Why It’s More Important for You to Understand “What’s New” with Voice Technology Than What’s Happening with AI or Robotics

How much time have you spent in the last few years, months, weeks, or days researching AI, trying to understand the different flavors of robotics, or cleaning up the mess that was made when your IT and operations teams couldn’t agree on the best way to tap into the internet of things (IoT)?

I’m assuming it’s far more time than you’ve wanted to spend on these things yet somehow still not enough, right?

Depending on your job, you’re either being graded on how well you can build capacity and improve throughput on the frontlines or how many new systems you can get online to support the operations team’s charge to get more done and support more customers each day. And I’d bet that you’re not getting an A+ right now because…

• if you’re operations, you’re hitting a productivity wall no matter how many new AI or robotics technologies you’re throwing at it.
• if you’re IT, you’re hitting your head against an actual wall out of frustration because you’ve spent the last 12-18 months trying to get all the parts of your tech stack to play nice so that the voice “solution” someone committed you to works the way operations needs it to.

Now, if you ask me what I think could help the operations team bust through that productivity wall and save the IT team a lot of headaches, I’m going to tell you, “voice technology.”

I know you’ll probably laugh and say, “I’ve been there, done that. Voice technology is part of the reason I’m in this mess. I’m up to my ears trying to get the hardware to run the proprietary software components from the voice technology vendors and to get them talking to my ERP and other business systems. I can’t get the voice vendor to call me back. And I’ve blown through my budget and then some trying to get this voice technology to offer some semblance of a solution to my labor shortage, business capacity, and accuracy issues.”

Then I’d laugh and say, “I know. That’s why I’m telling you that you need to let me show you what new-generation voice technology – voice automation technology or voice-commanded automation – can do for you.”

Why do I insist voice technology is going to save the day (and your job)?

Because the voice technology I’m talking about is not even close to what you’ve used before or have been trying to get to work these past few years (other than the fact that it is in the “voice” technology category.)

Deprogramming Legacy Voice Notions

You know how there’s a rebirth happening in the machine vision space? A mass exodus away from the old, expensive, complicated systems toward completely redesigned systems that fixed everything wrong with the legacy generation? Well, the same thing is happening in the voice technology space.

Manufacturers, warehouse and distribution center (DC) operators, retailers, healthcare providers, utility service providers, restaurant owners and others who have used legacy voice technologies are jumping at the opportunity to replace their old, tired, expensive “solutions” (that cause more pain than they relieve) for newer voice-directed workflow automation technologies that actually solve problems.

Why?

Well, let’s not dance around the reality that implementing and managing legacy voice technologies has come with many challenges in recent years, and those challenges are becoming harder to overcome by the day. Too many companies have spent countless hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not more) deploying, customizing, and maintaining these systems over years…and trying to squeeze just a little bit more out of them.

I’m assuming if you’re reading this then your company is one of them.

However, there’s a point when you just won’t get these legacy voice technologies to work the way your busy front-line workers need them to in your warehouses, distribution centers, sorting centers, factories, stores, and other facilities. It’s impossible to get obsolete voice technologies to conform to changing workflows. They’re not easily customizable, scalable and deployable, and they require expensive server infrastructure and extensive IT support to configure and maintain. But you either know that or fear that’s coming for you, right?

Another major complication on the horizon, if it hasn’t hit you yet, is that legacy voice “solutions” aren’t compatible with many of today’s newer mobile devices, software platforms, and information systems. They aren’t even compatible with older barcode scanners. So, as you go to add on new form factors (such as wearables) or replace handheld mobile devices or tablets with newer versions running the latest operating system (OS) version for performance and security purposes, there’s a good chance your old voice software is going to stop working. The same is true if you’re trying to integrate legacy voice technology with industry standard terminal emulators (TE) or browsers or even software front ends.

So, no matter how many brilliant development efforts are put forth to try to make them play nice, they’re not going to be compatible with your new devices, software and systems, and they’re never going to work with barcode scanners.

Then again, you may not even get the support and resources you need from legacy voice technology providers to attempt such a feat. It’s tough to get help or any kind of updates to help address some of these issues, which is why many companies are now looking for a better alternative – and why I’m talking to people like you every day now.

When operations and IT teams struggle to adapt existing voice technologies to their current and future workflow needs, they tend to vent to a trusted technology partner – maybe it’s a hardware provider or someone they’re working with for another system or software application – who ultimately connect the operations and IT teams with my team and me.

The reason why they’re pointed in our direction is because we’ve been working (somewhat quietly) with major brands – global companies – as well as fast-growing startups to voice-automate mobile workflows for years. We’ve found a very simple way to use voice technology to automate human-device interactions and data collection (beyond the barcode) in addition to guiding front-line workers through tasks, which is really all that legacy voice-directed technologies can do. And this voice automation occurs 100% on the worker’s device, eliminating the need for more servers and actually reducing the number of servers IT must manage in support of voice-directed workflows.

Sound interesting?

It is! It’s why I have made it my mission to come out of the shadows and shine the brightest light possible on voice automation technologies. This type of automation will do for you what AI, robots and other automation technologies can’t. It’s akin to robotic process automation (RPA), but with voice as the mechanism. If you have this type of voice technology running on any device, the device user only needs to utter a one-word or phrase “voice command” to prompt screen skips, input multiple data points, fill out entire forms, and more.

You read that right. There is voice technology available to you right now that can take all the manual data inputs, button pushes, screen swipes, etc. out of your mobile workflows – and completely out of your business.

Resetting Expectations and Relieving Pressure with Voice-Commanded Automation

If I had to give you my elevator pitch about why this new generation of voice automation technology is so different (and arguably so much better) than the legacy voice technology you’re probably most familiar with, I would say it…

• does so much more than just recognize numbers, alphas and words. This is not voice-directed picking. It is voice-directed everything!

• enables you to automate data entry, data capture, and mobile tasks on virtually any mobile device using the “happy path” you and your front-line workers map out using a voice macro design – and you don’t need to mess with complex coding. I know I said this before, but we’re talking about a situation in which a single verbal utterance by a front-line worker replaces any key typing, button pushes, or screen swipes it would normally take to input or verify data. Want to use voice to complete repetitive form fills on the receiving dock? Easy. Want an inventory manager to be able to verbally prompt an exception, verify a quantity, and keep their hands free the entire time when conducting a count? No problem. Want your outbound team to be able to quickly confirm that boxes are flowing off the conveyor into the right sorting containers for your different shipping partners without having to do anything other than say “yes” or “no”? We’ve set that very scenario up for a tool manufacturer who saw their sorting inaccuracy rate drop from 12% to zero after voice-automating the sorting validation workflow.

• works on any device that supports voice, even if you’re still using Windows CE devices. The device’s form factor, operating system, and age don’t matter. It can work on laptops, tablets, handheld mobile computers, wearables, barcode scanners, PCs, etc. It also has high voice recognition quality

• recognizes and converts utterances from 56 languages. You can also have multiple languages on a single device, too, which is helpful when you have a diverse workforce and your front-line workers are sharing devices.

• easily integrates off-the-shelf with industry standard terminal emulators and browsers, software applications, and other non-hardware components of your tech stack – with no custom software touching those installations. I know some WMS vendors have proprietary clients, and we can integrate device-based voice technology with those as well and have done so many times. But I can’t stress this enough: It doesn’t matter which WMS, MES, ERP, or other information system you need to connect to for information sharing, the on-device voice technology that you need to automate your mobile workflows will work with all of them.

• does not require voice servers or cloud infrastructure. The voice software runs directly on your devices, which means you don’t have to deal with the time, effort and cost to maintain cloud or on-premise voice servers. You just use the device-based voice software to automate keystrokes, function keys, barcode scans, and many other mobile tasks and third-party software interactions without the costs or time required to set up and manage a voice server or other infrastructure.

• is usually up and running – configured to work exactly the way you want, according to your specific mobile tasks and workflows – in four to six weeks. That’s the signature-to-production timeframe. I think the longest project took about 12 weeks. But considering most legacy voice projects are taking 12+ months right now, the longest voice automation project is still way faster.

• makes you the captain of your own destiny thanks to the offline software development kit (SDK) used to build the voice project with this on-device approach. The capabilities for automating keystrokes, choosing effective utterances for workflows, and setting up multiple languages are all in the single voice project. Your team can use the robust set of tools to fully manage this system in-house; they provide a fast, easy mechanism to make changes as needed within this voice project without having to call us or any vendor for support. Once the software is loaded onto the device, all data and functionality (including security) can be managed on the device through any standard mobile device management (MDM) software. So, while a team like ours will come in and work with you for two-to-three months to get the voice project through production, we hand the keys to the kingdom over to you after go-live with full confidence in your team’s ability to keep things running smoothly. We’re only a call away if you need help down the line, of course, but we don’t expect many calls because this really is something that’s going to be surprisingly easy for your team to manage. (We have many customers that can attest to this who I’m happy to connect you with.)

• will give you sticker shock, in a good way. I know every business is budget conscious right now, even if financially healthy. I also know you may be shying away from another voice project…and AI…and robotics…and anything else “new” because you assume it’s going to be very expensive. And I know just how very expensive legacy voice projects have been. But, again, voice automation technology – voice automation projects – are not the same thing and do not carry the same weighty price tag.

If you doubt anything I’m saying, give me the chance to prove to you this is real. All my team and I need is two days onsite at your facility, or even a couple hours will do if that’s all you can give me. I know this is something you’re going to have to see to believe. I also believe that once you see it, you’re going to be disappointed you didn’t see it sooner. Over 90% of the operations and IT teams we show this too immediately ask, “How do we get started?” And within months, they’ve got automated mobile workflows with impressive results across their business.

I’m happy to put you in touch with some of these customers so you can hear firsthand how they converted from skeptics to believers within hours and believers to benefactors within weeks.

You can also see a short snippet of a demo we recently did in this video:

Hope to hear from you soon...