The Power of Voice Search and Digital Knowledge Management

Duane ForresterVice President of Industry InsightsYext

PRESENTED TO: PRESENTED BY:DATE:

May 22, 2018Lawyernomics 2018 Duane Forrester

Duane ForresterVP, Industry Insights | Yext

Your Presenter

Agenda

• The current voice landscape

• Successful optimization

• Components of a voice optimization strategy

• Google Actions and Amazon Alexa Skills

• Voice Search Check List for success

The Reality Today

The current voice search landscape

• There is no paid option in voice today

• No one really has a lead as it’s so new

• Not much sexy here other than the interface – the work is already known

• The age of shortcuts ended several years ago

• Building for voice search and building Actions and Skills are very different activities

• Branding now must include a persona for your business

• Success comes from a combined investment across areas

Voice is another touchpoint of the customer journey

By 2020,

50%of searches

will be

voice search

Source: comScore, 2016

Google

Assistant:

Support across 18

categories

Can now book

appointments FOR you

Source: Google I/O 2018

Amazon Alexa

Supports 22 categories

Has integrations with auto

manufacturers like Ford

Partners with Lennar to

build Alexa-controlled

smart-homes

Source: Builderonline.com

Strategies

Learning How Machines Learn

Digital Knowledge Management

Voice Search

Understanding how we learn helps determine how

HOW “AI” LEARNS

The New Age of Search

• Artificial Intelligence is here (RankBrain, Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri,

Cortana, Bixby)

• Smartphones = 82% (of users) and Smart Speakers = 11% (of homes)

• What does Voice and AI mean for us and our customers?

• How do businesses optimize for this?

How Do We Learn and Think?

Quick Answers vs. Thoughtful Dialogue

Thinking Fast

Habitual

(Croc Brain)

Thinking Slow

Non-habitual

(Neo-cortex)

• Highly Structured

• Facts for Instant

Processing

• Quick response,

digestion, and reaction

• Answers, almost

instinctually delivered

• Unstructured Data

• Slow processing,

significant thought

• Slow response,

additional questions

• Thoughtful dialogue,

meaningful exchange

For

example:

What do

you see?

Ellen Langer, Mindfulness

By adding

the

slightest

definition,

the pattern

becomes

confident

Hello,

Structure!

The Five Tribes of Machine Learning

The

Symbolists

The

Connectionists

The

Evolutionaries

The

Bayesians

The

Analogizers

Businesses are

embracing machine

learning because they

have no choice.

linguistics & analytic

philosophy

neural network & brain

science

probabilistic inference &

statistics

evolving structures &

biology

mapping situations &

psychology

ALL NEED

ACCURATE

DATA

AND

KNOWLED

GE TO

LEARN

IBM estimates

that bad data is

costing

organizations

some $3.1 billion

a year in the US

alone

83% of companies

said their revenue

is affected by

inaccurate and

incomplete [data]

At any given time,

as much as 70% of

data sets are

outdated

email addresses

change at a rate of

about 23% a year,

20% of all postal

addresses do the

same, and roughly

18% of all telephone

numbers

- November 9th, 2017, James Ovenden

Artificial Intelligence and Voice Search Necessitate

DIGITIAL KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT (DKM)

Web Direct

Channels

Search, Maps,

Directories

Chat Voice

Digital Knowledge Management (DKM)

20162015 201820142012201020082006200420022000199819961994 20172013201120092007200520032001199919971995

More customer interaction pointsthan ever with new consumer services

Print

1440

CONNECTED CARS

SOCIAL

MOBILE WEB

GPS

SEARCH

EMAIL

WEBSITE

ECOMMERCE

CRM

CONNECTED HOME

CHAT

VOICE

MOBILE APPS

MOBILE MAPS

MOBILE FIRST

AR / VR

Amazon Hiring “Knowledge Engineers”

JOB DESCRIPTION

You: “Alexa, I’m looking for a job where I can build products straight out of

science fiction.”

Alexa: “I have found matching jobs for you in the Alexa Knowledge team in

Cambridge, UK. What role are you looking for?”

You: “I’d like to work on making you even smarter than you are today.”

Alexa: “Wonderful. There are multiple roles in Cambridge where you can do

that, here are the details … “

SEARCH CRITERIA

+ FULL TIME + AMAZON

ALEXA+ “KNOWLEDGE

ENGINEER”=600

“Alexa, where is the

nearest taco?”

Ask Connect Recognize Fact Skill Answer> 2 seconds

DKM Provides FactsAnd should be part of your skillset

Data & Content Strategies

PAST

PRESENT

FUTURE

• Push content into the Search ecosystem (force-feed)

• Unstructured with the occasional Structured Data strategy

• Unfortunate results like “Tay.ai” bot

• Structured Data is the BASIS for Learning (AI)

• This keeps Machine Learning on track

• We are working with the Fast, Instinctive Brain

• Chat turns into Chit-Chat (“Alexa, Let’s Chat”)

• Nuance and Higher Order thinking

• Truly amazing experiences

The components for a successful

Voice Optimization Strategy

A successful voice optimization strategy includes:

• Understanding your customer deeply

• Preparing content

• Preparing technically

• Developing Actions & Skills

• Developing a persona for your business

What does it mean to optimize your brand for voice search?

Can help rank higher in SERP

Improve brand engagement & recognition

Improve customer experience

Understanding Your Customer

Understanding Your Customer

Preparing Content

“Hey Alexa,

let’s chat…”

• Adopt a long tail/conversational phrase approach when producing content

• Keep the actual answers short

• Content should read like a conversation

• Build out answers to common and uncommon questions

• Think of the customer as they try to solve the problem

▪ How does this product or service fit into their life?

▪ What benefits does the customer receive?

▪ Anything else they should be aware of?

• Look for opportunities to be more useful and helpful than your competitors

Content should be useful and thoughtful

“Alexa, is that sweater true to size?”

Preparing technically: Structured data

• Implementing structured data is

no longer optional

• We’re starting to see Google

build Actions for Google

Assistant

• Auto-build voice action areas at

Google:

▪ Podcasts

▪ Recipes

▪ News

Preparing technically: Speed matters

“A one second delay in mobile load

times can impact mobile conversions by

MORE THAN 20%”– Think With Google

Preparing technically: Be secure

“If people have a negative experience with

you on mobile, they are

62% LESS LIKELYto purchase from you in the future.”

– Think With Google

• Being secure requires technical and detailed work

• Search engines are looking at websites that are secure

Preparing technically: Be trustworthy and authoritative

• Keep your website up-to-date; manage your basic SEO

• Connect the dots between your site and official social media accounts

• Engage with customers in a meaningful way on social media accounts

Developing Actions and Skills for your brand

Alexa Skill example:Google Action example:

“Hey Google, talk to the Wall Street Journal”, which reads

news snippets from the source mentioned.

Actions (Google) and Skills (Amazon Alexa) are programs you build in each

ecosystem that enable you to create a curated space where your data is

available for customers. The customer accesses your Action or Skill and

asks questions which the system (powered by Google or Amazon) answers

with your data.

"Hey Alexa, open Ambient Sounds: Thunderstorm Sounds”"

Build a broad voice footprint for your brand

What does this mean for your brand?

• How does this impact existing customers &

the acquisition of new customers?

• Alexa becomes another touchpoint for your

brand to support customers

• Build your voice footprint to increase brand

interactions, awareness and perception

Personas

One of the most critical areas of investment in Voice

Developing a brand persona:

• What has our brand always been about?

• What have we done over the past 10 years?

• If we were a person, who would we be?

• Don’t want to upset customers, but need to be unique

and engaging

3 types of Personas today:

• Customer personas• Business personas• AI persona

“Alexa, Google, Microsoft and

Apple have invested a lot in

building unique personas for

their digital assistants for a

reason.”

Checklist: Optimize your brand for voice search

• Create content in a conversational manner

• Implement structured data

• Be mobile friendly

• Be secure

• Build with page speed in mind

• Manage ratings and reviews proactively

• Manage your overall data footprint

• Build a unique persona

What The Systems Listen For:

• Information Satisfaction

• Length

• Formulation

• Elocution

Next steps for voice assistants

AI will get to know your digital self and eventually, it will know:• What NOT to expose you to

• The WAY you want information conveyed to you

• HOW you want information explained

Humans are an emotional species. Eventually, AI will get to the point where they will be able to sense changes in mood

Seamless interactionsDoesn’t matter the device or manufacturer, your assistant can work with all to execute your

command

There are no shortcuts to success in Voice Search.

Data integrity, cleanliness and deployment matter more than ever.