Amazon Alexa to soon allow advertisers to answer your queries

SAN FRANCISCO: Tech giant Amazon has launched a new Alexa-powered capability geared toward helping advertisers answer common customer questions.

The capability is called Customers ask Alexa, and it works when customers pose questions to Alexa, including queries related to a product's features or compatibilities, Alexa responds with helpful answers provided by brands from those product categories.

"Amazon recognizes brands as experts on their products. With this new capability, we have made it easier for brands to connect with customers to help answer common questions and better inform their purchase decisions," Rajiv Mehta, general manager of Alexa Shopping at Amazon, said in a blogpost.

Brands registered with Amazon Brand Registry will see the new Customers ask Alexa feature in Seller Central, where they can easily discover and answer frequently asked customer questions using self-service tools.

All answers go through Alexa's content moderation and quality checks before Alexa selects the most relevant answer to share with customers.

The feature will be available in Seller Central for a select group of brands beginning October 2022 as an invite-only programme, and will become available to all eligible brands in the US in 2023.

It will be available to shoppers via the Amazon search bar in late 2022, and via Echo devices in mid-2023.