How can brands have their own voice on ecommerce?
Blog: Capgemini CTO Blog
In the first blog, I talked about how voice is revolutionizing ecommerce and how voice assistants are becoming the buying medium of choice for customers. I also touched upon how companies are creating their own assistants. In this blog, I’ll talk about what brands should do to have their own voice for their ecommerce.
This new scenario starring the voice can be a headache for brands. Consumers are increasingly driven by convenience; loyalty vanishes suddenly, communication channels with customers multiply, and competition accelerates the pace of digital transformation.
One of the first things ecommerce must address is its offer – the complexity, personalization, and price threshold. The Capgemini study “Conversational Commerce: Why consumers are embracing voice assistants in their lives” indicates that before deciding on a complex, expensive or personalized purchase, users prefer to use voice. The same report also reflects the users’ concern for the security of their data, and again voice emerges as the surest way to provide personal or payment information.
The other indispensable analysis that ecommerce must do is that of the brand voice, in more physical than editorial terms. Many physical stores hedged their bets a few years ago on the sensory aspect of their brands and built fragrances and music for their stores. They accosted consumers’ senses in attempt to achieve their own and recognizable identity, so that each client, when passing in front of a shop window, would recognize it.
The creation of a brand voice to engage in an online conversation is based on four key components: personality, values, tone, and language. A voice ecommerce (an online store that talks to its customers) needs a voice with character – and this character should reflect the brand’s perceived personality and values. How consumers are approached and the point of view of the conversation will determine the tone of voice, while the language (the words and constructions used) are an essential part of the “digital speech” for an ecommerce.
A simple example of the use of language and its impact on the brand voice is the way we use industry jargons, buzzwords, or clichés. The use of these lexical variants, which are a small part of the voice of a brand, creates a personified image of the brand and influences the client’s perception of it.
The construction of a brand voice for an ecommerce, in physical and sensory terms, is a major challenge for any brand that wants to talk and sell online to its customers. Voice commerce promises to be the new paradigm of digital sales, and brands that are silent before this new phenomenon will be left out of the game of ecommerce. If they want to have a say in their future, brands must learn to find their voice today.
To learn more or to discuss how voice is disrupting ecommerce, feel free to get in touch with me on social media.
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