The consumer continues to remain the king, and in order to reach and converse with them marketers have begun to depend on technology. Furthermore, this need has led to the creation of unified customer management platforms (CXM). CXM, for what it is believed has become imperative for businesses to track, measure, and optimise marketing strategies.
The siloed approach of using disparate platforms for various aspects of customer management is gradually proving to be inadequate. Sprinklr, which provides a CXM platform to B2B and B2C businesses, believes that companies are recognising the imperative of adopting an integrated system that not only streamlines their operations but also enhances the overall customer journey.
The company’s revenue from operations rose 41.74% to Rs 812.097 crore in FY23 from Rs 572.938 crore in FY22. Moreover, the company’s net profit increased 43.49% to Rs 74.733 crore in FY23 from Rs 52.081 crore in FY22. In a conversation with BrandWagon Online, Arun Pattabhiraman, chief marketing officer, Sprinklr talks about how the company is expanding its business besides leveraging AI (artificial intelligence) in its solutions. (Edited Excerpts)
How does Sprinklr set itself apart from other martech companies and what does the company do?
In clarifying what Sprinklr does, it’s crucial to distinguish it from Customer Relationship Management (CRM)and Customer Data Platform (CDP). While these platforms focus on historical and transactional data, Sprinklr’s Customer Experience Management (CXM) platform dives into real-time external data, capturing 90% of customer interactions on social and digital channels.
Traditional CRM and CDP systems often miss the valuable data generated on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, or third-party sites like Reddit. Sprinklr’s approach involves parsing through petabytes of unstructured data from various channels, creating a unified data layer combining external and internal data. This unified platform allows customer-facing functions like sales, marketing, and customer service to work seamlessly.
From a marketing perspective, Sprinklr collaborates with social media, PR, and content marketing teams, enabling them to engage consumers across digital channels. Sales teams benefit from reaching and responding to customers on various platforms, while customer service teams can efficiently handle queries. The key is breaking internal silos within organisations to deliver a unified customer experience, a concept termed Unified Customer Experience Management by Sprinklr. This distinction is crucial for understanding how Sprinklr differs from traditional CRM and CDP systems.
What percentage of Sprinklr’s overall revenue comes from its India business?
As a public company, we don’t disclose regional revenue breakdowns. However, the majority of our revenue is derived from North America, followed by Europe and growth markets. Notably, our growth markets, including India, Middle East Africa, and APAC, represent one of our fastest-growing segments, with a growth rate of approximately 41%.
How does Sprinklr address the challenge of achieving a balance between brands’ focus on conversion and brand building in the Indian market, especially amidst competition?
For instance, for large FMCG brands dealing with multiple sub-brands and dispersed marketing teams, Sprinklr provides a solution to the challenge of maintaining a unified brand proposition. The platform offers a robust governance and administrative capability, allowing global teams, including external agencies, to work cohesively and control the brand voice across geographies. This addresses conflicts that often arise due to regional customisation.
In the realm of content marketing, Sprinklr’s AI platform tackles the issue of duplicate content production. It analyses content generated by various teams and identifies duplicates, reducing production costs. Additionally, it helps optimise content marketing operations by highlighting which content performs best in specific markets.
The third key value is in consumer insights. Sprinklr, evolving from a social media management platform, integrates social listening capabilities. This empowers consumer insights teams to understand the voice of the customer by monitoring conversations across digital and social channels. Real-time insights into consumer preferences, competitor strategies, and market changes enable brands to adapt swiftly. Sprinklr’s role in operationalising various aspects of marketing is evident, offering valuable consumer, market, competitor, and product insights.
Which sectors does Sprinklr target in India, and how does its strategy adapt to the country’s price-sensitive market compared to other regions?
Globally, we engage with 1,400 companies spanning both B2B and B2C sectors. Our key industry verticals include banking and financial services, telecom, airlines, FMCG, luxury brands, and automobiles. In India, our focus aligns with a similar portfolio, involving significant partnerships with public sector entities, exemplified by the entire government of Qatar relying on our platform. Notably, in India, we observe heightened traction in banking and financial services, evident in HDFC leveraging Sprinklr for its entire operations, including contact centre and service functions. We are also actively involved with e-commerce companies and direct-to-consumer brands. While FMCG remains a focus with multiple clients, we aim to bring innovative practices inspired by successful implementations in public sector collaborations to this sector in India. Currently, these initiatives are in the early stages of development.
In the B2B marketing space, what strategies does Sprinklr plan to implement in the next one or two years to bolster its business presence in India?
In the B2B landscape, the building of brand value and recall is paramount, especially when working with major brands. This is achieved by cultivating positive references from current customers and garnering support from influential industry analysts and influencers. Collaborations with renowned analysts like Foresters and Gartner, who feature us prominently in relevant categories, contribute to our brand credibility. Additionally, engaging with influencers for independent product reviews and thought leadership articles further enhances brand recall.
Beyond brand efforts, our strategy involves a targeted account-based approach. Specifically in the Indian market, we have identified a set of target accounts and employ a multi-channel marketing strategy, utilising digital platforms, events, webinars, and more to drive demand within those circles. The combination of building brand equity and executing a focused account-based strategy forms the core of our approach to business growth in India.
How does Sprinklr incorporate AI in marketing, particularly in the context of the growing emphasis on first-party data?
Sprinklr introduced its AI platform in 2009, making it a fundamental aspect of our business. With the advent of generative AI, we’ve embraced an open platform, allowing integration of various models like ChatGPT from OpenAI or Bard from Google. This initiative, known as Sprinklr AI Plus, offers significant productivity gains, estimating a 20- 40% boost for customer-facing teams.
In marketing and customer service, Sprinklr AI plays a crucial role in multiple use cases. It enhances productivity by generating real-time content according to guidelines, improves conversion rates through AI-powered chatbots, and optimises content marketing strategies. In customer service, AI-driven voice bots and chatbots reduce response times and handling times.
Personalisation is another key focus, with AI-based personalisation capabilities benefiting marketing teams. Overall, these AI deployments aim to significantly impact front-office teams’ efficiency and effectiveness. We’ve already collaborated with numerous brands leveraging these capabilities to enhance productivity in their front-office operations.