Mumbai: Retention is no longer just about the last phase of the customer journey anymore. In a traditional organisation such as a bank, retention would only come into question when the customer would close their account. But in the digital natvive business model, where the customer goes through five phases starting from acquisition followed by activation, retention, referral and revenue, retention is relevant through the latter four phases. At the Content-Tech, Ad-Tech, Mar-Tech and More (CAMM) Summit and Exhibition 2022 organised by IndianTelevision.com co-powered by PubMatic and industry partner Adjust, experts from agency, SaaS startup, marketing deep dived into a conversation on ‘Decoding User Experience and Retention.’
The session was led by Kinnect senior vice president marketing science and CX Bharatesh Salian who was joined by Zenith senior vice president Jasmine Sachdeva, Fast&Up vice president marketing Venkat Erpina and CleverTap senior vice president marketing Jayant Kshirsagar.
The last two years of the pandemic have changed the conversation around user experience and retention. Marketers’ decisions are more guided by data as customers. “Earlier, when the consumer was on digital or offline, we were guessing what they wanted,” said Zenith’s Jasmine Sachdeva. “We leveraged static data such as the Indian Readership Survey to understand who the customer is and where the probability is of finding them. Today, tools like AI and machine learning are supporting us to be able to predict customers’ future behaviour and connect with them. We’ve moved from guessing to predictive customer journeys.”
Fast&Up’s Venkat Erpina spoke about using purchase data to better understand the customer’s preferences. “Two years back, we entered the sports nutrition category with our product. If you have a strong retail customer base then it is easier to leverage them for future growth. So, we focused on customer satisfaction in terms of delivery time, packaging communication in various instances of product delivery and product quality. Then we segmented our customers into various cohorts. If a customer falls into a relevant cohort for a new product then we reach out to them and acquire new consumers,” he said.
The panellist suggested that there is a limit to how much you can nudge a customer towards a new product. The idea is to give customers value over selling them more products to drive retention. SaaS startups such as Clevertap are leveraging first party data to help brands create a seamless customer experience and purchase journey.
“All our customers are B2C companies with a digital native business model,” said Clevertap’s Jayant Kshirsagar. “Almost all of them have created a unique experience for their customers. Now they are focusing on creating value through experience.”
“They are refraining from spamming the customer instead they are personalising. Clevertap has created a platform where we use data, analytics and recommendations. Retention is important in terms of safeguarding the consumer base as every five per cent increase in retention helps operating margins by 40-70 per cent. The cost of acquiring a customer is far higher than the cost of retaining a customer. Offering experience plus value using technology is the key to retaining customers,” he added.
