Last year‚ we partnered with Northumbrian Water Group to design‚ develop and deploy their first Alexa skill as part of a project that marked the organisation’s first move into voice technology. And we’re proud to announce that the skill has now officially launched and is available to download from the Amazon Alexa Skills Store.
The skill‚ which grew out of our innovation partnership with Northumbrian Water‚ provides customers with the capability to check for maintenance work and water supply issues in their area using just their voice.
Their Alexa-enabled device can also provide updates relating to ongoing issues in their area informing customers when work has been completed or when their water supply has been restored. Users can also find out an array of interesting facts about their household water supply which‚ in the long run‚ could even encourage them to adapt their habits and save money.
To mark its release‚ Northumbrian Water has even released a video over on their YouTube channel.
Working closely with the team at Northumbrian Water‚ the hedgehog lab design team carefully considered exactly what sort of information water customers would be most interested in and what sort of contexts it would commonly be used in.
Voice is increasingly the bold new frontier in the way organisations are communicating with their customers‚ driven by the astonishing uptake in voice assistants such in recent years with the total number of voice assistants in use globally set to hit 8bn devices by 2023.
As more and more customers become comfortable with the technology‚ brands will have to look seriously at incorporating the technology as part of their customer experience (CX) efforts with early movers like Northumbrian Water poised to gain the jump on their competitors.
You can see the Alexa Skill in action in the video above or‚ if you’re a Northumbrian Water customer‚ head over the the Amazon Alexa Skill Store to try out the Skill for yourself!
