Can Voice Search be dominated by big business? It’s the new frontier so the big players are trying to get ahead in the game early. This video has an hilarious out take – shows how far Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Home and Apple’s Siri have to go.
A few days ago I got a promo email from VERSA in my inbox. They are Australia’s ‘first’ Voice Search Agency, so they are specialists that optimises your website to perform in search. Using the Google Home, Alexa Pods and the Siri tool – so this is a massively growing market (so everyone says) – but does it actually really work? How engaged are you?
I know we have had this in our office for about a year and all we do is throw stuff at it because it never gives us the result we like! So, it’s really an interesting position to be in. Is voice search really going to take off? How good is it? So let’s look at this promo, VERSA’s partnered with NIB to really take their voice search to the next level. So they are going ‘hey, use voice search to find dentists, podiatrists, paediatricians all within the NIB Network’.
So let’s try a few experiments across these different devices and see how good this actually, really works.
So… let’s give this a crack.
Alexa has a go….
Ok, Alexa, ask NIB, where’s the closest dentist?
[Alexa: According to YELP, here are a few nearby ones, 1. Martin Steve, 2. Botel Meg ?? 3. Paediatric Dental Group 4. My Dentist ].
“Alexa, Stop!” Ok, so here’s the first example that she brought up. Martin Dental, Steve Martin Dental. They aren’t in the NIB network, they have Bupa, Defence Health, HCF and Smile. So the really interesting thing with this is NIB is trying to control this space, or they would like the user to control the space. I am all about user experience. So if I am applying this to voice search… am I going to ask a device to then go and ask someone else, where the dentist is? I really don’t think so. I think I am just going to go, “Hey Device… where’s the dentist, or where’s the closest dentist, I have broken my tooth I need a close dentist”.
So, is’t a bit of a leap, but, you know, I applaud them again for giving it a crack.
Google has a go…
So let’s try Google. Hey Google, OK Google, Ask NIB where’s the closest dentist? [Google: I have found a few NIB locations near you, the first one is Pure Dentistry… location details… the second one is Amazing Smiles Logan Dentist at 45 Wembley Road, Logan Central, The third one is National Dental Care, Algester at 257 Nottingham Road, Algester,] “Stop Google”.
So that’s really interesting! We tried this in a previous take and it actually brought up the NIB dental practice in the city, which is about 20kms away from here – But that’s actually brought up NIBs network. So it actually, in both instances when we have run this take, this has been way more accurate than the Alexa device. So that’s really interesting.
Now it is Suri’s turn…
Let’s just give a quick view of what Siri does with this… Hey Siri, Let’s go, let’s try this, come on, come on… Ok. Hey Siri, Ask NIB where’s the closest Dentist? [Siri… The nearest one I see is Brisbane Paediatric Dentistry on Miles..] So you can see here that it doesn’t identify the NIB ones like the other tools do. There’s no other connection there, really, to the exact search that they are trying to achieve. I will just turn off the sharing. So, it’s interesting all those different results.
All those different results are so varied at the moment. The tech is still really, really new. Some of these big companies will dive in and try and own this new tech because, if you want to own voice search, then you are the first result in that search result, then you are massively winning. You know, there’s not a list of 10 results in the search results like you do get in a Google search, it’s one 2 or 3 and you can own that space.
Share your experience with voice search
So its actually worth while chasing. But it would be really interesting to know, in the comments below this video, tell me your experience about how you interact with voice: Do you use it? Is it worth it? Is it accurate?
Like I said before, we have thrown this around the room several times because it has never worked for us. So please share your comments, I would love to hear your experiences and we will chat soon.
Out Take:
IN the city, a dental centre in the city, Alexa stop, it keeps coming up, but Google is very impressive that it has done that, let’s just really… [Alexa: I think you’re asking about flatulence? Flatulence also called … ] [Laughter] I am not asking about Flatulence! Alexa that is hilarious! 🙂
