What makes a brand?

Your logo? The products? The testimonials they represent? The advertising messages? There is no simple answer to this. Because a brand's image is made up of all the points of contact customers have with a brand.

With the advent of smart wearables, speakers, and smart homes, consumers are no longer focused on the screen of their phones and tablets. Instead, they are moving into a flexible multi-interface system where they switch between voice and text-based applications.

Why is this important for brand managers?

Every contact with a brand shapes its image. And with Voice Search and the advent of voice assistants, more and more of these contacts are voice based. 

Customers, for example, place their orders with Amazon not only on the desktop or via the app, but also via the Alexa voice assistant. Alexa's voice is thus becoming more closely associated with the Amazon brand.

Telephone applications are another voice-based point of contact. The behavior and habitus of employees on a telephone hotline determine how a company is perceived by its customers. Therefore, employee training in this area of customer service is a matter of course. 

If a company now decides to use a voice assistant to relieve the workload of the employees voice assistant over the telephone hotline, then this will also influence the image of the brand.

 

This raises the question for brand management: 

What do I want my brand to sound like? 

• Do we choose a male or female voice? Or should it be neutral?
• Should it sound old or young? 
• What tone of voice do we choose? How do we want to Tonality design? 
• How do we proceed with the choice of words?
• How do we shape the dialog with our customers? Are we witty and entertaining? Or do we want to appear serious?
• How do we make a voice immediately associated with our brand? Like a slogan?

To make your virtual assistant fit your target audience, you need a persona that also covers conversational AI aspects. This is where our Persona Canvas helps you: