Smart Speakers also reduces costs and provides assistance outside normal office hours which with home schooling requirements has to be a benefit for the enterprise.

Connecting Your Systems

Businesses can integrate these best-of-breed voice solutions into their apps and systems using Jira, Slack, Microsoft Azure, AWS, Cisco HyperFlex, and Slack. This collaboration in data collection and cloud processing will help the company add value to their customers through self-service support, guided navigation, streamlined applications and services for better compliance and operational efficiencies. Now they can save time for employees by increasing their knowledge of product compliance and data security. Additionally, businesses can better leverage the time employees spend on regular business operations by creating and fostering a more collaborative environment for employees.

Security and Privacy

Data privacy is essential for consumers and always a concern for businesses. Companies need to explain their privacy concerns and policies as they start adopting Voice technology. This way, they can provide employees and customers with a choice about how they wish to interact with the device, and there can be no violation of any personal information. The best way to overcome these security concerns is by implementing advanced enterprise information security controls that are built to mitigate risk while developing the infrastructure for voice and audio technology.