What To Know Before Building A Voice Skill ​​​​​​​

Check these eight boxes when setting out to produce an effective conversational activation. 

- 360i’s Voice Team

If you’re a producer, designing a conversational experience for voice may lead you into uncharted territory. While we can’t fully protect you from a few sleepless nights of quality assurance testing, these eight pointers may help you get to where you need to go with this new and burgeoning marketing tool.

Start by identifying the consumer need your app will solve. Designing your voice experience strategy is all about understanding your users. Identify the need your app will solve for them. For the first iteration of your app, it’s best to assume that things will be at least twice as challenging as you expect. Select a user need that’s feasibly solvable in a one- or two-minute conversation. Articulate how solving those user needs will help you achieve your business objectives. This rationale will serve as your experience strategy and become the project’s north star.

Consult experts and observe this need in the wild. You need to find out if there are existing solutions for the problem you are trying to solve. If there’s an expert in helping people handle this need, say a mechanic or a psychologist, ask them how they do it. Go into the wild and listen carefully to conversations in order to learn how to recommend a cocktail, find a nice bar and listen to how the bartender imparts his or her mixologist magic. It’s also really helpful to start with existing script material. Do you have call center scripts? Start there and build tactics with which your voice experience will help the consumer solve their problem.