The limits of voice search technology seems to be the biggest hurdle stopping it from gaining universal adoption, while the biggest opportunity for businesses to get ahead of their competition seems to be in offering consumers deals, sales or promotions that are tied to voice search (7.6%).
San Francisco, CA: Uberall, Inc., the location management solution for businesses competing to attract and win local brick-and-mortar customers, recently released its “Uberall Voice Search Readiness Report 2019,” analyzing 73,000 business locations across SMB, mid-market and enterprise.
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While analyzing thousands of businesses, Uberall also surveyed 1,000 consumers to find out if and how they were adopting voice search to find local business information. Key findings from the 1,000-person survey include:
20% are using voice search every week
Our results found that 21% of respondents were using voice search every week, whereas 57% of respondents have never used voice search. These results show usage is either frequent (daily and weekly) or not at all.
Almost 60% of respondents feel that voice search will be important in the future, while 27% of respondents feel that voice search will not be important at all.
“Our research shows that as consumers get used to voice products in their everyday lives, it is more likely that it will have a broader adoption rate,” said Norman Rohr, SVP of Marketing at Uberall. “This has already been proven through the rise in smart speaker sales and in-car technology in 2018.”
When asking frequent users where they were most often using voice search, most were either using it in their own home (37%) or in the car where using their hands was not an option (34%) – 11% also utilize voice search when they are walking to a destination. Other responses included at work, restaurant/shop/cafe, and public transport.
The report also analyzed the top reasons people are not adopting voice search more frequently. Either they are not used to it (23.2%), they don’t feel that it is the most efficient means of search (19.7%), or they do not feel that it is accurate enough (13.5%).
“It is fair to say that voice search technology has to become more user friendly before it wins the hearts and minds of the general public,” said Rohr. “From this data, businesses can start asking questions such as ‘is a consumer likely to search for my business while out driving and walking to a destination or at home?”
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Consumers would search for businesses via voice search
When asked if consumers would even be using voice search to find local business information, Uberall found that 48% were using voice search as a means to locate business information at least some of the time.
The number one reason users gave for their lack of voice adoption to search for business information was the lack of natural dialogue (12.4%), followed closely by the lack of results provided for the search query (11.7%). The limits of voice search technology seems to be the biggest hurdle stopping it from gaining universal adoption, while the biggest opportunity for businesses to get ahead of their competition seems to be in offering consumers deals, sales or promotions that are tied to voice search (7.6%).
“VSR is an evolving opportunity for businesses to reach more customers easily and improve their online presence,” said Rohr. “As voice technology is constantly improving and finding its way into our homes, workplaces and transport, adoption is only likely to increase and, although 21% may not seem like a lot of regular users, that’s 1 in 5 people businesses aren’t reaching every day when they decide to neglect voice search readiness.”