As a business, you should constantly be thinking about how you can create connected customers.
However, until recently, business owners have struggled to find simple, easy solutions that help create, manage, and measure product ownership experiences. Without this kind of interaction, business owners miss out on opportunities to meaningfully engage with their customers post-sale and build trust that turns a first-time buyer into a lifelong champion.
That’s why Blustream created Product Ownership AI™.
Ken Rapp, CEO and Founder of Blustream, recently joined Subscription Insider for a webinar where he discussed how companies can leverage product ownership AI to boost customer retention and create connected customers. Product Ownership AI™ is an intelligent, adaptive messaging platform that sends personalized, automated SMS messages to product owners at exactly the right time, building meaningful, lifetime connections with customers.
Giving Products a Voice
What would it be like if all products could directly ask questions or talk to customers post-sale?
Thanks to the power of generative AI, businesses now have the opportunity to “speak” to customers throughout the entire lifecycle of their product ownership, through personalized SMS content that delivers useful, relevant, and timely information to customers on product unboxing, ongoing usage, and care.
To give you a better understanding of what this messaging could look like, let’s check out a few examples.
During unboxing, a customer could receive personalized digital setup instructions, starting with a text message like “Hey! Have you ever used this product before?”
To help customers get the most out of their product post-sale, SMS messaging could also be triggered periodically, to optimize unique usage cases. Think: the purchaser of a new fish tank could receive weekly SMS tank cleaning reminders.
Finally, SMS messaging can also be triggered for ongoing product care, through maintenance guides enabled by Zero-Party data.
In short? Personalized SMS messaging post-sale offers customers valuable guidance and support while simultaneously cementing your brand’s reputation as a trusted, dependable resource. With AI-powered SMS messaging, it has become easier than ever to create connected customers.
Understanding the Nuts and Bolts of Product Ownership Technology
Currently, there are several AI and SMS-related technologies available to optimize product ownership lifecycles, particularly for unboxing, usage, and care:
- Generative AI can digitize product ownership journey experiences.
- Natural Language Processing (NLP) can understand product owner responses and recommend the right next touchpoints.
- Machine Learning (ML) leverages data analytics for recommended actions.
- Large Language Models can create automated product conversations.
Blustream utilizes the many capabilities of AI to power our Product Ownership AI™, which serves as an open channel for customers to provide information that personalizes their experiences while allowing businesses to collect data that drives thoughtful marketing campaigns and creates more dynamic product ownership experiences that lead to retention and increased revenue.
How Can AI and SMS Power Connected Customers?
Thanks to AI and SMS messaging, businesses can now connect to the lifecycle of a product, through the lives of customers and zero-party data provided through an ongoing connection.
With personalized, interactive SMS messaging like interactive dialogues or usage triggers sent at key moments in product ownership journeys, businesses can deliver informative product usagetips and hints, answer FAQs, offer solutions to common problems, send out relevant reminders, and ensure customers succeed with their new purchase.
For example, a new puppy owner could receive a message like “Your dog already mastered the puzzle toy? What a smart boy! Here are some tricks to add some complexity to the toy.” Or, after purchasing a new harness, the new puppy owner could find value in a message with a video tutorial on how to adjust the new harness for a perfect fit.
For customers, this kind of personalized messaging creates a more useful, rewarding, and connected product ownership journey that’s also likely to inspire feelings of brand loyalty and trust.
Step-By-Step Approach to Utilizing AI and SMS in Your Products
Ready to start creating connected customers but not sure where to start? Incorporating AI-powered SMS messaging is simple.
First, think about what you'd like to say to customers in their first moments with your product. Decide what questions you have and what guidance you can offer.
Next, sign up subscribers. To best maximize your opt-ins be sure to include options in as many locations as possible, create enthusiasm around the opt-in (i.e. automatic entry into a VIP club), or offer giveaways, rewards, or incentivizes.
Now, it’s time to personalize a customer’s individual experience with AI, and build a rich profile through SMS messaging that engages the buyer and helps you, the business owner, craft a highly relevant, useful product ownership journey.
Let’s say you're a pet supply business owner. To deliver the best, most useful product ownership journey for your newest customer, a recent puppy adopter, you would want to leverage SMS and AI in order to:
- Seamlessly learn baseline information: Get the key facts and basic information on your customers like their puppy’s age, owner experience, if the owner is a smart collar user, dog food preferences, etc. so you can deliver tailored SMS messaging down the line.
- Easily capture and analyze customer responses: The customer responses to prompts or questions on their puppy’s diet, exercise, socialization, and behavior can help you craft relevant messaging that helps the owner.
- Automate personalized interactions: Armed with basic information on your customer and their puppy, it’s time to start sending out meaningful, personalized messaging that adds value to your customer’s life, like “Time for puppy classes! Here’s one near you.”
By gaining information on your customer through AI-powered SMS messaging campaigns, you can provide useful, helpful information to your customer at exactly the right time, while simultaneously building trust with your brand. For businesses and consumers alike, that’s a true win-win.
Recognizing the Financial Impact of Creating Connected Customers
Today’s consumers are more connected to their products than ever before, which is why personalized SMS messaging tools, like Blustream’s Product Ownership AI™, are critical to building loyalty and retention of connected customers.
By delivering a personalized product ownership journey via SMS messaging, businesses can build trust and engagement with their customers through product ownership journeys that deliver informative, timely unboxing tips, usage and care help, maintenance, and answers to FAQs.
With SMS messaging through Product Ownership AI™, you can set each of your clients up for success. That’s why businesses that incorporated personalized messaging with Product Ownership AI™ have achieved:
- 30% churn reduction
- 90%+ retained - active community
- 65%+ engagement
- 2x+ lifetime value
- 30%+ higher revenues
By connecting with your customers on a more emotional level, and building trust through the delivery of useful, personalized information, your business can become a trusted resource for your customer, throughout the duration of a product’s life cycle - and beyond, with future purchases.
Get Started with Blustream
Ready to see how Blustream’s Product Ownership AI™ could help you establish connected customers?
Watch the full webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjcn83hrMEM