Customer engagement is the linchpin of success for organizations across industries, but as a marketing leader, you already understand that. 

Engaged customers are more loyal and instrumental in driving revenue growth and fostering brand advocacy. 

However, achieving and sustaining meaningful customer engagement is more about leveraging the immense power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create personalized, data-driven, and emotionally resonant experiences that captivate and retain customers.

The role of AI in customer engagement:

AI's capabilities empower you to understand your customers individually, creating hyper-personalized experiences based on data collected about their preferences, behaviors, and past interactions. 

AI-driven analytics like this process vast amounts of data in real time, providing you with valuable insights into customer behavior and trends.

On top of that, it can also directly interact with your customers through AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants that can handle routine inquiries and transactions 24/7, freeing up your team to focus on more complex and strategic tasks. 

As a marketing leader, embracing AI for customer engagement is not just a technological decision; it's a strategic imperative. The ability to harness AI's capabilities effectively can lead to a competitive edge, higher customer retention rates, increased revenue, and a more profound impact on your organization's bottom line.

Current engagement AI technologies

As a customer marketing specialist, staying at the forefront of AI technologies that support customer engagement is crucial for driving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business growth. 

Here's an overview of current AI technologies and a list of notable AI brands that cater to customer engagement:

Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

Chatbots and virtual assistants use AI, including natural language processing (NLP), to interact with customers through text or voice, providing instant support and information.

This can come in the form of:

  • Automated customer support to answer routine customer inquiries and 24/7 support even out of business hours.
  • Lead generation by engaging website visitors, collecting contact information, and qualifying leads by asking relevant questions. Executives can use this data to identify potential customers and tailor marketing strategies accordingly.
  • Delivering data that’ll be able to inform any targeted marketing messages and offers to customers based on their preferences and behaviors.
  • Administering surveys to gain insights into customer satisfaction, and identify areas for improvement.
  • Event promotion and registration for events, webinars, or conferences, as well as handling event registrations and inquiries, increasing outreach for event attendance.
  • Customer onboarding and education by guiding new customers through onboarding processes, providing product tutorials, and answering frequently asked questions.

Notable AI brands:

IBM Watson, Microsoft Azure Bot Service, Google Dialogflow, Salesforce Einstein Bot, Chatfuel

Personalization engines

Personalization engines employ AI to analyze customer data and deliver highly tailored content and product recommendations, enhancing the overall customer experience.

Notable AI brands:

Adobe Sensei, Dynamic Yield, RichRelevance, Monetate (now part of Kibo Commerce)

Predictive analytics

AI-driven predictive analytics models forecast customer behavior, such as churn risk, purchase intent, and product preferences, enabling proactive customer engagement strategies.

High-level executive customer marketers can leverage predictive analytics with AI to make informed decisions, optimize marketing strategies, and enhance customer engagement. 

This includes: 

  • Using predictive analytics to segment your customer base into groups with similar behaviors, preferences, and buying patterns. This allows for more effective customer segmentation targeting.
  • Identifying customers at risk of churning or switching to competitors. Executives can proactively engage with these customers through targeted retention campaigns, loyalty programs, or personalized offers.
  • Suggesting additional products or services that existing customers will likely purchase based on their past behavior allows you to implement cross-selling and upselling strategies.
  • Optimizing marketing campaigns by identifying the most effective channels, messaging, and timing for reaching target audiences. 

AI predictive analysis, when considering your internal processes, can also help with:

  • Price optimization: by recommending optimal pricing strategies for products or services, maximizing revenue while maintaining customer satisfaction.
  • Inventory management: by forecasting demand for products, enabling executives to optimize inventory levels, reduce carrying costs, and minimize stockouts.
  • Dynamic pricing: Implementing dynamic pricing strategies based on predictive analytics will help you to adjust prices in real time according to market conditions, demand, and competitor pricing.
  • Campaign attribution: Predictive analytics can help attribute revenue and conversions to specific marketing touchpoints along the customer journey. This allows executives to allocate marketing budgets effectively.
  • Demand forecasting: to predict future demand for products or services based on historical data, seasonality, and external factors. This helps executives optimize supply chain and inventory management.
  • Fraud detection: to detect fraudulent activities and transactions in real-time, protecting both the organization and customers from fraud-related issues.

Notable AI brands:

DataRobot, RapidMiner, Alteryx, Sisense

Sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis tools leverage NLP to monitor and analyze customer sentiment from social media, reviews, and feedback, allowing businesses to gauge customer satisfaction.

This type of analysis includes supporting things like: 

  • Competitive analysis to understand how customers perceive rival brands or products and identify opportunities to differentiate your offerings based on customer sentiment gaps and unmet needs. 
  • Crisis management by detecting early signs of negative sentiment spikes to preempt a possible crisis and develop a crisis response plan.
  • Content strategy optimization by analyzing sentiment related to content marketing efforts, such as blog posts, videos, or social media content. AI analysis can allow you to identify positive sentiment so you can replicate successful strategies. 
  • Customer feedback analysis using data collected through surveys, reviews, and customer support interactions. 
  • Brand perception tracking to benchmark sentiment against competitors to gauge where you fall compared to others in the market. 
  • Product launch insights to gauge customer excitement and reception during new product or feature launches. This analysis will inform how you adjust your marketing and communication strategies.

Notable AI brands:

Brandwatch, Lexalytics, MonkeyLearn, Clarabridge

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

NLP technologies enable machines to understand and generate human-like text or speech, facilitating more effective customer interactions.

These kinds of AI are best to offer support in the following areas:

  • Social media monitoring: Employ NLP AI to monitor social media conversations and mentions of your brand. Identify trends, sentiments, and emerging issues, enabling quick responses and reputation management.
  • Content generation: Automate content creation with NLP AI to generate product descriptions, email marketing copy, blog posts, and other marketing materials. Ensure consistent messaging and content quality.
  • Voice of the Customer (VoC) analysis: Analyze voice recordings and transcriptions of customer service interactions using NLP to extract actionable insights. Understand customer needs, pain points, and areas where support can be improved.
  • Email marketing optimization: Improve email marketing campaigns by employing NLP AI to analyze open rates, click-through rates, and customer responses. Optimize subject lines, content, and calls to action based on NLP-driven insights.
  • Multilingual customer support: Expand your global reach by using NLP AI to provide support in multiple languages. Ensure consistent and accurate communication with customers worldwide.
  • Voice Search Optimization: Optimize content and website structure for voice search, as more customers use voice-activated devices. Use NLP AI to understand and respond to voice queries effectively.
  • Data privacy and compliance: Employ NLP AI to ensure compliance with data privacy regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA. Automatically redact or handle sensitive customer information securely.

Notable AI brands:

OpenAI, GPT-3 (by OpenAI), BERT (by Google), NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit), spaCy

We asked ChatGPT how it can help with customer marketing: Is this the future?
ChatGPT has the power to revolutionize the way you engage with your customers, but it prompts the question, is ChatGPT the future of customer marketing?
Customer Marketing AllianceElla Harrison

AI-enhanced content creation

AI assists in generating and optimizing marketing content, ensuring consistent messaging, and engaging customer communications.

  • Automated content generation: Implement AI-powered tools that can automatically generate content, including blog posts, product descriptions, social media posts, and email copy. Use these tools to quickly produce high-quality content at scale, saving time and resources.
  • Personalized content: Utilize AI to create personalized content for different customer segments. AI can analyze customer data and behavior to tailor content to individual preferences and needs. Send personalized email campaigns, product recommendations, and content suggestions based on AI-driven insights.
  • Language translation and localization: Use AI translation tools to localize content for global audiences. AI can help ensure accurate and culturally appropriate translations. Reach a wider customer base by delivering content in multiple languages.
  • Content curation: Employ AI-driven content curation tools to find and organize relevant articles, videos, and news from across the web. Share curated content with your audience to position your brand as a valuable source of information and industry insights.
  • A/B testing and optimization: Test different variations of content headlines, copy, and visuals using AI-powered A/B testing tools. Optimize content based on real-time data and performance metrics to maximize engagement and conversions.
  • Visual content generation: Use AI to create visuals such as images, infographics, and videos. AI tools can generate visuals from data, automate video editing, and enhance image quality. Visual content is highly engaging and can improve customer interaction.
  • Email personalization: Implement AI to customize email subject lines, body content, and call-to-action buttons based on recipient preferences and behavior. Increase email open rates and click-through rates through personalized messaging.
  • Content summarization: AI-powered summarization tools can condense lengthy content into shorter, more digestible formats. Create concise and informative content that captures the essence of longer articles or reports.
  • Content distribution optimization: Use AI analytics to determine the best times and channels for content distribution. Ensure that your content reaches the right audience at the most opportune moments.
  • Content quality assurance: Implement AI tools for grammar and spelling checks, as well as content plagiarism detection. Ensure that all content is error-free and original, maintaining a professional brand image.
  • Content relevance scoring: Utilize AI algorithms to score and prioritize content based on its relevance to specific customer segments or marketing campaigns. Focus resources on creating content that resonates with your target audience.
  • Content SEO optimization: AI can assist in optimizing content for search engines by suggesting relevant keywords, analyzing competitors' content, and providing SEO recommendations. Improve content visibility and search engine ranking.
  • Content performance analytics: Leverage AI-powered analytics tools to gain insights into how content performs. Monitor engagement metrics, track conversions, and make data-driven adjustments to content strategies.

Notable AI brands

Copy.ai, Writesonic, ContentBot, JasperDocs

Cetiera Carmona | Five types of customer data to leverage during the growth stage of the customer journey | Customer Marketing Catch-up
In this episode of Customer Marketing Catch-up, we talk to Cetiera Carmona, Senior Manager, Customer Growth at BigCommerce, about the five types of customer data to leverage during the growth stage of the customer journey.
Customer Marketing AllianceEve Chatfield

Robotic process automation (RPA)

RPA bots automate repetitive tasks to enhance efficiency and streamline customer support processes.

  • Data integration and management: Implement AI RPA bots to automate data integration tasks by extracting, transforming, and loading (ETL) data from multiple sources. Ensure data accuracy and consistency across marketing systems and databases.
  • Lead data processing: Use AI RPA to automatically capture and process leads from various channels, such as web forms, social media, and email campaigns. Ensure timely lead routing and follow-up for improved lead conversion rates.
  • Email marketing campaigns: Automate email marketing processes, including list segmentation, personalization, and scheduling, using AI RPA. Optimize email delivery and engagement by automating A/B testing and performance tracking.
  • Customer data enrichment: Employ AI RPA to enrich customer profiles by automatically retrieving and updating data from external sources. Enhance personalization and targeting by keeping customer information up to date.
  • Content distribution: Automate the distribution of marketing content, such as blog posts, newsletters, and social media updates, using AI RPA bots. Ensure content reaches the right audience at the right time.
  • Social media management: Use AI RPA to schedule and post social media updates, respond to customer inquiries, and monitor brand mentions. Maintain an active and responsive social media presence.
  • Customer surveys and feedback analysis: Automate the creation and distribution of customer surveys through AI RPA. Use AI to analyze survey responses and customer feedback, identifying trends and actionable insights.
  • Lead scoring and qualification: Implement AI RPA bots to score and qualify leads based on predefined criteria. Prioritize high-quality leads for sales outreach and nurture others through automated marketing campaigns.
  • Customer onboarding and engagement: Use AI RPA to automate customer onboarding processes, such as account setup, welcome emails, and user guidance. Enhance engagement with automated follow-up emails and reminders.
  • Campaign attribution and ROI analysis: Use AI RPA bots to attribute marketing campaigns to revenue and conversions accurately. Calculate return on investment (ROI) for marketing initiatives.
  • Customer journey mapping: Automate the mapping of customer journeys and touchpoints using AI RPA. Identify opportunities for improved customer engagement and conversion optimization.
  • Compliance and data privacy: Use AI RPA to ensure compliance with data privacy regulations by automating data redaction, access controls, and audit trails. Mitigate legal and regulatory risks.

Notable AI brands:

UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Pega Robotic Automation

Ethical concerns in AI-powered customer engagement

Using AI for customer engagement can provide numerous benefits, such as improved efficiency and personalization. However, it also comes with several risks and challenges that organizations must navigate.

Some of the ethical concerns about AI stem from the inherent development of bias. AI systems can inherit biases depending on the training data used, which risks leading to the unfair treatment of certain customer groups. Addressing and mitigating these biases is a significant ethical concern.

To mitigate these biases, make sure to use diverse and representative training data when developing your algorithm. It’ll also do to regularly audit and monitor AI systems for bias, and be prepared to make adjustments as needed.

It’s also important to note: Customers may be uncomfortable with AI-driven decisions if they don't understand how the AI algorithms work. Transparency in AI systems is crucial to building trust so make sure to provide a brief explanation of how your AI process works so customer understand how their data may be used. 

Data Privacy and security:

For AI systems to work efficiently and accurately, they need access to vast amounts of customer data. Ensuring that this data is handled securely and in compliance with privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) can be a challenge.

Protecting customer data from unauthorized access, breaches, or cyberattacks is a constant concern when AI is involved. Some of the ways to help prevent these kinds of data breaches are to: 

  • Implement strong access controls and authentication mechanisms.
  • Encrypt sensitive data both in transit and at rest.
  • Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability assessments.
  • Educate employees about data security best practices and enforce a strict data access policy.

Consent and permissions: Remember that obtaining explicit consent and permissions from customers for AI-driven data processing is necessary to avoid privacy violations.