Vehicle Enquiry Alexa Skill from DVLA

The DVLA recently announced that they released their first Alexa skill on the Amazon store. This skill allows you to check when your vehicle tax and MOT is due, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

What is an Amazon Alexa skill?

For those who are not aware, Alexa is a cloud-based voice service which is used via Amazon’s Echo gadgets. Alexa enables you to play music, make calls, set alarms and timers, ask questions and much, much more, via voice. Alexa provides capabilities called skills which allow the user to use Alexa in a way that suits their needs, creating an overall, more personalized experience.

An Alexa skill can be anything from an ability to tell you the weather in a local city, to Alexa playing a quiz game with you and your friends. This opens up a door for organizations to create skills that allow their services to be more advanced and useful for their customers.

How does the Vehicle Enquiry skill work?

The DVLA created this skill so that their customers could tell Alexa their registration number, and hear back when the tax and MOT is due for their vehicle. This can be done using a simple voice command that Alexa will understand and respond to. These details are also stored in your Alexa app, so you can access them on-the-go.

Why is this useful?

This is an innovative and exceptionally useful tool for our tech-savvy motorists, as DVLA customers are now given an extensive choice in how they get information about their vehicles and have the capability to access it at any time.

Want to hear more about this and its recent updates? Check out the DVLA digital blog post here. Or download the Skill for your Amazon Echo here.