AiC Episode 72

In this episode, Teri releases the results of the Future of Alexa in Canada survey to give us a clue as to where we are going with a lot of the features within the Alexa in Canada and Voice in Canada brands.

And the Results are….!

Teri was overwhelmed by the 95+ responses he got from the survey. The feedback will be very valuable when coming up with a way forward for the Alexa in Canada community.

Survey Question 1: How comfortable are you with voice technology?

  • 13.8% are beginners (new users of voice technology). This demonstrates that the podcast and flash briefing should be putting out some of the basic information on how to get started with voice devices, and so on.
  • 47.9% are somewhat comfortable with voice devices.
  • 38.3% consider themselves advanced users of voice technology.
  • The audience of the Alexa in Canada Podcast has different needs as far as where they are in their journey of using voice assistants.
  • Teri continuously tries to provide value for people at different stages of their journey in using voice technology.
  • In the future, there will be some more content geared towards the different groups, but all the groups will have access to all the content.

Survey Question 2: Which voice assistants do you use?

  • 97.7% of the respondents use Amazon Alexa. There were 3 people who said they don’t use Amazon Alexa.
  • 42.6% use Apple Siri while 31.9% use Google Assistant.
  • There were fewer people who use Microsoft Cortana, Samsung Bizby, and other voice assistants.

Survey Question 3: Where do you use your voice assistant? Do you use your voice assistant to control smart home devices?

  • 98% said they use their voice assistants at home.
  • 40% said they use voice assistants on their iOS phones, 27% on their Android phones, and 29.5% use it in their cars.
  • 62.1% said they use their voice assistants to control smart home devices.

The Future of Alexa in Canada

Survey Question 4: Which best describes your use of voice technology?

  • 88.4% of people said they use their voice assistants in their everyday lives while 31.6% said that they consider voice technology to be a hobby of theirs, meaning they are very interested in it.

Survey Question 5: Which resources do you find most useful?

  • 56.2% of people said that they the website and the blog to be the most useful resource of the Alexa in Canada community.
  • 55.1% of people said they found the flash briefing to be one of the most useful resources.

Survey Question 6: Which of the specific features do you find most useful?

  • 82.6% of people like learning about Alexa commands meaning they like being told what to say to their devices.
  • 56.5% of people said they like Alexa tutorials.
  • 48.9% of people said that they find skill reviews and hardware/smart home device recommendations useful.
  • 27% of people said that they like hearing about different sales and deals that Teri has been trying to highlight for the community.

Survey Question 7: How did you first discover our community?

  • 39.8% of the respondents found the Alexa in Canada resource through Google searches which demonstrates that the content is ranking high on Google.
  • 18% of the people found the community through Facebook.
  • 17.2% of respondents found the Alexa in Canada community through the Voice in Canada Flash Briefing.

Survey Question 8: What is your favorite part about Alexa in Canada?

  • Some people said that its current and Canadian. That seemed to be an overarching theme.
  • Some people wrote that the page is helpful and informative. They loved the information of new skills, instructions on how to use new skills, hardware reviews, the flash briefings, and the podcasts.
  • Somebody said that they have actually listened to the podcasts from number one until now since discovering the podcast.
  • The Facebook community does its best to help others.
  • Someone wrote that they like the attitude and the style of the podcast, and the rest of the brand.

Survey Question 9: Ways that it can be improved

  • There has been a misconception that Alexa in Canada is the official Amazon Alexa in Canada website, which prompted some people to make suggestions or ask questions about issues that only Amazon can handle. One person said, “Stop treating us like lesser customers than the Americans”
  • In AlexainCanada.ca/29, Dave Isbitski gave the official Amazon response explaining why it takes longer for Canadians to get some of the features compared to Americans.
  • A lot of people said they like it the way it is.
  • There was a suggestion to create a specific stream or area for voice developers with tips, sample codes, and so on.
  • Somebody said they would like a discussion on the future of devices and abilities.
  • Some people would like a “What’s New” portion where they can see when something new comes out in Canada.
  • Somebody said they would like more industry people interviews.
  • A couple of people said that they would like to see more skills in Canada, but skill developers (third-party developers) are the ones that have control on where their skills are released. This shows the need to have Canadian skills highlighted.
  • Some people suggested having a French-Canadian portal, which is very interesting to Teri because that is a huge part of Canada.
  • Somebody suggested more troubleshooting talks and how to figure out the discoverability of flash briefings aside from Briefcast.FM.
  • Somebody said they would like to see more interviews with people using the voice technologies in more real-life situations, more how-tos, product reviews for home automation, and recommendations.

Questions on The Future Direction of Alexa in Canada

Question 1: How would you feel if I were to expand the content to include information about other voice assistants specifically in Canada, including Google, Siri, Cortana, and Bixby.

  • On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being No, definitely do not do it while 5 being Yes, Absolutely do it), the number one response was 5. 30% of the respondents said, “Yes expand it to include other voice assistants.”
  • Almost 50% of the community said that they wanted to see it expanded.
  • Some people, about 38% of the community, said that they didn’t want to see it expanded.

Question 2: How would you feel if I added relevant sponsors to support the podcast and the flash briefing?

  • Majority of the respondents supported the idea of having sponsors to support the podcast and flash briefing.
  • 25% of people said (5 out of 5), “Absolutely do it” while 24% said (4 out of 5), “Yes, definitely do it”

Question 3: How would you feel about contributing a small weekly or monthly donation to support Alexa in Canada?

  • Zero people said 5 out of 5 for “Yes, absolutely do it”.
  • 60% of people said, “Absolutely, do not do it”

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

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