Signpost Unveils Mia: Artificial Intelligence Meets CRM

Mia is your new marketing assistant, according to Signpost.

Signpost is a marketing automation and CRM solution with out 6,000 customers, all of which are about to sample artificial intelligence in a new area of their business.

Mia, their latest feature, uses “machine learning to eliminate the need for a traditional CRM and other forms of manual marketing.”

Given Mia's perceived intelligence, Signpost has been referring to her as a person, and apparently, she's set to change the way marketers interact with customers.

How She Works

Mia gets stuff done all by herself. Here's how:

• Creates Contact Records: Mia collects email, phone, and purchase data to create contact records. She tracks customer behaviour and updates their engagement in real-time.

• Automates CRM: Users just need to set objectives, such as; five-star reviews, customer referrals, generating new customers and driving loyalty. Once set, Mia endeavours to make them happen by learning and changing her behaviour with every customer interaction. She takes care of follow-up and ongoing communication through email and SMS which saves users from manually creating or managing their own campaigns.

• Makes Data-Driven Decisions: Mia has data on more than 16 million US consumers across more than 6,000 Signpost customers. From this proprietary data set, she learns what types of communication work best and applies that to her email or SMS–driven targeted communication.

• Displaces Existing Systems: Mia is comprehensive, so Signpost say that she can replace technologies such as Salesforce, Infusionsoft, ExactTarget, Mailchimp, Constant Contact and Square.

That last claim is a bold one indeed, but it seems as though Mia may be up to the task in some respects.

Stuart Wall, Signpost's CEO, has identified Mia as the future of CRM:

“Mia is the future of communication between businesses and consumers.

B2C companies have long shied away from CRM systems, because they’re complicated, time consuming, and built for companies with dedicated sales teams. The average CRM forces users to manually upload leads, cross-reference data streams like email, text and purchases; and perhaps most onerous, they require users to curate email marketing campaigns.

Mia removes that friction by automatically capturing and optimizing every customer interaction with zero effort from the user.”

The Beginnings of ACRM?

Essentially, we seem to be looking at the beginnings of ACRM (Automated Customer Relationship Management).

Yes, I know the acronyms are becoming tiresome, but sometimes they're necessary. Just as marketing automation emerged, so too will CRM automation, apparently.

However, with the lines becoming increasing blurred between the two platform types, I can see expanded ACRM becoming a standard fixture within marketing automation systems before too long. Just how much that will affect traditional power-house CRM systems is hard to tell at this stage.

In any case, it looks like Signpost is the platform to take the first plunge. I'll be keeping tabs on how it all pans out for them, and for Mia.

To find out more about Mia, check out the official press release, and the Signpost website.

And as usual, you can explore more through the Signpost hub on our CRM Directory.