How to Create Alexa for Business Skills Without Coding Experience

What is Alexa for Business?

While your Alexa at home is focused on more personal tasks, Alexa for Business is designed specifically to help keep businesses organized by answering questions and boosting productivity. It comes prebuilt with select skills and then you can create more via Skill Blueprints. Among the Alexa devices usable for this are the Echo, Echo Pop and Echo Dot.  

With Alexa for Business, employers can install shared devices throughout their workplaces. For example, they can be placed in conference rooms and used to launch and control conferencing systems. Shared devices could also be placed in other areas, such as copy rooms and lobbies. In addition, employees can have devices in their personal offices to manage their calendars and to-do lists.

Even when used in personal spaces like a private office, employees are considered enrolled users. They can tap into Alexa for Business on any Alexa device at work or home. This gives them the ability to access their calendar and other personal skills from their office or their living room. Enrolled users can use Alexa in many ways, such as scheduling and joining meetings, accessing companywide applications, creating to-do lists, setting reminders and making calls.

How to set up Alexa for Business

The setup process for Alexa for Business begins with registering and setting up an account in the Alexa for Business console. Next, you need to purchase the Alexa devices you want for your business. Once they arrive, you’ll follow the steps in the Amazon Admin Guide for device setup and start enrolling individual users.

Cost of Alexa for Business

The cost of Alexa for Business consists of two components. There is a monthly fee for each shared device your organization has and a monthly fee based on the number of enrolled users:

• Shared devices: $7 per device, per month
• Enrolled users: $3 per user, per month

You don’t have to pay anything to create new skills for your Alexa, which is a process we discuss below.

How to use Alexa for Business

Businesses of all sizes can take advantage of Alexa for Business in various ways. Shared devices can be placed anywhere in an office but are commonly used in conference rooms since Alexa for Business can integrate with popular video conferencing services.

Some of the currently compatible hardware for video integrations include:

• Cisco TelePresence Systems
• Cisco Webex Room Kits
• Poly Group Series (with Alexa for Business built into Poly Trio 8500 and 8800 units)
• Zoom Rooms
• Crestron 3-Series

Alexa for Business also integrates with Office 365, Google Workspace and Microsoft Exchange calendars. This allows you to use voice commands to look up scheduled meetings or automatically join meetings from several unified communications systems, including Amazon Chime, BlueJeans, Cisco, RingCentral and Zoom. Specific functions Alexa can handle include starting, joining and ending a meeting and requesting a call to the information technology (IT) department if technical difficulties arise. [Read our review of RingCentral’s RingEX platform.]

We consider some other common Alexa for Business uses with the examples below.

Examples of Alexa for Business skills and their benefits for small business

Each company (and industry) will have its own requirements and opportunities to use Alexa for Business for specific skills. Here are eight universal examples of how Alexa for Business can be used and the benefits it offers:

1. Reminders and scheduling: Setting reminders via Alexa to complete specific actions at certain times ensures deadlines aren’t missed. For example, you can set a reminder to run weekly payroll, ensuring it’s not forgotten amid other administrative tasks. Alexa also works well with calendar services, verbalizing entries in response to the question, “What’s on my calendar?”
2. Event management: You can use Alexa for Business to book meeting rooms or find out who has booked certain office spaces. You can also ask when the next meeting in a particular room is scheduled and extend the time you’ve booked in a conference room if it’s free. This is beneficial for keeping real-time tabs on which meeting spaces are available. It also enables instant cancellation of a booking, freeing up that area for other workers to occupy.
3. Website monitoring: Alexa can be programmed to monitor your business’s websites, ensuring they remain live and flagging any outages or downtime. The Vigil application will distribute push notifications if a site goes down, enabling a swift response to get it back online. From lost productivity to missed inquiries, even a temporary outage can cause significant brand damage and data loss, but Alexa’s instant detection minimizes the consequences of any dropout.
4. Invoice assistance: As a repetitive and often predictable task, automating invoicing via Alexa can streamline financial affairs. For instance, Alexa can be set up to provide reminders about end-of-month invoicing or to pursue an outstanding debt at a particular point. The Accounts Receivable Factoring skill calculates invoice totals and the rate of factoring. If finance responsibilities represent a significant part of staff workloads, assistance may be welcomed.
5. Device management: Alexa for Business can help create a single unified dashboard to manage employees’ individual work devices from one central hub. Managers can use this device tracking to monitor efficiency and employee workloads. This can also be useful for identifying unusual worker behavior that could be a sign of a security incident.
6. Email assistance: Employees can use Alexa integration to manage and organize their email inboxes. Third-party software can enable Alexa to work with Gmail or Microsoft Outlook to allow for reading and replying to emails.
7. Virtual meeting assistance: As mentioned above, Alexa for Business can integrate with many leading virtual meeting platforms, such as Zoom, Skype and Cisco Webex. Alexa can help create, schedule and join meetings through these platforms. Additionally, for hybrid meetings, Alexa can control equipment in a conference room that integrates with virtual meeting software for remote employees. [Check out our detailed review of Zoom.]
8. IT alerts: Employees can also use Alexa for Business to report IT incidents and create tickets, such as for unresponsive conference room equipment or issues with personal devices. 

Alexa for Business case studies

Alexa for Business has numerous real-life applications across a range of businesses. The following case studies are examples of ways actual companies have used Alexa for Business skills successfully.

Alexa for Business office assistant

Harsha Reddy, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Small Biz Genius, was considering hiring an office assistant who could help with meetings and keeping loose ends in order. Instead, the company opted for Alexa for Business to handle some of those tasks.

“We are mainly using Alexa for checking into meetings and taking care of schedules as well as checking in on various processes’ progress,” Reddy said. “We had her connected to our company Google Calendar and our individual working calendars.”

Alexa for Business scheduling and device management

As the CEO and owner of Ecopreneurist, Ollie Smith has seen the value of Alexa for Business for scheduling and device management. 

“In my experience, the service has enabled my employees to become much more productive through the automated management of schedules, reminder alerts and the option to dial into team conference calls remotely,” Smith said. “In addition, the intuitive system allows my managers to monitor individual device usage from the central dashboard, saving valuable time in the process.”

Alexa for Business digital assistant

David Alexander, owner of Mazepress, said he’s used Alexa in his office for several years and found it beneficial. He found that the digital assistant can speed up your workflow if you use the right skills.

“Using Alexa as a digital virtual assistant can definitely save you time in the office, but it largely depends on the type of recurring tasks you can automate and this differs from person to person,” Alexander said. “I do expect to see more enterprise suites and features become available over the next year or two that will broaden the possibilities of Alexa.”

How to create your own Alexa skills

While the above skills and uses are suitable for most businesses and industries, Alexa for Business comes into its own when you create skills that are specific to how your company runs. Alexa’s prebuilt skills may be beneficial, but many organizations want skills tailored to their particular needs.

Some companies may turn to coding experts and developers for this (or use Alexa Skill Kit), but Amazon has made the process of creating your own skills relatively simple. Using its Skill Blueprints, people without coding skills can create private skills to be used exclusively by their organization and employees.

According to Amazon, Alexa private skills are voice-powered capabilities that enhance the Alexa experience while remaining private to members of an Alexa for Business organization.

“With Alexa for Business Blueprints, you don’t need to write a single line of code to create a private skill for your workplace,” Amazon said. “Select one of dozens of easy-to-use Skill Blueprints, add information, such as common questions and answers for your workplace and publish the skill to Alexa for Business as a private skill.”

There are two main types of business skills you can create without knowing any code: Q&As and onboarding guides.

Q&A skills

Q&A skills allow you to create and answer questions your employees may ask, such as “Who handles our social media?” or “When is the help desk available?” When programmed correctly, Alexa will respond to these questions with the right answer.

To create this using Blueprints, an Alexa account administrator logs in to the Amazon developer portal, selects the “Business Q&A” blueprint and types out a specific question alongside variations of the same query string in case someone doesn’t ask it exactly as it’s written. The answers provided can be customized with welcome and ending messages. Once this private skill is named and published, it can be used only by enrolled users within your organization.

Onboarding guide skills

Onboarding guides for new employees are vital to avoid the consequences of poor onboarding. Instead of providing new hires with a printed handbook or a link to a website, the Alexa for Business onboarding guide skill allows them to ask Alexa questions they may have.

Using the “Onboard Guide” blueprint, you can create questions like “Alexa, how do I set up my email on my phone?” or “Alexa, how do I mail a package?” Questions and answers could include information on the location of the cafeteria or copy room or contact info for different departments and employees.

For the onboarding guide, include all the questions you want to answer and then type out the steps involved in completing each question. Once this private skill is published, you can decide whether you want each enrolled user to have access to it from any device.

Using Alexa for Business securely and safely

While Alexa for Business can help boost business productivity and ease some of your organization’s administrative burdens, you should be mindful of what company-wide information you’re including in your skills. Given Amazon’s admission that some Alexa conversations are listened in on by Amazon employees, you should avoid including sensitive information in your skills.

Unfortunately, eavesdropping from Amazon workers isn’t the only risk.

“The truth is, a malicious threat could also figure out how to hack into Alexa,” said Will Ellis, IT security consultant and owner of Privacy Australia. “Most hackers won’t care what you talk about at home, but you can bet that some will care about what is going on in a business setting.”

Businesses using Alexa for Business should be aware of cybersecurity risks and follow these best practices:

• Always use strong passwords for the networks hosting your Alexa devices and the Amazon accounts linked to the devices.
• Turn on multifactor authentication for the Amazon accounts linked to the Alexa devices; this prevents someone from accessing your account even if they compromise your Amazon password.
• If you’re hosting a confidential meeting, turn off the microphone for any Alexa devices in the room.

For more advice, see our guide to preventing network security threats and vulnerabilities through unified threat management.

Alternatives to Alexa for Business

Alexa for Business is a fully functioning platform that offers a range of useful business features from a well-known, trusted brand. However, Alexa for Business is not the only option in the virtual assistant space. Businesses should also consider the following alternatives.

Cisco Webex Assistant 

Businesses that rely on the Cisco technology suite may find significant value in deploying Cisco Webex Assistant instead of Alexa for Business. This technology integrates with Cisco’s range of collaboration tools, allowing for various capabilities like voice-activated meeting scheduling, automated action items and meeting note-taking.   

Unlike Alexa, however, Cisco Webex Assistant doesn’t come in a range of smart speakers. This assistant is also solely designed for use with the Cisco product suite. As such, Webex Assistant does not have integrations with various other tools or software your organization may use. 

Microsoft Cortana for Business

Microsoft Cortana is an AI-enabled chatbot. It’s significantly limited compared to AI assistants from other technology companies and Microsoft retired Cortana from most products in late 2023. However, Cortana is still available and fully integrated with Office 365. For businesses heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, Cortana could help schedule meetings, send emails and search for documents.

Like Webex Assistant, however, Cortana does not have a smart speaker line. Cortana is also lacking heavily in third-party support and integrations. However, if your company’s main software suite is Office 365, Cortana may bring the type of versatility and technology-assisted help your business needs.    

Google Assistant

Google Assistant is similar to Alexa in that Google offers dedicated speaker hardware. Businesses can also use Google Assistant to perform similar tasks as Alexa, such as scheduling or canceling meetings in Google Calendar, reading or responding to emails, setting up alerts, creating to-do lists, creating conference calls and more. As one would expect, Google Assistant integrates with the entire Google Workspace suite.

Google Assistant is heavily aimed at users of the Google Workspace ecosystem. While Google Assistant can work with other applications, it doesn’t have the same sort of overall versatility that Alexa for Business does. For businesses reliant on Google Workspace, that may be fine, but those using a range of tools from different providers may prefer Alexa’s flexibility. 

Maximizing Alexa for Business skills

Among the most appealing aspects of Alexa for Business is the ability to combine the device’s prebuilt skills with ones you create yourself — without any special programming, coding or costs. That means you can create a custom virtual assistance solution to help your organization with any number of tasks. To get the most out of it, see which Blueprints may be valuable for your company, even if they aren’t classified by Amazon as a business skill.

While multiple tech companies offer their own conversational AI tools and assistants that can improve efficiency, Alexa’s strength lies in its wide range of applications. But as with any other software, businesses should also be careful of security concerns related to Alexa. However, with careful deployments and security monitoring, organizations should be able to feel confident about using Alexa for Business safely. 

Jeremy Bender and Neil Cumins contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.