Artificial intelligence (AI) has made significant inroads into the world of marketing. This sector is one of the most eager adopters of the new technology that emerged from ChatGPT. AI offers numerous benefits to marketing departments, particularly in improving customer understanding.
According to Twilio's "2024 State of Customer Engagement Report", 74% of companies plan to use AI for customer analysis. In addition, 58% intend to integrate it into their CRM platforms and 53% plan to use it in customer surveys. Twilio, which provides software solutions that help companies communicate more effectively with their customers, offers AI tools that support this goal.
Sam Richardson, a customer engagement consultant at Twilio, highlights several benefits that the technology can bring to marketing: "AI also enables the automation of repetitive and routine tasks, allowing the team to spend more time on strategic and high-value tasks. It enables real-time data analysis and accurate predictions based on historical data patterns, which helps companies make more informed decisions and anticipate future trends. This can lead to greater operational efficiency and better strategic planning."
The experts agree on this. AI frees up resources so that they can be used for higher-value tasks. This is also the view of Jorge Pinilla, lecturer at the CEI (Center for Innovation Studies) and consultant for digital marketing and advertising at the Ebualá agency: "It enables the automation of repetitive tasks, such as scheduling posts on social media and managing email campaigns. This frees up time for professionals to focus on more creative strategies."
This partial automation allows for a more targeted approach when targeting customers or users. For Pinilla, one of the biggest benefits of AI is "the rapid ingestion and interpretation of data, providing valuable insights in real time and facilitating informed decision-making." Naturally, this enables a company to better understand its customers.
"AI is a fundamental tool to gather all kinds of information and combine it into a profile that allows companies to be closer to their customers, remove friction points and solve their problems proactively and efficiently," explains Richardson. "It's important to remember that the first step to customer satisfaction is knowing exactly what your customers' needs and interests are."
It's not always easy to understand customers accurately. Twilio points out that 81% of brands claim to know their customers well, but only 46% of customers agree. This disparity in opinion suggests that one or both parties could be wrong.
AI is a useful tool for gaining knowledge about customers' interests and needs in this context of uncertainty. "AI is a faster and more accurate source of information than Google search, providing specific answers and recommendations without the need for lengthy searches. These efficiency gains are changing marketing and making our processes more agile and effective," comments Pinilla.
AI not only changes day-to-day processes, but also facilitates research into the customer experience. Measuring this parameter is crucial to understanding satisfaction with a brand. "AI allows companies to analyze behavioral patterns, collect and analyze customer feedback to identify areas for improvement, predict future needs and even improve customer service by routing different requests to the most appropriate agent for a faster and more effective resolution," explains Richardson.
Personalization of content
Ultimately, the aim is to increase customer satisfaction, which is twofold. One is to secure their loyalty and, where possible, increase their relationship with the brand in a way that impacts sales. This, according to the Customer Engagement Consultant at Twilio, is achieved through targeted product recommendations and marketing content.
"Perfecting personalization improves business results, as 55% of consumers are willing to spend more for a personalized experience," adds Richardson, highlighting the potential of AI in this area.
The CEI lecturer uses an example to illustrate how this technology speeds up tasks and personalizes content at the same time. "My AI assistants know my content marketing editorial line perfectly thanks to the information they've learned from my company," he says of the publications he shares with his audience. I no longer have to explain how I should react or what is interesting for my audience. I just ask for what I need and then check it out."
No one doubts the benefit of creating specific content for a customer. The Twilio report points out that 48% of consumers say they have repeated a purchase with a company because of the level of personalization. This has always been more costly than mass production, but today AI provides tools to streamline this task.
Twilio provides examples of how some of its customers personalize content. "Shopify uses Twilio Segment to collect and analyze customer behavior data in real time," Richardson explains. This allows them to create detailed, segmented profiles that enable highly personalized marketing campaigns that increase customer conversion and retention."
Another example is Marks & Spencer, which uses chatbots and virtual assistants to provide personalized customer service. These bots, which are equipped with natural language processing technology, can handle common queries and automated tasks, allowing human staff to deal with more complex issues. The result, says Richardson, is an improved customer experience.
"Companies can send highly personalized messages based on individual customer behavior and preferences," Richardson says. And the impact of generative AI is just beginning to be felt.
