pymntsblog-krisz-banner.jpg:us

Enable touchless experiences with voice in the COVID-19 era

It’s never been more important for merchants to meet new and growing customer expectations.

Originally published on Oct-20-20

In the wake of COVID-19, the need for retailers to advance has become ever more urgent, with digital touchpoints often representing the only interaction many consumers have with a merchant.

Recently, Amazon Pay’s Head of Product, Kris Zanuldin, sat down the PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster to discuss how connected consumers and digital shifters – the approximately 114 million shoppers who have moved online in 2020 – are driving rapid changes in the way commerce is conducted.

One of the biggest shifts in consumer behavior, both before and after the pandemic’s onset, is interest in voice commerce. According to PYMNTS research, 68% of consumers who have used voice to shop during the course of the pandemic say that they will continue to do so.

“We’re seeing an interesting acceleration in something that was already underway,” Zanuldin explained. “Voice was already starting to open new opportunities and experiences and businesses were starting to figure out how to use this technology. The last six months have completely accelerated the timeline for that shift… Now we see businesses scrambling a bit to figure out what’s happening.”

While the adoption of voice technology is already driven by the consumer’s desire for speed, seamlessness, and ease, those demands have only grown stronger as we see an increasingly touchless world emerge from the pandemic era.

“Consumers were already beginning to shift behaviors because new technologies made it easier to do certain things,” Zanuldin noted, “but now they were almost being forced to change their behaviors because of what is happening externally... When you think about some of the mobile experiences today, they’re very heavily touch-based. And in this environment customers are now seeking less touch, even with their own mobile devices.”

To learn more about how your business can meet growing and evolving consumer demands, watch the three-part event series between Amazon Pay and PYMNTS, discussing new digital priorities, nurturing trust in virtual relationships, and the delicate balance of technology and tenderness that keeps humanity first in ever more digital lives.