The number of businesses using voice technology to interact with customers is set to leap from 28 percent currently to 85 percent over the next year, according to a survey of IT decision-makers by Pindrop.
The study also found that more than two-thirds of business are planning to use voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Microsoft Cortana for the majority of customer interactions, and nearly one in four plan to use them for all customer interactions. Voice technology is an important driver of customer satisfaction according to 94 percent of managers, and 88 percent believe it will give them a moderate or strong competitive advantage. Voice technology will increase operational efficiency according to 57 percent, and the same number believe it will reduce the cost of each customer transaction.
U.S. businesses are leading the adoption of voice technologies, as they are ten percent more likely to use them now, and 15 percent more likely to believe chatbots or voice-activated assistants will handle the majority of customer interactions in the next five years. More U.S. businesses also think voice technology will give them a competitive boost, by 11 percent.
Security is a significant concern, however, for 90 percent of U.S. companies, and 80 percent of global companies overall.
Voice assistants from Microsoft and Google will be the subject of investment by 78 percent of companies in the next two years, slightly ahead of Amazon’s Echo (77 percent), and only a little further ahead of IBM’s Watson (69 percent), Apple’s Siri (68 percent), SAP’s Co-pilot (64 percent), and Samsung’s Bixby (62 percent).
Enterprises are concerned with public perceptions of voice technology security as well, with 85 percent saying the technology’s introduction will be slowed by customer fears about the misuse of data, and 82 percent predicting customers will be concerned about fraud.
