Artificial Intelligence for Marketing

CHAPTER 6Using AI for Retention

Location, Location, Location has been replaced with Listen, Listen, Listen.

GROWING CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS

Just as “artificial intelligence” is deemed anything computers can't do yet, “meeting expectations” is a never‐ending race. In World Wide Web Marketing (3rd ed., Wiley, 2001), I told the story about my father's Internet expectations.

I thought that as compression techniques improved and bandwidth grew, this issue would fade. My father proved me wrong. He called to ask if I thought he should install a cable modem and sign up for @Home. I said, “Absolutely. You'll love it. It's so much faster!” I was deeply annoyed that they were wiring his neighborhood before they wandered up the hill into my neck of the woods. It would be another 16 months before cable came to my humble abode, so I was all in favor of Dad getting broadbandedly wired.

A month later, he called to tell me that there were two men in his attic, one outside drilling a hole through the wall, and two underneath his desk arguing about protocols. Was I sure, he wanted to know, that this was a good idea? I said, “Absolutely! You're gonna love it! You'll be able to see videos and get music and not have to wait for Web sites anymore!”

He said, “We have a television for videos.”

Three days later, he called again to say that somebody was coming out again to try to configure the modem and he was going to bring a couple of spares along just in case and did I still think this was ...