Amazon Alexa for Business: Complete Guide

Alexa for business usually gives you tools to enroll your employees in an organization and assign skills.  When using Alexa for business in your firm, you are likely to get more work done faster and accurately in a short period. Lately, Amazon has developed voice-enabled gadgets to assist the employees and make the work efficient. Furthermore, Amazon has developed a technology stack to enable all the third users to solve their common office problems by creating their own Alexa skills.

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Basic concepts for Amazon Alexa for business

These are important concepts to know before using Amazon Alexa for your business.

• Alexa: this is a cloud voice that acts as power decisions for Amazon echo and Amazon dot (devices). You can improvise your own Alexa by giving it your commands
• Alexa device: is a device that gives you access to the Alexa device.
• Enrolled user: one becomes an enrolled user once they have a registered Amazon Alexa account or working under the employer’s account.
• Master account: this is an account whereby other small accounts are linked from. You can add another account to the master account.
• Room: this is where you have placed your Alexa enabled devices, for example, the conference rooms.
• Room profile: this is the room settings for your devices. You can decide to create the same room settings for all your devices. This helps Amazon Alexa to set the date, time and weather changes same in all your devices. You should note that you can change the settings to default any time you wish.
• Private skill: This skill appears only in your organization, users, and your Alexa device.
• Shared device: this device is placed in a common room where all the users can access it any time they want.

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What is the cost of using Amazon Alexa?

The company operates the same way as SaaS Company. If you are purchasing the products, you are required to pay for the service immediately without bargaining or contracts. The Alexa devices are paid for separately according to the agreed terms. However, the chances of getting a discount are high when you are buying 250 or more devices.

When you buy an Amazon Alexa for your home, you are less likely to be charged the monthly fee. However, you can pay some extra fees to get some skills. Moreover, you won’t be charged when using your device in a marketplace; Alexa does not charge customers to use their device or marketplace skills. When using Alexa for business, you are likely to pay a monthly fee of 7 dollars for each device and $3 for each active enrolled user.

You should note that these costs only apply to the skills required for your given firm. The computers can be placed anywhere in your company through the most recommended place in the company is in the meeting room, lobby, or kitchen where anybody can access it freely. Moreover, you are likely to get an amazon license when you buy other skills from other app developers related to your firm. The charges will always be different when you are installing them as shared devices or as an enrolled user. The cost of using the shared devices is always higher than the enrolled user.

How to get started using Alexa for business

First, set up the devices, and then create room for the assigned devices. This requires managerial skills and central allocation of rooms with visible profiles. You can make it easier by configuring the links to your calendar to join automatically when the meeting time starts.

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What are the existing use features cases For Amazon Alexa business?

1. Video conferencing – You can use a single voice command to start a meeting, for example when saying “Älexa start meeting” after connecting to a given video call. This will help reduce the frustration that one undergoes when trying to start a meeting and save time.
2. Streamlining day-to-day activities – using Alexa, you can schedule a phone call and even keep a record of day-to-day activities. As a result, your employees will increase their productivity. In addition, Alexa may also utilize speech recognition to provide employees fast access to corporate applications without requiring them to sign in.
3. Monitoring devices being used – the administration can use a centralized platform to monitor all the Alexa devices and control their uses. This will help in improving, organizing and maintaining efficiency. 
4. Email management – Amazon Echo can manage your Gmail accounts and Office 365 and read, reply, and manage them according to your preference since they have an inbuilt program called Astrobot. 
5. Eases management – Executives can monitor and manage all devices from an amazing dashboard that serves as a command center for Alexa for Business.  Similarly, they can add new employees and withdraw the outgoing ones using the dashboard in the system. Generally, this central console will ease the firm’s management by providing an easy-to-control system.
6. Invoice assistance – using modern voice technology, you can stream the voices and organize the vital paperwork. In addition, the Alexa accounts receivable factoring can determine the amount of invoice, thus minimizing the accountants’ work.
7. Managing the schedule – these applications should be linked to your Gmail and Office 365 iCloud and Google since they can make reminders, coordinate meetings and arrange the to-do list.
8.  Make announcements – Your Alexa for Business organization can deliver Alexa announcements to one or more rooms. You can send and read the announcements using the SendAnnouncement, API, or the Alexa for business Console.

Final verdict

In recent years, our lifestyles have changed because of the internet world. Everything is fast and more efficient because of personal smartphones, shared devices, and high-speed internet, Alexa for the business being a practical example. Alexa for Business brings people and responsibilities together in an organization. Moreover, is still new in the market, and most voice-enabled devices are consumer functions. However, Amazon is targeting and investing in it so that it can serve all companies worldwide. Make an effort to get your company one.