From the Harvard Business Review:
Using Smart Speakers to Engage with Your Customers
Smart speakers and voice assistants represent one of the best new opportunities for companies to engage with, interact with, and learn from their customers. According to Voicebot.ai’s Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption report from March 2019, 66.4 million U.S. adults own a smart speaker, comprising 26.2% of the U.S. adult population. With more than a quarter of U.S. adults owning smart speakers and interacting with brands via voice assistants regularly, now is the time for companies of all sizes and across all segments to start thinking about ways to leverage this new technology to their advantage.
Reducing Friction
One of the common denominators among successful implementations of voice technology is the ability to reduce friction for the user. Friction represents the time and effort a user spends to accomplish a task. So, if the opportunity presents itself to make a specific task more efficient via voice technology compared to the incumbent method, companies should seize it.
For example, companies can provide the ability for customers to set an appointment through Alexa. Salons, hair stylists, restaurants, healthcare clinics, and other appointment-based businesses can offer their customers the ability to schedule their next haircut or book a table through a voice assistant. Rather than the customer having to call and make a reservation, they can execute the same task with less friction through a simple voice command: “Alexa, make a dinner reservation at Balthazar in Manhattan for 4 people on June 1st at 8 p.m.”...MORE
Businesses can also reduce friction when it comes to surveys. Many fast-food restaurants, retailers, and mom-and-pop shops direct their customers via a sales receipt to a URL to fill out a survey. “Rather than sending customers on a wild goose chase to fill out a survey online, voice surveys present a new methodology that is way easier, less obtrusive, and hands-free for the customer,” said Stuart Crane, CEO of Voice Metrics, a voice-enablement agency that allows companies to add Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri to their software products. “Companies can extend their brand in so many new ways with voice, such as being able to use their spokesperson to issue the survey instead of the generic, automated voices typically associated with surveys.”
Extending the Brand via Voice...
When Dorothy Parker used the line I purloined as our intro, she...was...not...kidding.
From Quote Investigator:
...the testimony of journalist Vincent Sheean who was Parker’s friend: 1
“When it came time to leave the apartment to get a taxi, you could see this look of resolution come on her face,” he said. “Her chin would go up and her shoulders would go back; she would almost be fighting back fear and tears, as if to say to the world, ‘Do your worst; I’ll make it home all right.’ If the doorbell rang in her apartment, she would say, ‘What fresh hell can this be?’—and it wasn’t funny; she meant it.Quote Investigator has earlier uses by other people but the Parker is the one I knew of.
Additionally, Quora has a finance angle in one of their usages:
Fat Yankee stockbrokers via Google books.Of note, the quote “What fresh hell is this” is used in Vanity Fair, Volumes 43-45, Issue 6, page 41 - Condé Nast, 1935, article.“And so the doctor groaned and cursed as he awoke to the persistent ringing of the telephone beside his bed. He looked at his watch and noted that it was three a. m., before he picked up the receiver. "What fresh hell is this, George?" said Dr. Bonnard to the night clerk. "Can't tell you, Doc. Old man in 607 says he must have a doctor right away. Name is Fred Warren and he comes from Stapleton, Staten Island." "Some fat Yankee stock broker who thinks that fifteen-mile wind outside his window is another hurricane ...”
