AI in Customer Engagement: Marketers Now Use GPT Models for Impactful Outcomes

CleverTap, the all-in-one engagement platform, today released its market research report on “The AI Edge in Customer Engagement”. The report sheds light on how AI is the next frontier in the customer engagement domain and how brands can implement AI for the right use cases and gain maturity in AI adoption to drive a boost in conversion and growth in business value.

Here are the key findings distilled from the report on AI in customer engagement.

#1 AI Delivers Faster GTM Results with Impactful Outcomes

Marketers use AI for customer engagement to deliver faster and more impactful go-to-market results. According to CleverTap, AI’s integrations with customer engagement bore 43% increase in conversions an 64% quicker time to value. Marketers are using popular GPT tools to accelerate content generation for a wide range of campaigns across digital platforms. In the report, CleverTap highlighted 54% of marketers use AI for generating content faster, at par with rolling out campaigns faster. AI also assisted marketers in creating  more personalized and engaging content. Producing content with AI for customer engagement enabled marketing teams to experiment with different types of formats, as well as utilize sentiment analytics to improve conversation online.

This is what the report found out for content creators and marketers in the customer engagement domain:

• 54% respondents achieved faster content generation and campaign rollout with AI
• 82% of respondents have experienced increased operational efficiency with AI by streamlining workflows and automating content generation
• 64% of respondents have used AI to build personalized experiences and content resonating with individual preferences at scale with real-time experimentation for optimal engagement
• 39% of respondents leveraged AI for automated decision-making and taking more informed decisions by analyzing large volumes of data, predicting outcomes and strategizing for the next best action

#2 Three-tier Classification of AI for Customer Engagement

CleverTap researchers classified all of AI-driven use cases within an organization into three categories or tiers. Three categories mentioned in the report are:

Level 1: Operational Optimizers: Focusing on AI’s role in improving the efficiency and resource optimization in marketing operations, such as content generation;

Level 2: Personalization and Experimentation Architects: Using AI to enhance customer engagement by scaling personalization efforts in real-time;

Level 3: Strategic Innovators: Advancing new-age AI innovations for automation, workflow makeover, and strategic data-driven decision-making.

CleverTap assessed the impact of adoption of Clever.AI, CleverTap’s AI engine in brands by classifying these into three levels based on their AI-driven use cases in customer engagement.

At all levels, AI tools for customer engagement provide a faster, streamlined, and optimized path to value and resource-saving. Moreover, AI for customer engagement campaigns recorded significant increase in conversion rates with niche user groups who consumed emotionally intelligent content generated using personalized automation workflows.

The official press note also highlighted how the adoption of AI by teams within a brand influenced outcomes for customer engagement teams.

• 71.4% of respondents highlight that AI capabilities are most extensively utilized by content teams, underscoring the pivotal role AI plays in content generation
• Followed by growth marketing teams at 57.1% indicating a robust application of AI in strategizing and expanding marketing efforts. Central marketing and product teams also integrate AI into their operations, although to a lesser extent

#3 Conversion, Conversion, and…. CONVERSION

CleverTap found that brands could miss out significantly due to inefficient AI adoption. It states brands lose out on 4x higher conversions and measurable business value due to poor AI usage. 

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The report clearly states and projects the direct correlation between AI-driven use cases for customer engagement and conversion rates. Marketing teams that adopted AI capabilities as a business value across the three levels saw a substantial increase in conversion rates. Broadened scope of AI for customer engagement resulted in 50% increase in conversion rate. Compared to AI users who embraced the technology up to level 1 could only see 10% increase in conversion rates; and, 30.5% increase at level 2 application.

The research study serves as a guide for brands navigating the implementation of AI. Brands at the initial stages of AI adoption should aim to progress towards more advanced levels. This will involve brands needing to shift from using AI for operational efficiency to leveraging it for personalization, experimentation, and ultimately, strategic planning and decision-making.

The research study categorizes brands based on the value they have realized through three distinct levels of AI adoption. These classifications are determined by their use of Clever.AI’s capabilities in driving operational efficiency, enhancing personalization and experimentation at scale, and automating decision-making.

• In Level 1, 89% respondents observed operational efficiency as the primary benefit when utilizing Clever.AI’s capabilities
• In Level 2, 90% of respondents observed scalability of personalization and experimentation as their top gain from Clever.AI’s capabilities
• In Level 3, around 67% of participants in this category selected AI-automated decision making as their foremost benefit from integrating Clever.AI

Commenting on the report, Jacob Joseph, VP – Data Science, CleverTap, said, “AI is the catalyst reshaping every facet of today’s brands – from optimizing operations and enriching customer engagement to revolutionizing decision-making. The insights highlighted in our 2024 market research report offers a great strategic approach for brands at the initial stages of AI adoption should aim to progress gaining maturity and achieve significant improvements in conversion rates and business value. After all, AI in customer engagement or in a tech stack is no longer just an enhancement, but a necessity for a competitive advantage while addressing evolving customer expectations.”

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#4 Introducing the “AI Maturity Curve” in Customer Engagement

The latest report plotted the AI maturity curve by measuring the maturity of AI adoption (x-axis) and the percentage increase in conversion rates (y-axis). The graph shows how strategic innovators at L3 reported an exponential growth in business value, compared to the entities from the other two categories.

This is what CleverTap’s AI Maturity curve for customer engagement teams looks like.

Here are the five benefits of using AI for customer engagement in 2024:

#1 Turning predictive recommendations into actionable automated real-time engagements with customers

#2 Personalization at scale powered by one-to-one targeting campaigns

#3 Content optimization for cross-channel engagement and conversations that boost customer satisfaction and loyalty with brands

#4 Create unified experiences to drive 4x or more business value

#5 Increase user activations with uplift in campaign CTR and CLTV

AI for customer engagement can truly be a game-changer for brands. CMOs should include AI tools to deliver personalized, interest-based customer messaging and content for multichannel and omnichannel campaigns. With AI, experimentation and execution is fast, scalable, and accurate. Tell us about your AI for customer engagement Martech stack and we will showcase it on our publications.