Re: Voice-accessible e-commerce

B.K.:

I suspect that if voice menus are designed to work well when
accessed over the phone, that putting them in HTML that browses
well in speech will be pretty easy.  So if the v-commerce
promoters can inspire a lot of use, there will be more accessible
content available.

There is one idea to try to percolate into their consciousness:
this is the user's option to review the whole deal before
committing.  The AOL signup procedure demonstrates that you don't
have to follow this consumer-care rule to satisfy "what the
market will bear" but on the phone it is even easier to develop
doubt that you have the whole question in front of you when you
are asked to sign on the dotted line.  And here we have people
talking to a bot on the phone.  Not your greatest trust-promoting
social setting.

The people creating the specific dialogs either have to
understand a consumer-safe closing drill or have it done for them
by the technology (even the templates...).

Merchants that sell over the phone with order-takers have pretty
much cottoned onto this principle.  The v-commerce industry group
should look at ways of fostering similarly consumer-safe practice
among people who pick up on their technology and run with it.

Remember that the way Sears Roebuck powered mail order into major
scale was by inventing the no-questions-asked money-back returns
policy.

Al

PS: the trouble-reporting phone-bot that Bell Atlantic uses in
this area (703) is not bad as a benchmark of best practice.

Received on Wednesday, 7 October 1998 14:19:09 UTC