Marketing automation boosts customer retention, says WebEngage

An influential SaaS entrepreneur, Singh cofounded WebEngage with Ankit Utreja and was featured in Mashable’s ‘Top 10 Emerging Startups from India’.

Customer retention has always been a business imperative and has become a niche in itself, pursued by those who seek to retain customers through life-cycle engagement,” said Avlesh Singh, CEO and Co-Founder of WebEngage, a full-stack service provider specialising in customer retention, engagement, and automation.

An influential SaaS entrepreneur, Singh cofounded WebEngage with Ankit Utreja in 2011 and was featured in Mashable’s ‘Top 10 Emerging Startups from India’.

Retention-driven MarTech is empowering businesses in Middle Eastern

Earlier this year, eXtra, Saudi Arabia’s fastest-growing retail brand, announced 33 per cent increase in purchases through localised user engagement campaigns. Egypt’s Gourmet, another retailer, announced 20 per cent increase in customer retention. Both the brands had adopted WebEngage’s full-stack Retention Operating System, which harnesses data to enable hyper-personalised marketing. The results have also powered WebEngage’s growth, profitability, and greenfield expansion in recent months.

“We recently ventured into South Africa and Nigeria, scaling our regional presence beyond our existing operations in the UAE, KSA, Egypt, Kuwait, and Qatar. We did so because of our increasing outreach, underpinned by the quantifiable value we were able to unlock for our existing clients like eXtra and Gourmet. We also have government projects in Saudi and UAE — which reflects the sector-wide necessity and relevance of Retention Marketing,” Singh explained.

Digitalisation of marketing is an ongoing process, with many CMOs and CXOs still operating with obsolete technologies and associated practices. Soon, with increasing digital consumerism, brands that do not empower their marketing teams with novel technologies run the risk of customer disengagement and churn. “Marketing automation is rewriting the rules of retention. So, if you are a brand that believes in retention-led growth, technology adoption should be your first order of business,” said Singh.

Banking and monetary institutions are geared towards optimising customer journeys and retaining them through personalised communications around investment and financial services. A Martech stack will also automate tedious, manual operations that hinder efficient service delivery. And with post-pandemic recovery in full swing in the Middle East, previously disrupted sectors like retail and tourism will revisit their customer engagement strategies, this time with new tools of the trade.

Businesses are now more compelled to create a tech-enabled culture rather than just be tech-supported. As a result, AI-based personalisation is becoming commonplace, from livestream-video commerce to WhatsApp marketing. — business@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai