TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Voices.com, the world’s largest marketplace for voice over, collaborated with Voicebot.ai, the news outlet presenting the most important news, commentary, research and analysis of voice technology, and Pulse Labs, the premier testing solution for developers in the voice ecosystem, on a new study of the voice user experience (UX). Significant findings include a strong preference for human voices over synthetic voices and higher information recall with human voices.
This is novel research in the voice over industry, with fascinating findings that improve our understanding of consumer preferences when it comes to interacting with voice assistants. In this emerging voice-first era it’s more important than ever for brands to understand the voice ecosystem, and to have access to data that can improve their marketing.
The study found that:
● Information recall more than doubled from 14.3% to 32.5% when human voices were used rather than synthetic ones
● There is a 71.6% higher preference for human voices over the synthetic alternative
● Voice assistant users prefer shorter dialogue
● Female synthetic voices are preferred over male synthetic voices by 12.5%
● There is a small, but measurable, preference for female human voices over male ones
“Smart marketers know that people prefer listening to people that sound like them. With this new research, it’s further evidence that the voice—a human quality full of emotion—is not easily replicated,” says David Ciccarelli, co-founder and CEO of Voices.com. “While there’s a time and place for synthetic voices to provide navigational prompts or brief instructions, communicating important messages with the intent to inform, educate, and inspire audiences should be left strictly to professional voice actors.”
"We all suspected that voice assistant users preferred human over synthetic voices, but there were no empirical studies attempting to quantify the difference. Now, we have data instead of conjecture," says Bret Kinsella, founder and CEO of Voicebot.ai. "Our study with Voices.com and Pulse Labs found that consumers across genders and age groups not only expressed over 70% higher preference for human voices, but they were also much more likely to correctly remember a call-to-action embedded in audible content compared to synthetic voices. These findings should be particularly interesting to marketers building voice apps today."
"When designing for voice, there's a great opportunity for brands and serious developers to determine and guide what their voice will be,” says Dylan Zwick, co-founder and CPO of Pulse Labs. “What this work exemplifies is how important it is to take that voice seriously and to get it right, as it can make the difference between whether a consumer remembers what you've built or not. Pulse Labs looks forward to continuing to work with brands and marketers as they hone their voice experiences, including determining exactly what their voice should be."
Read the full report at: https://voicebot.ai/what-consumers-want-in-voice-app-design-2019/
About Voices.com
Founded in 2005, Voices.com is the largest global online marketplace for audio and voice products and services, and is comprised of more than half a million business clients and voice actors. Its flagship website, https://www.voices.com, records approximately two million unique visitors annually and has enabled over 300,000 transactions to date. Headquartered in London, Canada, the Company employs more than 120 people and has clients and voice talent in 160 countries.
About Voicebot.ai
Voicebot.ai produces the leading independent research, online publication, newsletter and podcast focused on the voice and AI industries. Thousands of entrepreneurs, developers, investors, analysts and other industry leaders look to Voicebot.ai each week for the latest news, data, analysis and insights defining the trajectory of the next great computing platform.
About Pulse Labs
Pulse Labs is the premier measurement, analytics and testing platform for voice. Their products and solutions help marketing and product teams better understand and enable deeper consumer engagement with their brands and applications on the voice platforms.
