For Alexa skills, a welcome message/prompt is delivered when a customer invokes a skill without a request. This prompt reinforces to the customer that they are in a skill experience, and that they correctly invoked the desired skill. In some cases, customers may not realize that they’ve invoked a skill at all, so a generic welcome prompt that just contains a question like “What would you like to do?” could cause confusion. The prompt should provide the user more information and reinforce that they are reaching your skill, and provide the main utterance they can say to start using the skill.
A first time welcome message introduces the customer to the skill and provides a few commands the customer can use in that skill.
Good Example
Customer: Alexa, open Space Facts.
Alexa: Welcome to the Space Facts skill. You can ask for ‘help’ any time for assistance. This skill gives you the facts at random. You can say ‘Ask space facts for a fact’. What would you like to do?
Bad Example
Customer: Alexa, open Space Facts.
Alexa: What would you like to do?
A return welcome message greets the customer and prompts for a widely used task or required piece of information to continue the conversation.
Good Example
Customer: Alexa, open Space Facts.
Alexa: Welcome back to the Space Facts skill. It’s good to see you again. Would you like to continue?
Bad Example
Customer: Alexa, open Space Facts
Alexa: Would you like to continue?
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