Episode 173: Can An Alexa Skill Be A Business?

Can An Alexa Skill BE A BUSINESS, or Should It Be An Extension of a Pre-existing Business? From my interview with Amazon Alexa's Chief Evangelist Dave Isbitski It can be either for sure. Interesting Scenarios: 1. Account Linking – businesses can use their existing APIs and accounting systems, etc. to link up with a voice-based Alexa Skill. That’s how something like ordering a Pizza online works. The user already has an account, the user just says it, and the Pizza company with the Alexa Skill just charges through their pre-existing system. 2. Amazon Pay Integration – small businesses can sell things online and use Amazon Pay. Dave adds: “what’s interesting about the Amazon Pay Integration is meeting your customer in the moment. Let’s say I have a podcast about running shoes, and I could say on the podcast “would you like to buy these right now for 50% off on Amazon.” 3. In-Skill Purchasing – Games do this, selling power-ups and turns, etc. “Another interesting example is working maybe with an age demographic that skews higher,” Dave says. “Let’s say your business fields a lot of calls, and it’s a huge cost center for your business, when in fact, if they could just talk to you, that would completely solve it!” Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation for me, happened when Dave started talking about the fact that current data and analytics from websites and mobile devices are only really based around what the brand or business has allowed the customer to do. “The top three things users do in my mobile app are these things. Right, because those are some of the only things you’ve allowed them to do. With Alexa, it’s different, you can get data around what they’re asking you about. For example, you may give your customers 100 different conversation paths. When you see a drop off at a certain point, you know your customers were looking for something that wasn’t there. You learn as you go, and you improve, in a very different way than with web and mobile apps.”