How to use automation and machine learning to put your customers first

Customer expectations have changed. Automation and machine learning can help your brand keep up.

With the rise of personalisation, consumer expectations have evolved. According to research by McKinsey, 72% of consumers expect businesses to recognise them as individuals and know their interests. This recognition comes with significant rewards for brands – 78% of survey respondents say personalised communications made them more likely to repurchase.

To achieve the level of personalised communications that consumers expect, brands need to harness the power of automation and machine learning.

Simone Blakers, ADMA instructor and founder of Liquid CX, says personalisation is a powerful tool that allows brands to give customers a positive experience and make them feel special.

“Customers want to see that a business understands them, can meet them where they are, remembers them and is able to offer something just for them,” she explains.

“You can use AI and machine learning to predict whether they’re going to stay and grow as a customer, or whether they’re going to leave. Then you can use automation to intervene at the right moment to spark that growth or change the path of customers before they go.” According to Avlesh Singh, co-founder and chief executive officer of WebEngage, customer retention holds the key to unlocking business growth in 2023. Automation and machine learning have a significant role to play in effective customer retention through tailored loyalty programs, cross selling, personalised recommendations and individualised communication with customers.

“The ability to balance customer and commercial outcomes is a really key focus with personalisation and automation programs. And machine learning can be a big help for businesses that want to create personalised recommendations for customers and automate their marketing processes,” says Simone.

Putting people at the centre of automation

Increasing marketing effectiveness by using your customer data is not a new concept, but as the amount of data we have increases, so does the need for automation tools and platforms. According to Sophie Crisp, Head of Digital at N3 Hub, automation can better help businesses deal with the sheer volume of customer data that needs to be analysed.

Marketing automation also benefits marketers by enabling them to streamline routine tasks, improve data analysis to better understand their customers and assist with omnichannel marketing to create consistent experiences.

To tap into the full potential of all these benefits, Simone highlights the importance of human oversight and intervention in marketing automation – cautioning marketers against taking a hands-off approach.

“Sometimes I hear this idea of set and forget, but in reality, it’s run, review, revise. You must continually optimise, which a machine can’t do alone,” she says. “The role of a machine is to test and help you find something that works. But marketers still need to have a clear, strategic understanding of the value that’s being provided.”

Measurement also plays an important role in the revising and optimising stage of the process. As Simone says, “if you’ve got always-on programs, you need to measure things so you can optimise them on the go.”

Using machine learning and AI to connect with customers

Where before we used AI predominantly to understand data and numbers, now natural language processing lets us use AI to have personalised conversations on a wider scale. This may be in the form of chatbots for customer support, the creation of dynamic, personalised content in emails and individualised product recommendations.

But as with automation, Simone emphasises the need for marketers to oversee AI and provide machine learning platforms with guardrails.

“Regular oversight is necessary to ensure AI platforms are making balanced, informed decisions which are in line with the needs of the business as well as customers,” she says.

Ready to tap into the power of personalisation and automation for your brand?

Even when you understand the importance of technology in customer-centric marketing, it can be hard to know where to start. From planning to execution, creating timely, personalised experiences for your customers requires an integrated and strategic approach. Register for ADMA’s new Unlocking Personalisation and Automation course to learn how to develop personalised and automated experiences for your customers.

During this two-day online course, Simone will teach you how to identify the relevant data to use to personalise an experience, create automation sequences and use machine learning and AI to make strategic decisions.

Register for our next course starting soon.

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