How Infobip Uses AI Companions to Keep Sports Fans Coming Back

[00:00:00] - [Speaker 0]
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[00:00:35] - [Speaker 0]
Only to use them twice, discover that they're gathering digital dust on your phone six months later before rinse, washing, and repeat at your next event. Well, today, I'm joined by Ben Lewis. He's the VP of marketing at Infobip, and we're gonna look at a very different approach to fan and customer communication. Infobip has worked with t g r has f one team over on Racemate, which is an AI powered companion that brings race information, driver content, trivia, personalized experiences all into the messaging channels that their fans already use. No need to download another app.

[00:01:16] - [Speaker 0]
And I also wanna learn more about another app of theirs called Pitchmate, which works exactly the same, but is a companion for global football fans. And I also want this conversation to go far beyond the grandstands because Ben will explain why useful customer communication all depends on timing, context, connected data, and knowing when somebody wants help rather than yet another sales message, which just feels intrusive. So today, we'll discuss why returning users and conversation duration might reveal far more than just clicks and understand how memory can make an AI agent genuinely useful and why business leaders listening to this conversation today need a very clear route from automation to human beings. So whether you work in sports, retail, travel, health care, or any business attempting to communicate with actual humans or improve the customer journey that you provide, I think there'll be something useful in today's conversation for you. But that's it for me.

[00:02:19] - [Speaker 0]
Let me introduce you to Ben right now. So thank you for joining me on the podcast today, Ben. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:02:31] - [Speaker 1]
Sure. So my name is Ben Lewis, and I'm the VP of marketing at Inphabet. And Inphabet is a we help brands make meaningful connections with their customers. That that's a simple way to describe what we do, And we do that through using different channels and platforms such as SMS, RCS, Apple Business Messenger, email, voice. So if you think about any time that you receive some level of interaction from a company that you're connected to, it could be a bank, we are the service and supplier behind that bit of technology.

[00:03:08] - [Speaker 0]
And I've been following you guys for a number of years. There's so much I wanna talk with you about. I've loved watching you guys evolve and grow, but at this time of year, there's a lot of sport. We've got tennis, soccer with the World Cup, and now we've got athletics coming up as well. And I think sports fans have always had many ways to follow their teams than ever before, but, of course, technology, as we found recently, is increasingly fragmented.

[00:03:34] - [Speaker 0]
So what would you say are the traditional approaches to things like fan engagement where where people get it wrong and and what fans are beginning to expect as as almost a standard now?

[00:03:45] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I mean, that's that's a really good question. I mean, it's I guess that's a problem statement. Right? So I think I'm a big sports lover myself and I I follow Spurs for my for my sins in The UK.

[00:03:59] - [Speaker 1]
And, you know, I I I think that that nowadays there's so much availability of content that can be put out whether that's through TikTok, Instagram, x, YouTube, Netflix series, or whatever. But where the sports club is still sort of getting it wrong is are they engaging their fans and and making that work for them? Are they really communicating something that keeps the fan engaged with something that they find valuable as opposed to it being something that the club wants? I think that maybe that's the big gap. You know, the club wants, you know, to make sales, whether that's ticketing, whether that's merchandise, whether that's, I guess, their own sort of brand awareness, you know, as as being a part, you know, supporting a club myself.

[00:04:47] - [Speaker 1]
But does the fan always want to be sold to? When do they wanna have sort of that that level of communication? And what type of communications do they wanna have? I think maybe that's the the biggest sort of problem statement that we see.

[00:05:02] - [Speaker 0]
And one of the reasons I wanted to focus on sport today was I was reading out Infobip has worked with, an f one team on Racemate. And tell me more about how these AI companions work and and what you've learned about turning passive spectators into almost active participants.

[00:05:18] - [Speaker 1]
We started with Hass at the Miami GP last year. And it was our first engagement in sports and we we knew that we could help a sports club or a sports team really have a deeper relationship with their fans. And and Hass had this very unique as a team, as a as a setup. They were quite small. They were very nimble, and they they want to do more with their fans.

[00:05:42] - [Speaker 1]
They want to grow their fan base and keep their fans that they had more engaged. So they approached us with this was their problem. And we started working with them on RaceMate. This was a solution that we had for Haas. And this whole it was we built it on WhatsApp and it's also available on RCS and Apple Business Messenger.

[00:06:05] - [Speaker 1]
And the idea behind it was a fan can come in through a different channel. It could be through a competition in or or a visual in Instagram. It could be through a different different billing network in Facebook. And once they're in, they can then choose from a variety of different options, whether it's around it's built using Authentic AI. So you can ask about the race that's to come.

[00:06:30] - [Speaker 1]
You can ask about results in the past. You can ask it about its drivers. And it holds so much information, which is super vast. But then it also can be very specific with competitions, which can be run to date. So if you want to find out about driver history, if you want to one of the really great functions which they launched a couple of months ago was a virtual try on.

[00:06:53] - [Speaker 1]
So you can sort of look at some of the store merchandise and take a photo of yourself and it would just pop up on yourself. But it was it was actually built all around the continuity of information that Haas wanted to provide their fans. And they they I guess Haas' specific thought process here is that you have bigger teams, know, the the the big ones, the big four. And then you have sort of, I guess, the midfield table, which they which they consider themselves to be in. And they wanted to be different.

[00:07:29] - [Speaker 1]
They wanted to be transparent with their fans. They want to be able to provide their fan base with more transparent regular information and not just wait for, you know, before the race or not just wait for, hey, we're selling a new jersey or selling a new cap. It was actually they wanted to have value. So these were all the things that we took into consideration when we built Racemate. So Racemate was this merge of all these things together to allow fans to feel that they're continuously engaged, they're part of the conversation, and they have some information on the channel that they use often.

[00:08:08] - [Speaker 1]
So and I think that that's the loss of statement of everyone uses WhatsApp, you know, in different markets and everyone uses RCS or or Apple Business Messenger. So you don't need to download anything different. It's on the channel that your preference is and you get the information as you wish.

[00:08:26] - [Speaker 0]
And I must admit, one of my biggest first world problems when attending so many conferences and events, etcetera, is downloading an event app, use it for a few days, then have to delete it, or they end up stuck on your home screen for, the next couple of years. And I love this principle behind how these experiences, or the the key principle behind these experiences, no new app because you're actually meeting fans on WhatsApp, RCS, Apple messages, like you said, that that we already use. So why is removing that friction so important? And what can every business learn from an approach like this to customer engagement? Because I I think it can be difficult expecting an attendee of any event or whether it be sporting or a corporate event to to get to download yet another new app.

[00:09:11] - [Speaker 0]
But tell me more about what you've seen here.

[00:09:14] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I mean, again, really interesting. I mean, this is a whole different topic. But you're totally right. You go anywhere nowadays, whether you're flying on a sort of one time airline to get to some random pace you go to and you have to download the app to get the boarding pass and you download the app and you delete it.

[00:09:31] - [Speaker 1]
You go to an event, want the sort of the map location. But I guess what what we found, and again, we sort of some part of different research that we did is in the Far East, they're actually very advanced in this this like super app concept. They actually have one app which is your banking app, your transfer to friends app, your shopping app, and it's all under one app. And I I think that they've been very advanced with this sort of concept. Certainly, we're moving in those directions with with some of the channels that we use today with the likes of RCS being able to do more and getting sort of more visual and value from sort of a basic sort of SMS message.

[00:10:16] - [Speaker 1]
But I'll send but WhatsApp is also moving in that direction. That's also the key to Racemates and also Pitchmates was let's not, you know, using channels that we're on today that people can reengage at any point. So, you know, as if I was messaging you, I would search you in my in my previous messages and I would start the conversation again. And the same principle would apply for PitchMate and RaceMate that if I just wanted to know the start time, you know, was watching the Belgium Grand Prix last yesterday. And, I was trying to sort of figure out the start time.

[00:10:48] - [Speaker 1]
I went to the app. I asked it what time the, the race, started, and I I got the results. You know, I didn't have to, you know, find something new. I didn't have to sort of, you know, go back to sort of Google searching. I just could, you know, engage, pitch mate, a race mate, and and I was up.

[00:11:02] - [Speaker 0]
Love it. And if we zoom in on on one in particular, if we look for race mate, for example, where you combine real time information with personalization, and it remembers context across all interactions. How important is live data and cross session memory in creating these AI experiences that that feel genuinely useful like you mentioned there rather than just another chatbot, for example?

[00:11:26] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I mean, maybe I'll switch to to PitchMate for this. Yeah. We we launched it for the World Cup. And the the beauty of it is that you can it holds the memory.

[00:11:38] - [Speaker 1]
So as you sort of sign up to it or join it, it asks you your preferred team that you wanna follow. So, you know, I selected England and I'm sort of going down this and then you get some notifications or relevant points about when the England matches, the lineup and the sort of results. There are some nuances on live data, which again is an available API, which we use. But the likes of Formula One actually hold restrictions on live data. So it's actually a little bit sort of sticky.

[00:12:08] - [Speaker 1]
So you can't provide sort of pit stop information on real time. But certainly in the World Cup API, there's a lot more availability to a, retain information and b, to provide it sort of at a real time basis. So it just depends on the amount of API calls that you want to drive. But it does hold the preferences. It also allows you to start new preferences by saying, I'm interested in, you know, this game.

[00:12:33] - [Speaker 1]
Keep me updated and keep me posted on the starting lineup. So actually, it's it really is your, you know, I guess we call it a race mate or a pitch mate. It's really your your connection into, the sport that you like.

[00:12:46] - [Speaker 0]
And, obviously, we're recording this immediately after the World Cup has just finished that. And over the last, what, five, six weeks, you've served millions of fans following different teams, matches, time zones, and everything in particular, and so many more. How what have you learned from from this, event this year? Any any big standout lessons or things that you've noticed, behavior changes, anything? Anything you're taking away from the event?

[00:13:13] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I mean, I'll switch between the two, PitchMate and and RaceMate for this because RaceMate was our was our entry into this this type of field to to be able to understand how fans wanted to be engaged. And I guess that PitchMate was the, you know, the World Cup is is a relatively recent thing and also it ended yesterday. So we used the the information that we were working to on on Racemate and put it into Pitchmate. So we knew that fans liked engaging in in quizzes.

[00:13:44] - [Speaker 1]
That's gamification information, you know, to sort of test their knowledge base. We knew the fans liked information to be passed to them about sort of a pre pre race, post race information and actually just to be provided without sort of being needed to be asked. So these are some of the things that we just implemented in auto I guess, automatically in in RaceMate and PitchMate. So I guess they were the some of the key learnings that we we saw.

[00:14:12] - [Speaker 0]
Of course, there's a huge focus on return on investment on every single tech project right now. And in particular, you can only improve what you measure. So on that side of things, for businesses listening, do they need to look beyond clicks and campaign metrics, all those traditional measures? And is there new things to measure now? How do you measure success here?

[00:14:34] - [Speaker 1]
I mean, we measure success on engagement and duration of sort of, I guess, usage of the of the the Racemate itself. So every time someone engages it, you know, how long they're spending on it, how many sort of interactions are they having. Some of these key metrics are really useful for us to see, you know, are they actually engaging? How long this is spending on the on the conversation or in the conversation? And then are they returning?

[00:15:02] - [Speaker 1]
You know? So, you know, that's a that's also a key metric for us. So are they then proactively reengaging the conversation? So at the moment, whether that's being Haas or even PitchMate, mainly Haas, they're not proactively trying to sell merchandise through Raceme yet. And that's a great positioning for them because their focus at the moment is to they want to grow their fan base.

[00:15:32] - [Speaker 1]
They want to sort of grow or work on the Formula One, I guess, hype at the moment. It's a massively growing sport. And they don't want to be seen to be keep on pushing things. They want to be providing things, providing information. So their key metrics that they're looking at are, are they growing their fan base?

[00:15:51] - [Speaker 1]
What's the interactions look like and the engagement and the duration of those conversations? Obviously, we can be quite specific with how many people are looking at the the this quiz, how many people click through this ad, how many people have done x y z. But actually, the the key metrics that they're tracking are, you know, fan base growth and engagement and duration of conversation.

[00:16:14] - [Speaker 0]
And if we move away from sport and strip away the football shirts and Formula One cars, do you think the same principles could apply to people listening in other industries from travel to retail, health care, and customer onboarding? And and and also, where do you see the biggest opportunities for these AI companions to help transform those everyday customer journeys without the the need for other apps, etcetera?

[00:16:40] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I think what you just said, customer journey, I think this is key point to reference. People, especially in b to b or sort of in this enterprise world, so we look at KPIs. We look at sort of like what those key metrics are. But actually, it's journey of a customer from start to finish and sort of back again and sort of almost a loop.

[00:17:02] - [Speaker 1]
So when I'm sort of looking at this and as you said, like taking off our football shirts and which is a shame that the World Cup is finished, but I guess we have the Euros in two years' time. I think that when we look at the holistic journey of it, it's being connected to their customers at the right time on the right channel with the right principles. So a great scenario is I mean, I'm going use a football reference as reference point, but it applies to every single type of enterprise organization. If you think about you've got let's take a football club, you have ticketing being like one. So you have a support line, you've got two.

[00:17:45] - [Speaker 1]
You've got purchasing merchandise, three. You've got hospitality, VIP hospitality, you've got the list goes on. And all those things are not connected with one another. So in a typical way. So you can, you know, someone could be having a complaint, a massive complaint to the enterprise organization or the sports club.

[00:18:05] - [Speaker 1]
But at the same time, they're proactively trying to say, hey, like, you know, maybe take the travel agency. You could be having a travel claim or they could, know, and they sort of ping you saying, you know, feel like next holiday arrangement. And, I've heard of scenarios where some people have this is a sort of a slightly more upsetting one, but someone's passed away in a hospital and the hospital then sort of has an automated flow sending the family an email saying, oh, you know, we'd love to get your feedback on the stay that you had in the hospital. You know, and that's completely disjointed with, you know, a person's expectation of what should happen versus actually in reality what does happen. And so these opportunities to unify the approach to have this you know, sort of more of an omni channel maybe is term.

[00:19:03] - [Speaker 1]
But to have this like dataset being collected of an individual to know different points of reference and to be able to connect with those people at that relevant point, you know, not trying to sell them when they're in a dispute, trying to sort of manage that dispute first and trying to sort of then rectify it, managing to provide the new information. And all of these things will build to a better fan customer experience. You have companies like Amazon, which are always very strong in this whole journey. When you reach them on the app or you're on the app and you're on the messenger And then you call through, they know from the conversation to who you are and they're able to sort of really customize. And that's what we should all every enterprise organization should be aiming towards, striving towards that type of principle.

[00:19:55] - [Speaker 0]
And, of course, the big tech theme this year has been agentic AI. It's becoming part of customer experiences already, almost moving us from systems that simply send messages to agents that can remember, personalize, and take action all autonomously. So for any tech or CX leaders listening, what should they be doing now to prepare for this transaction transition while also ensuring customers remain in control? There's an old saying, isn't there, that the the last best experience anyone has anywhere becomes the standard expectation for what they wanna see everywhere. So with everything you've described here and where we're heading, what should listeners be doing to prepare for this and and ensuring that they're delivering on that too?

[00:20:38] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I mean, that's your your your quote is is is a great one. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, I used to say, get your foundations right, you know, so that that there's no point sort of trying to do every everything at one time. It's actually just making sure your foundational layer is correct. So making sure that your dataset is integrated with your campaigns and and and, you know, that sort of approach on omnichannel.

[00:21:02] - [Speaker 1]
But actually now with AI and how far and how fast it's come along, it's it's about sort of integrating that into your customer journey. So it is important to be able to be testing different approaches. You need to set the guardrails up. Need to make sure that you're only providing relevant information connected to what you're asking for. We built a solution for a Croatian insurance company, a digital insurance company.

[00:21:33] - [Speaker 1]
So really, the whole point of it is that you can use the AI to do your entire claim without speaking to one person, without having to write. It's really through complete and AI end to end. So the foundational layer now needs to be set up a few years ago to be able to really integrate AI into it to get a better user experience for the customer. So it's getting to the point where customers do expect, you know, to have that level of personalization, to have that level of understanding that when you're reaching out to some something I don't know if you use Revolut, but Revolut is a great example where the their AI chatbot on their on their app is phenomenal. You know, you actually don't need to speak to someone.

[00:22:25] - [Speaker 1]
But and I think that companies need to be moving into that, you know, using that as best practices and, k, that's where we wanna be aiming to. Foundations needs to be set. Data set needs to be set. And how do we get people to be, you know, getting what they need first off from utilizing AI and then having the availability to connect to human interaction when they need to. And again, it's understanding when does human jump in versus when AI can can take it from a to b.

[00:22:58] - [Speaker 0]
Well, thank you so much for sharing Infobip's work with sporting franchises. So many insights into how the company is working towards enhancing fan engagement through these alternative communication strategies and also understanding how it can impact just about every other industry we can all imagine there. And for anyone listening, would like to find out more about that, how you might be able to help them and their industry or look a little bit deeper into some of your technology and how you bring it all to life. Where do you like me to point everyone?

[00:23:28] - [Speaker 1]
Infobip.com is a great start. You know, we we tell our our story there and and equally, they can always find us on LinkedIn. But our website is a good good starting ground. We have a great self-service platform which people can also test it and get going.

[00:23:45] - [Speaker 0]
Well, I, for one, love what you're doing here, especially this outcome driven AgenTic CX that you're driving. And I would urge anyone listening to check out the links. I'll put everything in the show notes, including a link to your LinkedIn profile as well. Hopefully, people can get in touch and find out more there. But incredibly cool, your work.

[00:24:03] - [Speaker 0]
I've been following you for a number of years. I've had a few people on the organization for the last five or six years. So thanks for coming back and sharing more about where you're up to now. Really appreciate your time.

[00:24:15] - [Speaker 1]
Great stuff. Thank you so much.

[00:24:17] - [Speaker 0]
What I enjoyed about this conversation is just how a story about Formula One and football quickly became a lesson for almost every business, no matter what industry you're working in right now. Yes. The technology is interesting, but the practical question is whether the experience respects the person using it. Does it remember what they need? Does it recognize an unresolved complaint?

[00:24:42] - [Speaker 0]
Can it avoid promoting a new product while somebody's just waiting for a support answer? And also when the situation requires judgment, can it bring a human seamlessly into the conversation with the full context at hand? I think Ben's advice today about getting the foundations right is certainly worth remembering too. Connect the data, understand the customer journey, establish the guardrails, test the experience, and then decide where people need to remain involved. And buying an AI platform is considerably easier than fixing years of disconnected customer systems.

[00:25:19] - [Speaker 0]
The only downside is there's no button labeled make all of our departments talk to each other. I think that's gonna be around for a while yet, sadly. But a big thank you to Ben for sharing the thinking behind Racemate, Pitchmate, and Infobip's wider approach to conversational AI. You can learn more at infobip.com. Connect with Ben on LinkedIn, and I'll leave you with a question too.

[00:25:42] - [Speaker 0]
If if your customers could choose between downloading another app and continuing the conversation inside a channel they already use. Which experience do you think your customers would choose? Lots for you to think about there. Remember, you can get ahold of me anytime. Techtalksnetwork.com.

[00:26:00] - [Speaker 0]
You'll find how you can contact me, work with me, or meet me on the road. Got a lot of tech conferences coming up, and and I'm taking this show on the road too. So hopefully, can meet in person. But that's it for today. Thank you for listening as always.

[00:26:13] - [Speaker 0]
Bye for now.