What is customer engagement automation?
Streamline and measure omnichannel digital marketing tasks, plus workflows, to increase operational efficiency and revenue
Time to read: 5 minutes
What is customer engagement automation?
You might be familiar with marketing automation software, but what about the workflows that automate routine marketing tasks, allowing you to scale your marketing campaigns? Or using data analysis to create new personalization strategies targeting customers, so you can focus your efforts more efficiently?
Customer engagement automation also helps businesses keep pace in the marketplace by providing various sales and support services, ultimately enabling companies to go beyond streamlining and measuring their omnichannel digital marketing output.
Why is customer engagement important?
Automated customer engagement can improve the customer experience and create an emotional connection between customers and brands. This in turn can ultimately lead to:
- Increasing brand loyalty
- Increasing revenue growth
- Increasing brand promotion among peers by customers
Customer engagement automation enables omnichannel engagement. A customer’s journey isn’t always linear, so it’s best to engage with customers using multiple channels. Omnichannel engagement allows you to anticipate all possible customer routes and suggest interactions based on their behavior.
Context is also required for accurate customer engagement. Automation not only aids in mapping the customer journey, but also helps increase conversions.
Having customer information from previous encounters can also help you better engage them in the future. If you can personalize customer engagements—making them feel uniquely personal using customer data—then customers will keep coming back.
We found that in 2023, the most successful brands are using digital customer engagement to drive growth and increase resilience in a rapidly changing landscape. Learn why 60% of brands say investing in it has improved their ability to meet changing customer needs.
Why is customer engagement important to my business?
With the looming demise of cookie-based advertising, first-party customer data is playing a larger role in customer engagement. Brands need to spend more time identifying first-party data sources, then figuring out how to access, analyze, and use all of that information.
If this sounds complicated, don’t worry. You can automate most of these processes using customer data platforms (CDPs). These tools collect and validate multi-channel data in addition to creating unified profiles based on customer data from various sources. By integrating various apps, CDPs like Twilio Segment can let you create automated workflows involving multiple tools and channels.
Customer-facing teams also need to meet increasing customer personalization expectations. Luckily, customer engagement automation lets you implement personalization at scale, so you can run marketing, support, and sales activities tailored to different customer segments or meet individual customer needs.
As third-party cookies gradually get phased out, companies should prepare for alternative methods to continue personalizing their customer’s experiences.
What does customer engagement automation mean?
Not long ago, brands had to update customer information and send communications manually. Customer engagement automation allows these tasks to be performed automatically using customer information, ultimately saving time and reducing errors.
A key use case within customer engagement is, of course, marketing. With customer engagement automation, marketers can also set campaigns to run automatically over a certain period of time so that emails, text messages, and other interactions are sent strategically. Increased efficiency has a positive impact on internal operations by allowing teams to focus on what matters: offering an outstanding experience for customers.
Customer engagement automation solutions do more than just boost productivity, however. They also enhance engagement by analyzing customers’ unique characteristics, making it easier to deliver compelling content. These tools also allow for real-time tracking and alerts using embedded code, detailing interactions like opens, clicks, page visits, form submissions, and more. Customer data and reporting tools give insight into who your customers are, as well as what types of content and communications they prefer—ideally, through a single, unified customer profile.
Customer purchases, behaviors and engagements can all be used to segment customers and inform the content presented to them. That way, every customer will receive only the most relevant information and engagements.
Personalized contact makes customers feel more connected to your brand and makes them more likely to become repeat customers. Customer engagement automation solutions help you deliver the right content to the right customers at the right time.
11 key benefits of customer engagement automation
With customer engagement automation enables, companies can enjoy a variety of benefits, from to streamlining tasks to increasing productivity.
1. Better personalization
With customer engagement automation, companies can use data to create personalized customer experiences based on their preferences, behavior, and previous interactions. For example, you can send personalized product recommendations to your customers based on their browsing history and previous purchases.
2. Enhanced efficiency
Automating customer engagement processes also increases efficiency and streamlines day-to-day operations. Businesses can focus on addressing areas needing improvement by automating routine tasks. This can also help you reduce costs by eliminating unnecessary labor.
3. Better customer experiences
Customer engagement automation can improve the customer experience by providing real-time interactions. These tools can provide 24/7 support, answer customer questions, and provide relevant information. This can also improve customer satisfaction, building brand loyalty.
4. Better insights
Automating customer engagement can also give you valuable insights into customer behavior. Tracking and analyzing customer data can help you identify patterns and trends that you can use to inform product development and marketing strategies. This can help you stay ahead of the competition and better understand your customers’ needs.
5. Better scalability
Customer engagement automation allows businesses to efficiently scale their customer engagement efforts. As your business grows, providing personalized engagement to all your customers can be cumbersome, but automated tools can help you scale your engagements without sacrificing quality. Automation allows businesses to engage their customers at scale, making it easier to maintain a large number of customer relationships.
6. More consistency
Automating your customer engagement efforts ensures that every customer interaction is consistent and standardized. Consistency builds trust and enhances your brand’s reputation.
7. More accurate targeting
Automated engagement tools can help businesses target specific customer segments based on demographics, behavior, and other factors. Targeting the right customers with the right messages can improve your return on investments (ROI) and increase sales.
8. Better data management
Automated customer engagement tools can assist businesses with collecting and managing customer data more effectively. This data can then be used to inform marketing and sales strategies, as well as improve product development and customer service.
9. More flexibility
Customer engagement automation tools can also be customized to fit your unique needs. This flexibility allows you to adapt your customer engagement strategy as your customers’ needs evolve.
10. Enhanced brand image
Automated customer engagement can help you improve your brand’s image. By providing personalized interactions, you can enhance your reputation and separate yourselves from the competition.
11. Better compliance strategies
Finally, automated customer engagement tools can help you comply with ever-changing industry regulations. By automating compliance processes, you can reduce the risk of fines and other legal issues.
Learn more about Twilio's Customer Engagement Platform
To be a leader in today’s engagement economy, businesses must place their customers at the core of every single touchpoint by providing flexible, personalized, and trusted engagement solutions. With a customer engagement platform (CEP), brands can implement a flexible software solution that helps them deliver seamless, trusted, and engaging customer experiences at scale. And by gathering insights from first-party data with a CDP, businesses are able to personalize customer communications that build lasting loyalty.
CEPs can help your business turn every interaction into a long-term relationship and reduce customer turnover. Twilio's Customer Engagement Platform, powered by Twilio Segment’s CDP, delivers on all of these attributes while also being cost-effective and easy to use.
Learn how Twilio’s Customer Engagement Platform can help executives and their companies develop a competitive ROI advantage, drive brand loyalty, and grow long-term profitability.
