CleverTap and Phiture Launch Framework for Improving Customer Engagement & Retention

– The Acknowledgment, Interest, and Conversion (AIC) Framework provides consumer brands with extensive audience insights to increase customer lifetime value.

CleverTap, the full-stack customer retention platform, announced the launch of their AIC Framework for customer engagement, co-created with Phiture, a Berlin-based mobile consultancy.

Together, CleverTap and Phiture designed the AIC framework to enable fast-growing consumer app companies to better understand the depth and intensity of user interaction. The framework categorizes user activity into one of the three types of engagement layers: Acknowledgment, Interest, and Conversion – with Conversion being the highest-value action a user can take within an app. This allows brand marketers to recognize which in-app activities contribute to revenue growth, thereby improving overall user retention strategies.

The AIC framework can be applied across a range of industries – from urban ride-hailing, media, and entertainment, to travel and ticketing. Regularly monitoring the size of each of the A-I-C layers, and analyzing how the layers fluctuate over time, provides insight into the health and performance of the app. The framework is a useful dashboard metric, highlighting potential risks that could crop up in the future.

“Metrics like daily active users (DAU) and monthly active users (MAU) provide a very high view of user engagement. These broad metrics are not actionable. The AIC framework helps consumer brands segment their users into actionable cohorts and drives more relevant activity to move these users ahead in their lifecycle. Moving users forward from the Acknowledgment layer to the Interest layer, and from the Interest layer to the Conversion layer significantly improves their lifetime value. Looking at users dropping down from Conversion to the Interest layer will lead to effective reactivation campaigns and more,” says Sunil Thomas, CEO and Co-founder of CleverTap.

“Customer retention and an understanding of their in-app engagement are integral to growth in the OTT business. While the existing metrics offer a relevant but macro view of user engagement, a more focused and solution-oriented framework like AIC will enable OTT players to curate enhanced user strategies and frame powerful revenue models. Better retention of existing users will also lead to improved customer lifetime value,” says Uday Sodhi, Business Head – Digital, Sony Pictures Networks India.

“The AIC framework puts a new and highly relevant spin on dashboard KPIs by incorporating the relative value of actions a user might take and stratifying active users into 3 layers of increased engagement. In our research, we’ve found that applying this model can significantly inform the user engagement strategy and lead to the prioritization of more impactful initiatives that are guaranteed to drive growth. We will continue to evolve the AIC framework by working with high-growth consumer brands and generate additional learnings that will make the framework even more valuable,” says Andy Carvell, Partner at Phiture.

/Public Release.