Braze Summer 2020 Product Launch: Nurturing Empathy In Customer Communications

Six months ago, the idea that we'd all find ourselves stuck at home, trying to learn how to do everything (working, learning, shopping, etc,) differently was unimaginable. But in times like these, it's more important than ever for all of us to come together and help one another. Personally, I’ve felt a lot of empathy during this difficult time from friends, family, and colleagues—but also from the brands I’ve engaged with. In today's world, it stands to reason that brands that emphasize empathy in their user interactions, no matter the channel, will grow their audience, build more loyalty among their current customers, and accelerate revenue.

Is your brand looking to embrace—or uplevel—empathy in its customer communications? You’re in the right place. Join me as we walk through the key supporting features that are being released or updated by Braze this summer. (Don’t have time to read all about our new features? No problem! Download and share our Summer Launch Product Brief with your team to get up to speed.)

Master Empathy at Scale with Easy Campaign Orchestration and Churn Prevention

The customer journey doesn't stop when things change in the outside world—but major shifts like the ones we're experiencing now require thoughtful, responsive adjustments. To achieve that, you need to be able to identify and address potential marketing issues while optimizing your marketing efforts in a more personal, human way. That's why Braze is releasing new features that will provide clarity around which messages to send to which customers, providing a clear, cohesive brand experience.

• Understand Conversion Drop-Offs with Funnel Reports: A optimized conversion funnel is like compound interest, boosting your marketing efforts and business outcomes as users move toward key actions within their customer journey. With Braze Funnel Reports, now in early access, you can use our funnel visualizations to identify drop-off points for every campaign and Canvas you send, supporting optimization across the entirety of the funnel to boost user retention and lifetime value (LTV). To get started with Funnel Reports, contact your Braze Customer Success Manager.
• Avoid Preventable Audience Attrition with Predictive Churn: When customers don't feel heard, they leave. To better serve and engage users, Predictive Churn—the first feature in the Braze Predictive Suite—allows marketers to define what churn means for their business, then use actionable insights to boost retention and cut churn. This key feature leverages machine learning (ML) to identify user behaviors correlated to churn, providing a look at otherwise hidden customer retention warning signs.
• Seamless Orchestration for Thoughtful Marketers: To create moments that matter to each user, Braze is empowering brands to reward key user actions by enriching messages with our native Promotion Codes, allowing them to seamlessly distribute unique codes to any user. Braze is also helping marketers send campaigns that are unique and dynamic by using automated Canvas customer journey steps to build out intuitive responsive campaigns that speak to each individual user. Marketers can now sync user data within Braze with Facebook via Custom Audiences to build Facebook/Instagram ad campaigns right into their Canvas journeys.

Boost Reach and Interactivity with Braze Platforms and Channels

To cut through today's noisy landscape and speak to consumers in resonant ways, you need to use technology to create experiences that capture your customers' imaginations. To help out, Braze is expanding the channels and features that our platform supports, allowing brands to serve up brilliant experiences across a wide range of platforms and devices.

• Send More Interactive Messages with Inbound SMS Keyword Request Processing: Make your messaging experience more conversational and more personal with Braze SMS. It’s now possible to easily reach users in this key channel and let them respond to both required and custom and incoming keywords, supporting better, more interactive customer experiences.
• Test and Assess Faster with In-App Message Dashboard Preview: When you're sending a lot of messages, you need to QA them as efficiently as possible to ensure timely, positive user experiences. To help out, Braze now allows marketers to see how in-app messages render in Braze, instead of having to send a preview to a test device.
• Speak to Your Global Audience with Huawei Push: To help brands communicate with their full audiences, Braze is pleased to announce its industry-leading support for Huawei Mobile Services, allowing brands to extend their reach to a platform which occupies 19% of global smartphone market share. This update allows brands to effectively expand their mobile footprint and ensure that this powerful channel is more broadly available to fuel their marketing efforts.

Act on Real-Time Data with the Power of Partnerships

To build a culture of empathy, you need to understand your customers. To create thoughtful engagement with the data that brands have, we have extended our existing Braze Alloys partnership with Amazon to support key new capabilities.

• Drive More Relevant, Data-Driven Recommendations with Amazon Personalize: Nothing drives value and stronger relationships like messages that truly speak to each recipient's interests. Getting that right is easier than ever before, thanks to the real-time recommendations powered by using Amazon Personalize in tandem with Braze. This partnership allows brands to harness the same ML algorithms used at Amazon.com to insert personalized product/content recommendation directly into cross-channel customer journeys, supporting smarter messaging and better user experiences.

Ready to Dig Deeper?

To learn more about each of these product updates, tune into our Summer Customer Webinar. Join our Product team as we take an even closer look at our products, use cases, and best practices in a single info-packed hour.