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Udit Agarwal, VP and global head of marketing, Exotel, talks about the companys role in helping manage customer engagement, key trends to look for and more

by Ruchika Jha Published - Mar 28, 2023 1:16 PM | 8 min read

The marketing industry has been witnessing novel trends, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence and now ChatGPT; the industry is priming to adapt to these new changes. With AI taking centre stage, chatbots will become an important tool in the customer engagement space, says Udit Agarwal, VP and global head of marketing, Exotel.

In a conversation with exchange4media, heshares his views on the companys role in helping manage its clients customer engagement, key customer engagement trends to look for and more.

Excerpts:

What are the key customer engagement trends to look out for?

In the midst of one of the worst economic downturns in the last ten years, businesses must create engaging (or connected customer journeys) customer journeys that provide seamless and individualised experiences across all touchpoints if they are to stay one step ahead of their customers.

There are trends that can help in improving customer experience and business outcomes. One such trend is demolishing data silos of customer information.Though relatively new, this helps enterprises to be context-rich so that customer engagement by any department in the organisation is more empathetic and personalised, even as customers scale rapidly. This will help enterprises gain a more complete understanding of their customers, personalise interactions, improve efficiency, enhance data accuracy, improve collaboration and ensure better data security and compliance.

The other trend is omnichannel presence, which requires businesses to have a strong presence in multiple spaces, including physical and virtual. With advancements in telephony, AI-enabled chatbots can supplement voice-only calls in sales and marketing practices. This helps offer seamless customer interactions, and bots will become an essential part of the customer journey going forward.

Exotel believes that chatbots will become an important tool in the customer engagement space. However, we do not consider them to be a replacement for human interaction. Bots will work alongside human agents to improve customer service. The future of customer engagement is in multichannel communication, including SMS, messaging apps, voice and video. The first customer contact will be a bot, and if required, the customer can transition to human agents. This will guarantee seamless cross-channel communication between the client and the business. With the help of these trends, businesses can remain relevant and satisfy changing customer demands.

With fears of an economic recession, how are brands rechanneling their marketing strategy to stay competitive?

As the global economy braces for an impending recession, marketers are looking for ways to rethink their marketing strategies, pivot their efforts, and focus on building lasting customer connections. Given the weaker-than-expected performance in H1 FY 2022-23, Deloitte's recent report on India's economic outlook revised its growth projections for the Indian economy. According to the report, India will grow at a rate of 5.8 per cent 6.3 per cent in fiscal year 2023-24.

Businesses are facing greater pressure to maintain cost- and competitive consciousness as long as the recession threat exists. Despite these challenges, AI is emerging as a key driver of transformation in customer interactions, assisting businesses in retail, healthcare, and hospitality to improve customer experience and build stronger connections with customers. Investing in customer experience improvements can ultimately yield a positive return on investment in a digital market where customers have too many choices.

To differentiate themselves from competitors and provide more value to customers, brands need a unified approach for conducting and tracking customer engagement and gaining valuable insights into customer behaviour and preferences. Investing in enhancing the customer experience can result in a favorable return on investment in the digital marketplace. Exotel's full-stack engagement platform can help organisations build valuable customer relationships, which is the most valuable currency in today's business world.

The larger role that the customer experience is playing in marketing strategy for companies across sectors.

In recent years, the customer experience has become a critical element of marketing strategy for companies across a range of sectors. Customers now have more choices than ever before, and they are increasingly demanding high-quality experiences from the companies they interact with.

One reason for this shift is the rise of digital technologies, which have made it easier for customers to interact with companies in a variety of ways, including through websites, mobile apps and social media platforms. This has created new opportunities for companies to engage with customers and provide personalised experiences.

In today's competitive market, customers are becoming more selective in their purchasing decisions and expect brands to go beyond just delivering quality products or services. To drive growth and remain competitive, companies need to offer exceptional customer experiences that exceed customer expectations.

AI-powered tools such as chatbots, virtual assistants, and voice assistants can automate customer interactions and personalise communication at scale, allowing companies to interact with customers quickly and efficiently while providing a personalised touch. Additionally, AI-powered analytics tools can help companies collect, analyse, and utilise customer data to enhance the customer experience by tailoring their offerings, predicting customer needs, and personalising communication.

Customer engagement is an essential marketing tool. What are the pitfalls that brands should therefore avoid?

When it comes to customer engagement, 'notification fatigue' is a major issue. Customers who are already pressed for time and attention due to information overload are irritated by too many messages, emails, and pop-up notifications. However, the old adage "out of sight, out of mind" also applies here. It is critical to strike the right balance between being visible and not being intrusive.

Additionally, privacy concerns must be taken into consideration, not only in light of data protection laws but also in light of rising customer awareness and demand for open and honest business practices.

To navigate these challenges, professional expertise and guidance on how to use the latest technology and tools are essential. With the right approach, businesses can effectively engage customers while maintaining their privacy and avoiding notification fatigue.

Please share some interesting cases of brands such as Ola, Swiggy and the role that Exotel has played in helping manage their customer engagement.

Exotel is a platform that specialises in customer engagement and offers various tools to help businesses of different sizes achieve their goals. The primary objective behind the creation of Exotel was to ensure that companies don't lose customers due to ineffective communication strategies or unanswered calls/messages. By using Exotel's cloud-telephony solutions, businesses such as Swiggy, Ola and BluSmart have been able to customise their engagement with their customers, improving response times and customer satisfaction.

For instance, Exotel provided Swiggy with automated calls to restaurants, number masking to protect the privacy of customers and restaurants/delivery agents, and verification of Cash on Delivery orders to minimise the risk of fraudulent orders. Exotel also offered Ola a smart IVR solution that enabled the tracking of drivers' awareness about new features and training videos.

With BluSmart, our partnership has been instrumental in supporting the company with reliable 80 per cent - 90 per cent call connectivity rates to its riders and drivers, giving way to a significant increase in customer satisfaction. Our custom cloud-based architecture has also been able to scale BluSmarts customer engagement activities while they were experiencing a period of 25 per cent MoM growth.

Exotel aims to help businesses throughout the entire customer engagement cycle, from lead generation to sales conversion and customer retention. Its tools help companies build high brand equity and interact with their customers effectively. Overall, Exotel offers a valuable platform for businesses seeking to enhance their customer engagement efforts.

ChatGPT is the new buzzword. How do you feel it will benefit the CX solutions? How is Exotel leveraging it?

With ChatGPTs open source model and advanced language processing, it has significant potential to disrupt the customer engagement space, strengthening companies conversational AI products. The opportunities GPT and further iterations present will work towards boosting the self-service capabilities of chatbots, resulting in decreased costs for businesses over time.

However, this does not signify a complete automation of the customer engagement process. As part of the customer journey, we envision chatbots being the first point of contact between a customer and a brand, addressing common queries and raising more complex matters with human agents. The goal of these advanced improvements in AI is meant to enhance human agents workflow rather than replace them altogether. The self-service functions can be explored across a variety of use cases like ordering food from a restaurant via WhatsApp, monitoring customer sentiment, translating customer queries into the appropriate language, and giving more tailored responses to customers.

How do you envision Exotel's marketing strategies in the coming years?

Within the coming years, we are looking to further expand our full-stack suite of offerings into markets within Southeast Asia and the Middle East. So far, the full-stack platform has been rolled out in Indonesia and the UAE, and we are currently increasing local operations within those countries.

Regarding our customer base, it has been a trend that internet-first tech startups are more recipient towards incorporating cloud-based software solutions into their practices, as they tend to be early adopters of emerging technologies. However, we have noticed that more traditional sectors in emerging markets like banking, real estate and manufacturing are increasingly migrating their operations to the cloud. Our approach will be to draw more focus towards reaching out to these segments, acting as reliable partners in their journeys towards digital transformation.

The content in this section is curated by the PR and Communications team. For any feedback kindly write to karan.bhatia@exchange4media.com.

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