Delivering an enterprise skill for Amazon Alexa means preparing and supporting loads of content so why not to use Sitecore the leader eXperience platform to manage your Alexa skill related content?

Here at VoiceCase we think that Sitecore is a perfect tool to manage complex SSML messages to support your Alexa skill via the Sitecore multi-channel capabilities…

Alexa skill provide different voice messages using SSML a markup language fairly similar to HTML – here you can find extensive reference to SSML syntax

The simpler way to integrate your custom skill with Sitecore is via a synchronous call from your AWS Lambda to the Sitecore endpoint to provide the required SSML via a simple webApi endpoint (via json)

Other valid reasons for using Sitecore to store your SSML?

Multilanguage support

Approval Workflow

Rich Text Editor Customizations to support SSML creation for business users

SSML validation

Skill configuration settings on Sitecore

In addition to the simple integration, you may want to use Sitecore combined with Polly to generate custom audio messages to support your skill or Sitecore Media Library capabilities to host custom MP3 files to support your Alexa skill…

Here you can see how it looks a SSML message within Sitecore Rich Text Editor

We also strongly recommend the use of snipped withing the Sitecore rich text editor to support SSML speechons, this would allow business users to create wow effects for your Alexa users….

Other possible advantages of this integration would be the use of the Sitecore Personalisation features simple examples could be:

Personalization for anonymous devices (offer different messages for anonymous and registered users

Account Linking + Personalisation – deliveing personalized Voice messages for different customers, depending on the customer segment defined in Sitecore via XDB facets

Single view of the customer + Analytics – Sitecore Analytics could hold a 360 view of your customers across different channels and Alexa would be just an additional channel for Sitecore

Personalized Content leveraging XDB capabilities (behavior personalisation)

A/B testing capabilities to identify the more effective paths and customers preferred application paths

Sitecore Commerce to deliver conversational commerce

In the case you find this topic interesting, reach out stelio@voicecase.co.uk and will be happy to help you to get the most out of your Amazon Alexa integration with Sitecore….

I have been presenting this topic to few user groups and here you can find additional slides– a video & additional pictures of the presentation…

@steliodibello demonstrating Alexa integration with #sitecore @bekagool #SitecoreUGpic.twitter.com/ZpR2btYQf7

— Ian Graham (@ianjohngraham) June 14, 2017