AI and Customer Empathy: putting the “personal” in personalisation Mike Migliore, Head of Customer ValueThe Times and The Sunday TimesNews UK

PollHow far is your organisation on its AI

journey? A.) We’re done B.) We’ve started C.) We’re planning D.) What’s AI?

2

Why AI/ML?

3

The Times and The Sunday Times

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• The Times and Sunday Times have a distinguished and respected product: quality content

• 557,000 subscribers of which 280,000 are digital (+24%).

• In the past 24 months we have delivered a 10 percentage point reduction in digital churn rates

Start outside the bill

• The first point of our customer experience is before subscription is secured - ethical and effective use of data guides all steps

• Over time we’ve built and rebuilt our CRM programmes, testing and learning, focusing on data-driven segmentation to enable effective, relevant customer marketing

6

Habit delivers the highest return

• Habit and engagement are more important than tenure in retaining premium subscribers

• Higher engagement means more value for subscribers, which in turn reduces price sensitivity and increases cross sell opportunities.

1950s: Ma and Pa’s Newsstand

News Corp

• Individualised communication is normal, cheap and easy to maintain

• Convenience and personal investment leads to repeat purchase

• Individualised communication, although possible, is not cost effective or operationally efficient for 500K subscribers

• Far more competitive market

No good deed...

• We reached the point of diminishing marginal returns on our lifecycle

• We needed a step-change: time to return to the basics

JAMES, TNL’s Digital Concierge

9

AI-Driven CRM

JAMES delivers better, individualised customer experiences, stronger growth and unprecedented levels of operational efficiency through machine learning

• More relevant for customers - right content, right time, right channel means higher engagement

• Continually learning and optimising using machine learning at an individual level - saving time and being better

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Personalisation is personal

• Personalisation is a strategy that puts consumers first, but assumes strong product as a starting point

• JAMES helps readers find value from content by giving them what they want– we can’t win on price, so value, delivered by strong habits, is the focus

Personalised journey

What’s under the hood?

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Foundational Algorithms

Timebest time to send mail

Contentwhich content triggers

engagement

Formatlayout and framing

Frequencynumber of mails per period

Testing, quickly

TIME

CONTENT

FORMAT

Source: “Innovating with Faster on Personalization Algorithms at Netflix Using Interleaving,” Medium,2017, https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/interleaving-in-online-experiments-at-netflix-a04ee392ec55

No images will not be effective CTR driver

A headline in the middle will encourage higher CTR

Numbered articles are a clearer format that drives CTR

A B C D

BAU template acts as baseline for the test

Questions...

...And answersEasy to digest, rapid consumption

Limited load time, clear and concise

Over-stimulation, longer load time Fatigue, longest load time

Vivifying JAMES

Machine Learning

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Driving engagement

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Driving growth

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So, you want to build an AI? 1.Focus is key for collaboration - it’s about the customer

2.Fast experimentation allows for fast results and insights - lose what doesn’t work, fast

3.Establish a baseline across experiments to gauge effectiveness

4. CRM is a long term game - relationships aren’t built overnight

5. Personalisation in comms means more than just knowing your customer’s name - Three Rs

6. AI can’t replace passionate marketers - none of this would have been possible without a team of

dedicated experts

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AI-Driven CRM: Unlocking Empathy

• The combination of a great human-led product and AI-driven customer marketing enables positive consumer experiences that drive significant results.

• Machine learning will make it possible. Consumer empathy makes it valuable.

• Redefinition of what it means to be a premium news brand for the 21st century

CRM Nirvana: Product and Empathetic CRM Harmonisation

AI and Customer Empathy: putting the “personal” in personalisation

Mike Migliore, Head of Customer ValueThe Times and The Sunday TimesNews UK