Tag Archives: E-commerce

Implementing Voice Recognition Technology online in an ever changing and diversified market. The benefits and risks towards integration of voice technology into a businesses virtual interface in order to simplify and update the checkout and customer service elements.

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  Voice recognition Technology (www.vensi.com)

The face of technology as we know it is constantly changing and the fact that over 26 million amazon voice recognition devices have been shipped out in the third quarter of 2017 (Kinsella, 2017) shows the massive scope of its growth and adoption. In 2012 Kenealy highlights that an outmoded technology backbone may be inhibiting technology-savvy people from joining businesses which questions whether it is a necessity rather than a choice to invest in new technologies as it might be damaging the companies reputation and harming recruitment capabilities for the future. This blog post will highlight the benefits and risks behind the implementation of this type of technology outlining whether it will be beneficial for firms to integrate this sort of technology today.

Benefits

  • Increased sales through reduced checkout times.

TechRadarPro highlight that the time saving factor behind voice recognition technology is what drives business and consumers to adopt it. This is because it makes it quicker to communicate with consumers as well as document data. In 2016 Serasinghe and Vasanthapriyan note that in todays world people do not waste their valuable time waiting and that reducing the waiting time of customers at checkouts improves customer satisfaction. This implies that consumers demand quicker checkout times as well as that reducing customer waiting time directly leads to improved customer satisfaction. Furthermore in 2007 Shapiro highlights that customer satisfaction significantly influences purchase intentions, the amount of dollars spent and quantity purchased which means that improved customer satisfaction has a direct relationship with increasing sales.

  • Reduced complaints through self service capabilities.

Sestek‘s blog on speech recognition notes that businesses which provide customer service benefit from the technology in a way that enriches customer experience and reduces organisational costs. Voice recognition can be used to simplify checkout processes and make a businesses webpage more accessible to a wider range of abilities. It is also feels a bit safer giving confidential information to a Voice recognition  system rather than typing it down and sending it over an encrypted (or potentially not so encrypted) platform. The use of Voice recognition  technology in the banking sector led to less people reporting problems and complaints, and notably 82.4% of customers said that their most recent interaction was right first time, up from 77% a year ago (IoCC, 2017). In 2000 Matthew et al denote that self service technologies delivery options can be an excellent means of creating a competitive advantage for a business which in turn will effect the businesses image.

Virtual Helping Hand (www.whatsnext.nuance.com)

Some content which illustrates the benefits of voice recognition technology further can be found >> HERE << and >>HERE<<

Risks

  • Customer susceptibility to hacking and fraud.

RMMagazine highlights in their blog that Nathan Wenzler, a chief security strategist at a leading consultancy firm, says that the addition of voice absolutely increases the risk level for technology users. He says that when you add more features to a device, you are also adding complexity and more code and, as a result, you are introducing more avenues for people to hack into the device. TalkTalk recently reported a loss of £60million in revenue and 101,000 customers due to a hack (TheRegister, 2016) which shows the level of damage they can cause. In 2004 Schneier stresses that computer security is not a problem that technology can solve. He says that security solutions have a technological component, but security is fundamentally a business problem and that whether a business continues to use the resource is measured through a cost-risk ratio therefore the benefits for the firm and consumer must outweigh any risks in order for the venture to be considered.

A great piece of content which illustrates the TalkTalk hacks further can be found

>>HERE<<

  • Customer information leak, including private and confidential information. 

In Kapersky’s blog Kuksov notes that in relation to voice recognition technology the first possibility that comes to mind is the leaking of personal and corporate data. He highlights that some dictate their credit card numbers and one-time passwords to fill in forms online which has a direct link to information leak and potentially identify theft for customers. Furthermore he says that some systems are unable to differentiate people by voice therefore if a voice recognition device is stolen or used by someone else it is possible for them to make purchases online as well gain confidential information about the owner. In 2009 Kirkpatrick stresses that if you think your computer network is well protected against attack, you might be right however your company may still be highly vulnerable. This is because employees are still vulnerable to social engineering techniques (which is the use of psychological techniques to extract information from people in order to gain access to computer systems). In 2017 Engadget reported of an Equifax security breach which leaked the personal information of 143 million US consumers (about 44% of the whole US population). This led to the share price of Equifax falling severely which shows how detrimental an information leak can be.

A great piece of content which shows Equifax’s response can be found

>>HERE<<

References

  • Bakanay, H. (2014) “The Advantages of Speech Recognition”, Available at: http://www.sestek.com/2014/11/the-advantages-of-speech-recognition-technology/(Accessed: 21st February 2018).
  • Channel 4 (2016) “TalkTalk hack: a closer look at the scammers”, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYvVtsqNk6Q (Accessed: 21st February 2018).
  • Deschenes, S. (2012) “5 financial benefits of voice recognition technology”, Available at: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/5-financial-benefits-voice-recognition-technology (Accessed: 25th February 2018).
  • Equifax (2017) “Rick Smith, Chairman and CEO of Equifax, on Cybersecurity Incident Involving Consumer Data”, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh1gzJFVFLc (Accessed: 25th February 2018).
  • Hall, K. (2016) “TalkTalk admits losing £60m and 101,000 customers after THAT hack”, Available at: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/talktalk_hack_cost_60m_lost_100k_customers/(Accessed: 21st February 2018).
  • Kirkpatrick, J. (2006) “Protect your business against dangerous information leaks”, Penton Media, Inc., Penton Business Media, Inc. and their subsidiaries, Cleveland.
  • Koksov, I. (2017) All ears: The dangers of voice assistants, Available at: https://www.kaspersky.co.uk/blog/voice-recognition-threats/8443/ (Accessed: 25th February 2018).
  • RM Magazine (2017) “The Risks of Voice Technology”, Available at: http://www.rmmagazine.com/2017/10/02/the-risks-of-voice-technology/ (Accessed: 21st February 2018).
  • Howell, D. (2016) “How voice recognition can be a major asset for your business”, Available at: https://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/how-voice-recognition-can-be-a-major-asset-for-your-business-1321534 (Accessed: 20th February 2018).
  • IoCC (2017) “Is voice recognition a secure enough customer service tool?”, Available at: https://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/media-centre/customer-service-news/article/is-voice-recognition-a-secure-enough-customer-service-tool (Accessed: 21st February 2018).
  • Kenealy, B. (2012) “Technology upgrades can help attract younger workers; Legacy systems, outdated devices deter tech-savvy”, Business Insurance, vol. 46, no. 40, pp. 17.
  • Kinsella, B. (2017) “Bezos Says More Than 20 Million Amazon Alexa Devices Sold”, Available at: https://www.voicebot.ai/2017/10/27/bezos-says-20-million-amazon-alexa-devices-sold/ (Accessed: 20th February 2018).
  • Lawler, R. (2017) “Equifax security breach leaks personal info of 143 million US consumers”, Available at: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/07/equifax-hack-143-million/ (Accessed: 25th February 2018).
  • Mauro, A. (2015) “Artificial intelligence: Bringing the humanity back to customer service”, Available at: https://whatsnext.nuance.com/customer-experience/artificial-intelligence-turns-customer-service-into-something-consumers-love/ (Accessed: 21st February 2018).
  • Meuter, M.L., Ostrom, A.L., Roundtree, R.I. & Bitner, M.J. (2000) “Self-Service Technologies: Understanding Customer Satisfaction with Technology-Based Service Encounters”, Journal of Marketing, vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 50-64.
  • Schneier, B. (2004), “Hacking the business climate for network security”, Computer, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 87-89.
  • Serasinghe, M. & Vasanthapriyan, S. (2016) “Intelligent Retail Checkout Management System”, IEEE, pp. 929.
  • Shapiro, M. & I. Gómez, M. (2014) “Customer satisfaction and sales performance in wine tasting rooms”, International Journal of Wine Business Research, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 45-60.
  • Techquickie (2015) “Voice recognition As Fast As Possible”, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWWjN1QqoYY (Accessed: 20th February 2018).
  • Vensi (2017) “Voice recognition Technology”, Available at: http://www.vensi.com/voice-recognition-technology (Accessed: 20th February 2018).

 

Increasing Visibility and High Search Engine Rankings. How can you tell whether companies in the Airline Carrier Industry are becoming more visible online through Search Engine Optimisation?

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(SEO Take Off www.beuniquegroup.com)

Auditing can be a healthy tool for boosting your brands online presence in competitive times. In this blog I will explain 2 key methods of auditing SEO in the airline industry in order to get a better understanding of your brands search engine positioning and to learn what is important in boosting visibility and search engine rankings.

1.Traffic overview

Websites such as SEMRush allow users to view and analyse airline carriers traffic online. The free service highlights:

  • Volume and Variability of Traffic
  • Top Organic Keywords
  • Competing Websites
  • Domain Positioning

This tool can be used to weigh up a firms position against others in search engine rankings, and give a view on their market position. It can also highlight trends with volume of traffic and now gone digital – word of mouth advertising. In 2009 Trusov, M et al highlight that ‘outbound word of mouth can be precisely tracked’ which allows firms to follow how they are being shared, who is sharing and precisely what they are saying. This can help a firm develop key words which will boost their search engine rankings. It terms of Airline Carriers this information can be crucial as it also helps them spot trends and forecast hot destinations or locations. A great video which highlights this is >>HERE<<.

Firms with high organic search rates tend to top search engines as they are likely to be what the consumer is looking for. Other than that paid searches also turn up at the top of the page when your search has keywords that may relate to the product or service. What is important for a smaller firm with low rankings is to ensure that they use key and distinctive keywords to what they are providing in order to reach a higher ranking. A great blog post with more information regarding this is Steve Webb’s How to Perform the Worlds Greatest SEO Audit.

(Internet Traffic www.lifehacker.com.au)

2.SERP Appearance

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page which are the pages in search engines which display your search queries. A study was done in 2010 by SEO-Hacker founder Sean Patrick Si which studied the amount of click-throughs pages received throughout a search engine. He found that ‘11th to 20th results get far less clicks compared to the 1st to 10th.’ He concluded that ‘around 90% of the whole word population only look at the first page result.’ SERP Appearance is important as it can be a make or break for your business. Here are some quick ways you can audit SERP appearance from Search Engine Land in 2014:

First, do a search!

Search your Brand Name and then Brand Name and it’s Location.

-Does your domain appear? Is it in the 1st position?

-Are there site links? If so, are they suitable? How good are the -titles and descriptions that appear?

-Is there a business or knowledge graph listing in the side bar? How accurate is the information, and is there anything missing?

-Do any listings hurt the brand’s reputation?

Then search for your Site:rootdomain

-How many pages appear in the index? Is this high or low? 

(Results www.seo-hacker.com)

-Are the titles well written and contain keywords?

-Is there a lot of keyword duplication?

-Are the descriptions meaningful and attractive? Do they make you want to click them?

In 2007 Jansen, B.J. et al conducted a research into search engine brand awareness. They conducted a study with 32 participants which measured the effect of four search engine brands while controlling for the quality of search engine results. They found that on average there was a ‘25% difference between the most highly rated search engine and the lowest’ showing that there is 25% more visibility for brands which rank highly in search results.

Brand awareness is key for firms within the airline carrier industry as there isn’t much differentiation between brands however this becomes even more important in terms of low cost carriers who basically offer the same homogenous service. Brands which appear at the top of search results are exposed to a large percentage of internet traffic therefore they are more likely to convert views into sales. There is also an element of trust as brands who appear near the top of search engine results connote the idea that they are trusted and ‘the top’ brand in that category.

References

Be Unique Group (2017) Search Engine Optimization, Available at: http://www.beuniquegroup.com/ (Accessed: 30th November 2017).

SEMRush (2017) Homepage, Available at: https://www.semrush.com/ (Accessed: 30th November 2017).

Trusov, M., Bucklin, R.E. and Pauwels, K., 2009. Effects of word-of-mouth versus traditional marketing: findings from an internet social networking site. Journal of marketing, 73(5), pp.90-102.

Webb, S. (2012) How To Perform the Worlds Greatest SEO Audit, Available at: https://moz.com/blog/how-to-perform-the-worlds-greatest-seo-audit (Accessed: 30th November 2017).

Eticaret SEO (2012) Word of Mouth and the Internet – SEO Experts INC – SEO Pres.flv, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FocBTGq2wI (Accessed: 30th November 2017).

Simpson, C (2015) Ask LH: Does A VPN App Hide All My Phone’s Internet Traffic?, Available at: https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/11/ask-lh-does-a-vpn-app-hide-all-my-phones-internet-traffic/ (Accessed: 30th November 2017).

Si, S.P. (2010) Lesson #28: How important is it to be on the first page of SERPs?, Available at: https://seo-hacker.com/lesson-28-important-page-serps/ (Accessed: 1st December 2017).

Schmitz, T. (2014) How To Do Your Own 5-Minute SEO Audit, Available at: https://searchengineland.com/5-minute-seo-audit-196513 (Accessed: 1st December 2017).

Jansen, B.J., Zhang, M. and Zhang, Y. (2007). The effect of brand awareness on the evaluation of search engine results.CHI’07 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2471-2476). ACM.