Latest news with #MarTech+
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
MarTech+: The AI reality check
Dear Reader, Here's a truth we don't say out loud enough: Most marketers aren't afraid of AI, they're tired of the hype cycle. We've been promised transformation, but what we've gotten is a lot of pilots, pitch decks, and… not much RoI. This week, we get real about that. Plus, we decode the language of AI and peek into how startup marketers are quietly rewriting the playbook with what we're calling vibe coding . Let's jump in. AI Promised Growth. CMOs Got a Rut. Only 19% of AI pilots are meeting RoI expectations, finds a study by IBM. That's a brutal stat for CMOs who are being told to 'drive profitable growth' So, what's holding enterprises back? Turns out, legacy marketing models don't gel with AI unless you've built the right data foundation. IBM's Tuhina Pandey calls out the missing piece: foundational data models that drive responsible growth, not just experimental sprints. Read more Why you should care: Because AI hype is turning into CMO pressure and the only way out is by fixing what's under the hood, not just dressing up the dashboard. AI 101: A Glossary Worth Bookmarking AI's not just this year's buzzword. It's a decades-long evolution that saw contributions from people like Alan Turing and John McCarthy, and it's reshaping marketing from the inside out. This explainer distills the key milestones and terms every marketer should know, from machine learning to neural nets. Read more Why you should care: Because being fluent in AI-speak is no longer optional. It's how you stay credible in the next CMO meeting (or your next career jump). Rise of Vibe Coding: When Marketers Build Their Own Tools No support from dev teams? No problem. Startups are letting marketing teams build campaigns themselves, with no-code tools and AI assistants doing the heavy lifting. It's quick, agile, and designed to cut through legacy bottlenecks. Read more Why you should care: Because 'vibe coding' might be the biggest unlock for smaller teams to compete with giants, faster, cheaper, smarter. Stories you might have missed AI search pushing an already weakened media ecosystem to the brink Brands press enter; GEO to show up more in AI searches Instagram live streaming rules change CCI refuses probe into startup body's complaint against Google's online search ad services Amazon will offer OpenAI models to customers for the first time Over to You What's your AI implementation journey so far? Pilot stuck? Tools working? We want to hear how you are bridging the hype vs. reality gap. Tag us on LinkedIn @ETBrandEquity and let's make this a two-way street. Stay tuned for the next edition of MarTech+ newsletter rolling out every week on Wednesday. – Team ETBrandEquity
Time of India
23-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
AI Co-Pilots and Trust Stacks: The Next Chapter in Martech
Dear Reader, AI is here, but it is not here to replace you. It is here to make you sharper. That is what Salesforce India 's Arundhati Bhattacharya reminds us this week. AI can free marketers from the drudgery of repetitive work, giving them back the time to craft strategy and create experiences that truly move people. But as we dive into her perspective, it is clear: AI's edge only matters when paired with human insight. Let's dive in. AI isn't the boss, you are. Arundhati Bhattacharya, president and CEO, Salesforce India, shares why AI is only as valuable as the humans guiding it. Beyond automating grunt work, the technology's real promise is letting marketers focus on the things machines cannot replicate: creativity, empathy, and trust-building. Read the full conversation Why you should care: The marketers who thrive will be the ones who treat AI as a co-pilot, not a crutch. AdTech origins you probably didn't know. Did you realise the dawn of online ads and the birth of third-party cookies happened in the same year? This explainer traces how those early milestones formed the bedrock of today's digital ad economy and why understanding these roots matters for where adtech is headed next. Explore the glossary Why you should care: Because knowing the 'why' behind the tools in your stack helps you future-proof your strategy. CMOs are building trust stacks now. Funnels are out; trust is the new KPI. This piece argues that tomorrow's top CMOs will not just optimise tech stacks but build trust stacks, connecting data, messaging, and brand behaviour to earn belief at scale. See what a trust stack looks like Why you should care: Because trust stacks will operate parallel to the martech ecosystem, ensuring that credibility is built and maintained at every touchpoint. Stories you might have missed Catching the AI slipstream How GenAI's powering a second app boom The 'legitimate' excuse of assumed consent Perplexity's Pitch: What if your AI cloud could show its work? AI tools not for decision making: Kerala HC guidelines to district judiciary on AI usage Over to you How are you using tech to earn trust, not just traffic? Are you giving AI a seat at your table or the head of it? Tell us on LinkedIn and tag @ETBrandEquity. We will feature the smartest takes in our next edition. Stay tuned for the next edition of MarTech+ newsletter, rolling out every Wednesday. From, Team ETBrandEquity
Time of India
09-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
MarTech+ #5: The smartest loyalty programs don't lock you in, they open doors
Dear Reader, Loyalty isn't about luring customers back anymore, it's about plugging into their lives. The loyalty domain has seen a radical shift from standalone programs to ecosystem thinking . Today's consumers expect value-on-demand, not brand-specific perks. Loyalty used to be a defensive play. Lock in customers. Limit choices. But customers have flipped the script, they want brands to offer access, not fences. To help them live better, not just buy more. Welcome to this edition of MarTech+ newsletter where we explore how technology is shaping marketing and consumer behaviour . Let's dive in. Loyalty is no longer a program. It's a platform. The best loyalty programs today aren't isolated apps with limited rewards. They're connected ecosystems—built on partnerships, API integrations, and value that shows up across your everyday life. Why loyalty needs a mindset reboot. Why you should care: Because when loyalty becomes a service layer, not a sales hook, it creates real stickiness. The glossary we all needed Introducing the MarTech Glossary. Let's face it, marketing jargon is expanding faster than MarTech tools. From CDPs and LLMs to zero-party data and journey orchestration, everybody in the MarTech universe has their own language. The MarTech Glossary is our attempt to decode it all, one buzzword at a time. Explore the MarTech Glossary Why you should care: Because clear language equals faster alignment, better briefs, and stronger strategy. The modern CMO's balancing act CMOs in India to prioritise CX, tech modernisation and innovation. According to a new IBM study, Indian CMOs are feeling the heat to drive revenue but face capability gaps in AI, data use, and talent. The path forward? Bold bets on customer experience , agile tech stacks, and business model redesign. Read the full study. Why you should care: Because the modern CMO isn't just a brand custodian they're a transformation leader. Quote of the Day Stories you might have missed Google launches AI Mode in India, redefining search AI video tools get sharper, spooking creatives Eric Schmidt warns: AI may soon outsmart humanity How a Nobel Laureate taught AI to think more like us—by mimicking mistakes Google Gemini's Veo 3 video model goes live in India Over to You Is your loyalty program/strategy keeping pace with customer expectations? Are you building an ecosystem approach or still optimising for points and tiers? What's your biggest challenge in making loyalty truly feel like value? Drop your POV on LinkedIn and tag us @ETBrandEquity, we'd love to highlight your thoughts in a future issue. See you next Wednesday, - Team ETBrandEquity
Time of India
25-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
MarTech+ #3: The Broken State of Customer Service
Dear Reader, Brands in India are struggling to keep up with customer expectations. According to a study by ServiceNow, Indians spent 15 billion hours just waiting to make a service complaint or resolve an issue over the past 12 months. That's the equivalent of India collectively sitting on hold for more than 1.7 million years. But what's really broken? The Bottleneck Let's say a contact centre has 200 agents and receives 20,000 calls per day. To keep the average handling time at 10 minutes per call, they'd need to double their workforce, fast. But most brands won't do it. Cost concerns, tight margins, and scale make it nearly impossible. And yet, the demand keeps growing. India is expected to have 427 million online shoppers by 2027. Which means, more questions, more problems… and potentially, more unhappy customers. Traditional Models Showing Cracks The BPO industry in India is valued at $280 billion and employs over 3 million people. For decades, it has set the bar for what good customer service should look like. But in today's context, fragmented systems, rising expectations, and digital-first consumers, it's starting to feel outdated. And it shows. Industries like telecom, e-commerce, banking, groceries, government services and healthcare, the ones that matter most in our daily lives, are the ones most frequently called out for poor service. Two Big Shifts Are Happening Some brands are putting experience first. They're rethinking product design, logistics, and most importantly, how they serve their customers. For them, service isn't a cost centre, it's part of the brand experience. Tech is finally stepping up. Most service breakdowns stem from what experts call the 'Messy Middle', a tangle of disconnected systems and inefficient workflows. The result? Agents log into 3.4 systems on average to handle a single query. That's slow. Frustrating. And expensive. In fact, ServiceNow estimates that these inefficiencies cost India a staggering $55 billion in lost productivity each year. Enter AI. And It's Not Just Hype. 66% of Indian consumers believe Gen AI will soon outperform traditional customer service.62% say they've resolved issues through self-service.55% now trust AI-driven support like chatbots more than before. From handling basic queries to resolving tickets instantly, AI is helping brands shift from reactive to proactive support. But here's the catch: AI is only as good as the platform it runs on. Without unified data, integrated workflows, and automation, it's just another tech patch on a broken system. What the Expert Says So, in this week's edition of MarTech+ we dive into how four brands are transforming customer service operations for the better. Pepperfry's Complaint-Resolution Playbook Pepperfry handles complaints like mini projects, with strict timelines and cross-functional visibility. 'Our standard resolution cycle runs on a Day 1 to Day 5 playbook,' said Alok Varman, head of supply chain, Pepperfry. 'We do an inspection on Day 3 and resolve by Day 5, either a replacement, repair, or spare part.' As soon as a customer raises a concern, support agents ask for photographic documentation and create a visible ticket across the system. Agents are trained to follow detailed standard operating procedures but also empowered to act. 'Our team doesn't wait for approvals. They can offer loyalty points, refunds, or even initiate a replacement if it makes sense,' Varman said. 'The idea is not to argue, we acknowledge fast and close the loop faster.' At the point of delivery, Pepperfry built quality checks into the experience. Every delivery crew is required to unbox the item in front of the customer and report visible defects immediately. 'The DHL helpline is activated right then. The delivery staff hands the phone to the customer. There's no back and forth, we escalate at the doorstep,' Varman explained. If a product still passed through with a hidden flaw, the assembly technician provided a second line of defence by reporting any issues during installation. Each complaint became part of a long-term feedback loop: photographic evidence was matched with dispatch-day images, root causes were tagged, and the issue fed directly into updates for processes, supplier guidance, and quarterly training. Finally, Pepperfry flagged accounts of customers who had previously experienced issues. 'Their next order goes through additional quality checks,' Varman added. 'We want them to feel like we remembered.' This proactive, data-led approach ensured that customers were not just heard, they were quickly helped without being passed between departments or made to chase. 'At the end of the day,' said Varman, 'we're not just delivering a product, we're delivering an experience.' CaratLane's Approach to Customer Escalations CaratLane built its complaint-handling strategy on three key principles: respond instantly, resolve fully, and recover with empathy. 'In our category, if you miss an occasion, the value of the product is lost,' said Atul Sinha, COO, CaratLane. 'It's not about money, it's about the emotional moment.' At the core of this approach is CaratLane's Internal Escalations Team, a dedicated five-member unit empowered to act without delays. 'They are the only set of people other than the MD or CEO who are authorised to do whatever it takes,' Sinha said. That includes booking flights, upgrading jewellery, or dispatching replacements, without approvals or time-consuming handoffs This team exists to protect moments that matter. For instance, if an engagement ring delivery was delayed, the escalation team might offer a higher-value piece, hand-delivered within hours. 'The moment the customer realised the company was accepting its fault and doing everything it could to solve the problem, everything changed,' Sinha added. Speed is non-negotiable. CaratLane resolves escalations in an average of two hours, and its First Call Resolution rate exceeds 80%, meaning most problems are solved in the initial interaction. 'We track this metric actively. If I couldn't resolve it on the first call, I hadn't really solved the problem,' Sinha noted. Above all, Net Promoter Score (NPS) serves as a barometer for success, CaratLane maintains an NPS above 90%, reviewed monthly at the leadership level. This signals not just satisfaction but genuine customer advocacy, even in the face of last-minute issues. By combining authority with accountability, and swift action with emotional intelligence, CaratLane ensures that a service slip never becomes a brand exit. As Sinha put it, 'Customers got frustrated, but what mattered was how we showed up when something went wrong.' Eureka Forbes Taps AI to Reinvent Direct Sales at Scale Eureka Forbes partnered with SquadStack to unlock a high-performance direct sales engine, achieving a 30% uplift in AMC (Annual Maintenance Contract) conversions, improved lead connectivity, and a scalable, quality-assured outreach model. The challenge was significant: over 55 lakh leads per month, low connectivity, high agent attrition, and limited insight into customer preferences. Previous systems struggled to keep pace with fluctuating volumes and complex buyer journeys. SquadStack deployed fully-managed telecalling operations layered with AI-powered quality control and knowledge management. Agent ramp-up times dropped sharply, while connectivity jumped to 90%, up 50% from earlier baselines. Omnichannel engagement, via calls, SMS, and WhatsApp, ensured better reach and lead recovery, including for cart drop-offs. Advanced dashboards and 23-parameter AI audits enabled consistent coaching and performance improvement at scale. Eureka Forbes used these insights to not only improve agent outcomes but also to shape product and service design. Within two months, SquadStack exceeded all conversion benchmarks, creating a repeatable, data-led direct sales model for Eureka Forbes, one that combined speed, scale, and personalised customer experiences. Meesho's GenAI Voice Bot: Transforming Customer Support for Bharat Meesho reimagined its customer service for India's next 500 million shoppers by building a multilingual, GenAI-powered voice bot that now handles over 60,000 calls a day. Designed for Tier 2 and beyond, this system resolves 95% of customer queries without human intervention, dramatically improving support outcomes while reducing costs. The system integrates natural language processing (NLP), automatic speech recognition (ASR), and text-to-speech (TTS) to deliver fluent, contextual, and human-like interactions in both Hindi and English, with regional languages like Tamil, Marathi, and Bengali next in line. 'Our multilingual, GenAI-powered voice bot exemplifies our commitment to inclusive e-commerce,' said Debdoot Mukherjee, chief data scientist and head of AI, Meesho. Unlike traditional bots, Meesho's platform understands intent, handles interruptions intelligently, and adapts tone. The team is also exploring emotion recognition to tailor conversations based on user sentiment. Internally, the voice bot has freed up human agents to focus on more complex issues, cutting average handle time by 50% and per-call costs by 75%. Every conversation feeds into Meesho's analytics loop, improving everything from product design to cart abandonment flows. 'We believe Agentic AI will transform e-commerce, making it smarter, more intuitive, and deeply aligned with user needs,' Mukherjee added. With this AI-first, language-inclusive service layer, Meesho isn't just automating calls, it's making digital retail truly conversational for millions of first-time internet users. Over to You Is your customer service still stuck in the messy middle? Or have you started building AI-led experiences that actually feel human? What's working, what's breaking and what's your bold bet for CX in 2025? Tag @ETBrandEquity on LinkedIn with your take. We're listening. Stories you might have missed Automation Anywhere sees rising demand for agentic process automation in India, says COO Mini 'AI missions' sprout in states boosting adoption and innovation China on the cusp of seeing over 100 DeepSeeks, ex top official says Amazon, Microsoft use AI to generate 25% of their code The AI Illusion: Why CXOs must rethink trust in the machine About Us Each week, we unpack the technology trends shaping marketing, without the jargon. Expect sharp insights, real-world brand moves, and smart signals to help you stay ahead. If you think technology is transforming marketing and want to understand its impact at the consumer level, this newsletter is built for you. Stay tuned for the next edition of the MarTech+ newsletter, rolling out every Wednesday. - Team ETBrandEquity
Time of India
18-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
MarTech+ #2: Decoding AI shifts in search, creativity, and marketing economics
Dear Reader, AI isn't coming for your job, it's already rewiring it. From reshaping how brands show up in search to challenging the soul of creative work, AI is shifting marketing's centre of gravity. The questions marketers must now answer aren't just tactical (Should we use AI?), they're existential (What does creativity mean in an AI-first world?). In this week's MarTech+ newsletter, we're decoding three big shifts where tech isn't just a tool, it's a tension. A new kind of search. A creative conundrum. And an economic curveball. Let's make sense of it all. Is GEO the new SEO? As AI-powered search grows up, it's eating into attention - and budgets. Our feature explores how Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is nudging brands to rethink traditional SEO strategies. Read how marketers are navigating the GEO shift Why you should care: Because where your brand appears and how is no longer a matter of keywords but conversations. GEO might not replace SEO but it's definitely rewriting the rules. When AI ate my copywriter Is AI the end of creativity or its latest muse? This sharp take confronts the discomfort many marketers feel as AI takes on 'right-brain' work, from writing copy to building concepts. Read the creative conflict Why you should care: Because rejecting AI won't protect your craft but learning to dance with it might. As Sam Altman put it: AI can do 95% of marketing tasks. The remaining 5%? That's your creativity. The deflationary economics of AI Infinite content. Zero marginal cost. Welcome to the era of AI-led marketing . This piece unpacks the deflationary pressure AI places on value creation, and why marketers must double down on what can't be scaled, yet. Explore the economic shift Why you should care: Because efficiency is cheap. Attention isn't. As AI floods the field with output, the intangibles, brand, trust, emotion, will define what cuts through. Quote of the Week Resisting AI to save your job is the surest way of losing Balsara, Chairman, Madison World Over to You What's your MarTech dharam sankat? Are you building workflows around AI or still figuring out how to brief it? Tag @ETBrandEquity on LinkedIn with your take, we're listening. Stories you might have missed Adobe brings AI-image generation app to phones, adds partners 98% of Indian consumers buy more with real-time personalisation: Report Meta brings ads to WhatsApp The AI inflection point: Why every CXO must act now Reddit unveils AI-driven ad tools to help brands tap into user discussions About Us Each week, we unpack the technology trends shaping marketing, without the jargon. Expect sharp insights, real-world brand moves, and smart signals to help you stay ahead. If you think technology is transforming marketing and want to understand its impact at the consumer level, this newsletter is built for you. Stay tuned for the next edition of the MarTech+ newsletter, rolling out every Wednesday. - Team ETBrandEquity
