Dive Brief:
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Amazon is offering free in-home services to help customers choose and set up smart-home devices including its own voice-activated Echo speakers, according to a page on its website.
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"Smart Home Consultation" services — provided by Amazon staffers, not contractors — are available in major West Coast markets including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Jose.
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The consultation service has been reviewed nearly 80 times, with the earliest customer comments dating from November, though the time of its official launch is unclear, according to a report from the Seattle Times, which says that Amazon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dive Insight:
Amazon has good reason for this kind of concerted effort to get smart-home devices into customers’ homes, encouraging their use and smoothing out any hiccups that could come from tech-challenged consumers. Voice-assisted devices powered by its Alexa artificial intelligence software, including the Echo, have taken off in a relatively short period of time. Amazon has been savvy about promoting Echo, selling 5.1 million devices in the U.S. according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, and elevating awareness of the device (and its cousins, Dot and Tap) promises to further accelerate demand.
The e-commerce giant may also be benefiting from wider enthusiasm around tech devices in general — a compelling reason to include devices beyond its own stable. Last year, the Consumer Technology Association survey found a 10 percentage point jump in the number of American adults planning to buy tech products from the Monday before Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.
Awareness of Echo devices alone rose to 69% as of October, up from 20% in March 2015, according to CIRP’s report. Amazon has also expanded the capabilities of Echo, Alexa and related devices, which now allows customers to buy items from its website as well as find a lost phone, turn on household appliances, help a cook with a recipe and text people via AT&T. Amazon even offers special discounts to Echo owners who ask “Alexa, what are your deals?”
“There’s a big impetus to get an Echo in the hands of people, considering that, if you look at the Amazon Echo buyer metrics, we know that the Amazon Echo buyer makes purchases more frequently, and their spend per buyer is twice as much as the average Amazon buyer once they have one,” Andy Mantis, EVP of NPD Group’s Checkout Tracking, told Retail Dive last year.
Furthermore, owners of the Amazon Echo spent around 10% more on Amazon in the six months after they bought the voice-controlled speaker than before they had it, with purchase frequency also growing 6%, NPD Group's Checkout Tracking found. In addition, Echo owners conduct about half of their total online spending at Amazon after they buy an Echo.