Thryv Taps Amazon’s Alexa For SMB Discovery

Small business management software provider Thryv is using Amazon‘s Alexa to help more small businesses get discovered.

A press release issued Tuesday (Aug. 21) said Thryv is partnering with Amazon’s Alexa, allowing information on small business locations to appear in voice search. Entrepreneurs can update their businesses’ information on the Thryv mobile app and — through Alexa’s collaboration with digital knowledge management company Yext — can ensure that consumers using Alexa will have access to updated information about their firms.

Thryv, a unit of DexYP, said that small business owners struggle to ensure that information found online about their firms is correct and up to date. Thryv streamlines the process of updating and correcting that information.

In a statement, Yext CEO Howard Lerman said Thryv’s capabilities with Alexa “will enable consumers to get the most up-to-date facts about businesses — locations, contact information, hours of operation and more — straight from the source: the business itself.”

DexYP Chief Marketing Officer Gordon Henry said in another statement, “Small businesses across America can now update their business information on their smartphone and have that information found by consumers searching with their voice on Amazon’s Alexa. Thryv helps small businesses to compete more effectively because consumers using Alexa will know where, when and how to find them.”

He added that, historically, entrepreneurs have struggled to know exactly how to go about updating information for their companies online and dispersing it to potential customers.

DexYP spoke with PYMNTS in May to discuss other struggles small businesses face, particularly when it comes to cloud adoption. Those challenges can be traced back to generational trends, familiarity with technology and hesitancy to disrupt current process flows, even if adoption of the cloud could improve them.

The company pointed to data from the Tech Adoption Index, powered by Local Search Association, which found that most entrepreneurs aged 18 to 34 use mobile apps to run their businesses, compared to less than a quarter of entrepreneurs aged 55 and 56.