Walmart Shoppers Can Now Use Apple's Siri To Order Groceries: What This Means For The Future Of CX

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Exploring purchasing options through catalog-style web browsing via desktop computers gained revolutionary popularity in the early 2000’s, followed by mobile transformation as the app-based economy took off in the 2010’s.

From desktop browsing to mobile purchasing

As seen in one of my previous articles, featuring insights from an NBC report that stated “The time spent on smartphones is set to overtake the hours spent on accessing the internet from PCs. People are forecast to spend three hours 22 minutes on their smartphone every day this year, beating time spent online via a PC, laptop or tablet for the first time.”

And now... personalized voice shopping

Voice devices like Amazon Echo and Google Nest are already being adopted at a faster rate than any other technology in human history.

Let that sink in.

Already one-third of smart speaker owners say they want voice-based customer service options, while another 30% are unsure — which makes for a rich opportunity to capture that audience share. And, with as many as 75% of households expected to own a smart speaker by 2025, implementing a voice program now is a huge opportunity to gain early adoption and edge out your competition.

Read More: The Psychology Behind Personalized Customer Experience: Instilling a Human Touch into Your Brand

As President of Marketing Intelligents, LLC, Darin Reffitt said, “… we’ve seen these kinds of seismic shifts before when it comes to being first out of the gate to adopt new technology. When the modern internet first emerged as a marketing channel, it was perceived by many as simply an online brochure. Very few companies saw the potential for e-commerce and most assumed that no one was going to actually buy stuff online. Then, along came Amazon, which literally defined e-commerce as we now know it. Then, it was just a bookstore, but it quickly buried the competition, driving Borders Books out of business thanks to their slow-to-market approach.”

The capabilities of the internet were initially misjudged and under utilized by many; don’t make the same mistake with voice tech. In other words, don’t associate voice with merely dimming the lights, playing the Beatles, or giving cooking advice, but rather, a viable avenue to the future of online commerce.

"Siri. Add to Walmart"

With Apple and Walmart’s collaboration over the past couple of months, customers can now ask Siri to add items directly to their Walmart online grocery cart after they’ve paired their accounts. The service is available on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod or in the car with CarPlay.

Walmart initially rolled out its voice ordering capability with Google Assistant back in April.

Now, with the Siri shortcut, customers can fill their basket by saying “Hey, Siri, add to Walmart” then naming the product they want to put in their cart. Shoppers can add items one by one as they think of them then review the order before they send it. They can then pick up the order or have it delivered to their home.

The app will learn customers’ preferences as they place more orders, Walmart said in a company article.

For example, if a customer says, “add orange juice to my cart,” the specific orange juice that the customer buys regularly — brand, size and variety — will be added, without them specifying which one they want.

“The more customers use it, the better the experience will be,” the article says. In other words, the more individual customers use the platform, the more the platform’s algorithms will be able to use machine learning to quite literally “learn” about that individual’s purchasing behavior through recurring patterns.

As an additional result, tailored personalized ads and recommendations will be delivered to consumers based on the data they’re providing, enhancing the personalization of the service, as well as the overall beginning-to-end customer experience.

“Grocery delivery is one of the fastest growing businesses at Amazon, and we think this will be one of the most-loved Prime benefits,” said Stephenie Landry, VP of grocery delivery, in a statement.