Voice Technology as a tool for enhancing the dialogue between company and customers

Master thesis (2019)

Authors

P.W. Spijkers Industrial Design Engineering

Contributors

R.A. Price Responsible Marketing and Consumer Behavior (mentor)
S.C. Mooij Responsible Marketing and Consumer Behavior (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Industrial Design Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering
Copyright: © 2019 Peter Spijkers
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Published Date

06-02-2019

Language

English

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Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering

Abstract

Speech is the most natural and most comfortable method of communication for most people (Tadeusiewicz, 2010). So why not use speech for digital communications between company and customers? This graduation assignment aimed to examine this by questioning how voice technology could possibly enhance the dialogue between TUI and its customers.

Voice technology is a rather new technology and has not been fully adopted yet by the public. It was found that the technology should be implemented in gradual steps. This way, company and customer can get used to the technology. Also, starting off small and simple enables stimulation of the adoption (Rogers, 1995).

The Brand Driven Innovation model (Boeijen et al., 2013) was used to structure this project and in order to maintain a high focus on the relationship between company and customer. It was found that the company could highly improve the information it provides to the customer throughout their journey. Within the entire customer journey, the “prepare to go” phase was chosen as a scope due to it not being of critical harm to the rest of the journey. After all, the technology is relatively new and, therefore, brings some risks with it.

Experiments aimed at validating assumptions showed that customers are looking for information while preparing for their journey. They are mainly interested in obtaining information about activities (excursions) and dining options (e.g. restaurants). A link with Musement was made, a company that was acquired by TUI and is designed around providing information about both activities and dining options. The voice-based solution, therefore, consists of an integration of the current Musement voice application into one that suits the purpose of TUI and was named the TUI Tour Guide 1.0.

As said, the technology needs gradual implementation and therefore a stepping stone (MVP) was designed: Holiday Trivia. A voice application with which users can learn what type of vacationer they are and obtain holidays and deals tailored to their vacationer type. This stepping stone was designed using a process tree flow to structure the dialogue, which highly limited the errors in the conversation as was found by user tests.

Both Holiday Trivia and the Musement integration (TUI Tour Guide 1.0) are steps towards the future vision, in which a TUI voice-based tour guide provides information along the entire journey in a personal and transparent way. In order to get there, a roadmap has been established in which the voice-based application is expanded step by step.