For many companies, a big part of staying competitive means being able to use new technology to do more things in a shorter period of time. Voice-controlled assistants, like Apple's Siri, are innovations that can greatly help businesses do just that.
Siri is a digital tool available on many Apple devices. Using only voice recognition, it allows users to perform a wide range of daily tasks. Doing so can save time by reducing or eliminating physical inputs that would otherwise be necessary. Continue reading this guide to learn more about how to use Siri, what commands it can recognize, and how it can help with business communication workflows.
How can Siri be used in a business environment?
Siri is designed to save time and simplify everyday tasks you may encounter. Some examples may include sending text messages, getting instructions for navigating to a client's site, adding reminders, and performing web searches. Thanks to advances in fields like machine learning, Siri lets you do all of those things, and more, without any physical intervention on your part. If used correctly, Siri can allow you to streamline many of your daily activities, allowing you to increase your productivity.
Find contact information
If you need to find someone's contact information on your phone, Siri can help. Siri can pull contact information from your stored contacts to include things like phone numbers, postal addresses, and email addresses.
Make phone calls
If your hands are full, Siri can help you make phone calls (Figure A). If contacts are stored on your phone, you can reference them by name. If the name is not stored on your phone, you can also tell Siri to dial a specific phone number if you have it memorized.
Read and respond to text messages.
Siri has the ability to read text messages out loud, which can be helpful if your hands are full or you're preoccupied with other tasks. Siri can also reply to and send text messages, which can be more convenient and faster than physically typing messages.
Set reminders and check your calendar
If you're on the go or constantly juggling multiple tasks, it can be easy to forget about meetings, deadlines, or tasks you need to accomplish. Siri can set timers, add reminders, and place events on your calendar to greatly reduce the chance of missing something (Figure B). You can also ask Siri to review your calendar and give you a summary of upcoming events.
Get directions
If you're on the go and need directions quickly, Siri can help. You can provide a business name, a general description of the location, or a mailing address. Siri has the ability to open your preferred navigation app, such as Google Maps or Apple Maps, to seamlessly display travel directions on your device (Figure C).
Take note
If you don't have a pen or paper handy to take notes, you can use Siri to dictate by voice to remember any important items. If you have a lot of notes to take, this can also help you save time, as Siri's speech-to-text capability happens instantly and is much faster than writing notes or writing them down.
Answer questions
Siri can help answer a wide range of questions and also has the ability to perform web searches. This can be useful for things like checking the weather, checking a business's operating hours, or finding out where you parked your car.
What do I need to be able to use Siri?
To use Siri, you'll need a compatible Apple product (Figure D). Siri works across the Apple ecosystem and works best with the latest software updates on the following devices:
- iPhone
- iPad
- Mac
- apple watch
- airpods
- carplay
- AppleTV
- HomePod
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How do you use Siri?
To use Siri, you'll need to let it know that you want its help and then voice your request. The exact methods for letting Siri know you want her help can vary from device to device, but there are two main ways to do it.
By default, you can get Siri's attention by holding down the home button or action button on your Apple device. Depending on the Apple product, it could be a button on the front or side of the device. On a Mac, you also have the ability to set a keyboard shortcut. However, if you're looking for a hands-free experience, you can customize your Apple device to hear a wake word, like “Siri” or “Hey Siri.” If you set it up this way, your Apple device will always listen for these wake words, allowing you to get support more easily and quickly.
Common commands that Siri can recognize
There is a long list of commands that Siri can recognize. However, for business purposes, we have listed some commands that would probably be used regularly. Remember that to use Siri, you must first press the home button or say the wake word “Siri” or “Hey Siri” before saying these commands.
Users should also note that it is not always necessary to use the exact phrases mentioned below. Thanks to improvements in artificial intelligence, Siri can understand different variations of the same request.
| Action | Voice command | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Find contact information on your phone | What is [name]The contact information of? | What is the phone number for McKinney? |
| Make a phone call | Call [name or phone number] | call mario |
| Send a text message | Text [name or phone number] + [message] | Text Andrew. I'm 10 minutes late. |
| check voicemail | Do I have voice messages? | Do I have new voicemails? |
| Read text messages aloud | read my messages | read my messages |
| Reply to text messages | Reply + [your message] | Answer, I'll be there at 3:00 |
| Set a timer | Set a timer for [length of time] | Set a timer for 15 minutes |
| Add a reminder | Add a reminder on [time of day] to [your task or activity] | Add a reminder that I need to call Bill tomorrow at 3 pm |
| Get travel directions | Navigate to [address or description of location] | Navigate to Courts of McKinney Tennis Center |
| Take notes using speech to text | Take notes for me + [your notes] | Take notes for me: warehouse inventory figures need to be sent to accounting |
| Do a web search or find answers to questions | [Your question or command] |
|
SEE: For more ideas on how Siri can help you in your daily business tasks, check out our guide to Siri shortcuts for business professionals.
What are some limitations of Siri?
Siri has come a long way since its initial release in 2011; However, like most software programs, it is not perfect and has certain limitations. Below are some circumstances where Siri may not work very well:
- Background noise: Siri may not be able to recognize your voice if other people are talking or if you are in a noisy place.
- Accents: Siri may have difficulty understanding people with strong accents or incorrect pronunciations of words.
- Unclear requests: If Siri is unable to understand what it is being asked to do, it can waste users' time by asking them to repeat the request or physically complete the task without Siri.
- General inquiries: If a question is asked too broad, Siri may not provide the correct answer or a specific enough answer, which may force users to perform a separate search without Siri's help.
What privacy or security risks should businesses consider when using Siri?
Intelligent assistants like Siri can be prone to vulnerabilities that can expose sensitive user or company information. Business contacts, emails, financial information, trade secrets, and other sensitive data are items that could be logged as a routine part of using Siri in a business environment. Additionally, since many Siri-enabled devices are always listening for your wake words, you should also consider the possibility of private conversations being recorded without the user's knowledge.
Business leaders and IT professionals should consider what measures can be taken to reduce the likelihood of this happening, as well as the impact of a potential data or security breach. The scope of this should include company-issued devices as well as personal devices owned by employees.
What are Siri's competitors?
If Siri is not supported on the devices used by your organization, several other companies develop voice-controlled assistants that you can consider as alternatives:
- alexa amazon: This smart assistant was first introduced in the Amazon Echo speaker product and can work with many Amazon brand products that also support voice recognition.
- Google Assistant: Google Assistant is available on Android and iOS devices and integrates with the Google product ecosystem.
