The launch of the Echo Spot in Australia today has seen a bit of excitement, with the screen on the virtual assistant adding a whole new dimension. Westpac is one of the first to extend their Alexa Skill to the Echo Spot with new functions.
The Westpac Amazon Skill has been letting you interact with your account through simple voice commands, checking your account balance, transaction history and reward point status on your Alexa enabled devices. Westpac were onboard with an Alexa skill since launch, but the new Echo Spot function now displays the requested information on the device’s screen.
Martine Jager, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer at Westpac Group said there has been strong interest in the Westpac Banking Skill.
With 85 percent of Westpac customers who own an Alexa device using it to access their account balances, we wanted to evolve this feature to suit the new digital touch screen. The beauty of voice technology is it’s continually evolving and we are learning new things every day. Voice and video technology is paving new ways for us to help our customers in the moments that matter to them. It won’t be long before we will be enabling banking transactions via voice, letting customers make purchases.
The Alexa Skill allows Westpac customers link up to 3 eligible accounts, including Westpac Choice, eSaver and Altitude Black or Platinum credit cards. If you have one of these accounts, and an Alexa enabled device, you can start the process to link your account here.
“With 85 percent of Westpac customers who own an Alexa device using it to access their account balances” seems a bit dubious.
I assume it’s 85 percent of people who have enabled the Westpac skill that are using it to access account balance. And of course – why have it enabled otherwise? The total number of people with the Westpac skill enabled versus number of Westpac customers who own an Alexa device are presumably vastly different numbers.
It’s a hard metric to quantify, they have to know the customer has an Alexa enabled device, and unless they’re sneaking into peoples homes for an audit they’d have to have linked the Alexa Skill.