‘First, there was an application for everything. Today there is an action for everything.’
From application to actions, Google’s smart voice assistant is gaining popularity, especially among small businesses.
But what exactly a Google Assistance is? What it does and can do?
Let’s find out!
In simple terms, Google Assistant is a Google-developed artificial intelligence voice assistance accompanied by millions of households and businesses across the world.
Google assistant is omnipresent; there are more than a billion google assistant enabled devices encompassing smartphones, TV, headphones, smart speakers, smart home appliances, and smartwatches, and a new device is released every other day. Associating with a smart voice assistant means your business can interact with your customers whenever and wherever they wish to.
Scheduling appointments, finding a store, controlling electronic appliances, accessing content, ordering products, and booking a ticket- this is the only a snippet of what your voice assistant can do. No matter what your business is, we are definite that Google assistant can help you magnify it, in a way you have certainly not thought before.
Scheduling appointments, finding a store, controlling electronic appliances, accessing content, ordering products, and booking a ticket- this is the only a snippet of what your voice assistant can do. No matter what your business is, we are definite that Google assistant can help you magnify it, in a way you have certainly not thought before.
Before exploring the possibilities of Google assistant for your business, let’s first explore, how one can write their voice assistant extension.
Action on Google- Development platform for Google assistant
Action on Google is a platform that enables you to expand the practicality of your smart google voice assistant by developing business-oriented voice applications and deploy them for all assistant enabled gadgets.
Action on google is a cloud-based platform in which the applications never actually get installed on any end-user devices, making it immensely convenient for both users as well as developers. To enable these applications on your devices, you have to have to communicate with your Google assistant by saying ‘Ok Google, …’ and then name the action you want to activate. These actions are much easier to carry out in comparison to any web or mobile-based application.
The practicality of creating an action for Google Assistant
One of the most vital tools that do the magic to your voice assistant is the Dialogflow; a natural language comprehension tool.
The critical stage in developing a Google action is to design and develop a natural conversational experience, which should be pleasant and efficient for the users. This isn’t impossible to achieve but requires an in-depth understanding and knowledge of Google guidelines, competency, restriction for the respective platform.
Another challenge is to offer a business logic to deliver content for the action, interacting with external services and perform operations. This business logic is managed by a backend application, termed as Fulfillment Services; a software that collects requirements to form the assistant, processes and then responds. As long as, the application can interact with Google’s API, it can be written in any programming language.
Some use cases with Google assistant:
Below are some familiar scenarios that if applied to your business, can do a miracle for your business growth.
- Lists, tasks, and notes — Google Assistant can be the fastest way to communicate with To-do lists, Shopping lists, work trackers, notes. Examples: Evernote, Trello, Timesheets Companion.
- Customer services: A Google-enabled voice assist can assist your customer care staff, call center and even banking system in a few of their duties. Examples: Bank of America, U. S. Bank, AGL
- Ordering Products/Services: Ordering a pizza, booking a taxi, or a flight; you can do it all within a fraction of seconds with a smart voice assistant. Example: Uber, Dominos’ Pizza, Starbucks, etc.
- Multimedia: With Google voice assistant, control your dose of entertainment, i.e., you can manage your music and video streaming, Audiobooks, audio stories, meditation and a lot more, simply by voice command. Example: Spotify, YouTube, Headspace, Disney, etc.
- Location: Hunting the nearest Thai restaurant, medical store, or branch offices, write an action accessing all for your business. Example: OCBC Bank, Apollo Medic care, MetLife, etc.
- FAQ: Enabling an intelligent FAQ bot to answer all your product or service related questions and bring awareness about your business. Examples: Visa Guru, Pringles.
If you take note of any fast and frequently used scenario revolving around your business, then it is likely candid for an action!
Summing up Google assistant advantages:
- Omnipresence (80 countries, approximately)
- Multilingual (30 languages)
- Immersive, interactive and proactive
- Can control and monitor a lot of devices
- High customer satisfaction, leaving a positive influence on customers
- Enables firing a set of favorite actions using one sentence command
