Ambassador

Why Most Customer Engagement Strategies Are Broken — And What Comes Next

Geoff — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 18:21:03 +0000

Why Most Customer Engagement Strategies Are Broken - And What Comes Next

Over the past decade, customer engagement and retention became a category.
But somewhere along the way, it also became a mess.

Tools multiplied. Teams specialized. Programs got siloed.
And now, most brands are running loyalty, referral, email, feedback, and incentives on separate tracks — with separate tools, separate goals, and separate metrics.

At first, that looked like growth. But over time, it’s created complexity.
And complexity is the enemy of scale.

What This Blog Is (and Isn’t)

This isn’t a teardown of the tools you’re using.
It’s a call to rethink the model behind them. Because the way we engage customers today is deeply outdated — and fixing it will take more than a better dashboard.

That’s exactly what we cover in the video below — but if you want the short version, here’s the heart of the problem:

The Four Ways Engagement Is Broken

1. Brands are surrounded by customer signals — but not acting on them.
You know when someone buys, refers, hesitates, or churns. You have the data. But most teams can’t move on it in real time because their systems don’t talk to each other.

2. Engagement is still run like a series of campaigns.
We’re still launching one-off loyalty pushes, referral blasts, and seasonal emails. But customers don’t think in channels. They don’t experience your brand in pieces. And yet… that’s how most brands still operate.

3. ROI is measured only in revenue, not efficiency.
A good referral program should drive revenue. But a great one should also reduce workload. Engagement done right reduces ops overhead — fewer people, less manual work, more automation. Very few teams are measuring that.

4. Most SaaS platforms weren’t built for what modern brands need.
Even the tools with “AI” slapped on them weren’t designed to respond to behavior in real time. They’re campaign-first, not signal-first. And they can’t support the speed, fluidity, and intelligence today’s brands require.

So What Needs to Happen?

The next generation of customer engagement isn’t about more tools — it’s about smarter systems.

It’s about turning customer behavior into action automatically, across every channel.
No spreadsheets. No duct tape. No chasing down logins for five different dashboards.

It’s a move from campaigns to continuous conversation.
From manual coordination to automated orchestration.
From reacting to responding instantly.

To support that, some platforms — like ours — had to be completely rebuilt.
Because you can’t serve today’s multi-dimensional brand with yesterday’s infrastructure.

Why This Matters Now

Engagement isn’t just a growth lever anymore — it’s a cost lever, too.
Brands are trying to do more with leaner teams. They’re under pressure to prove ROI across the board — not just in revenue, but in resource efficiency.

The companies that win won’t be the ones with the most programs.
They’ll be the ones with the smartest systems.

The post Why Most Customer Engagement Strategies Are Broken — And What Comes Next appeared first on Ambassador.

Brand Value = Every Conversation. So Why Are Most Brands Only Listening to One?

Geoff — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 14:42:02 +0000

Brand Value = Every Conversation. So Why Are Most Brands Only Listening to One?

Executive Summary

Most brands are chasing referrals, reviews, or loyalty in isolation—missing the bigger picture. In today’s market, brand value is no longer just about performance marketing metrics or siloed programs. It’s about the totality of conversations happening about your brand—across touchpoints, across channels, and across moments. This article explores:

Why focusing on one or two tactics is costing you more than you think
How Ahmed Khattak, CEO of US Mobile, made the bold decision to “fire Google” in favor of deeper customer connection
Why integrating all conversations into a single platform is essential
How AI turns customer signals into real-time actions that build loyalty, referrals, and retention—automatically

TL;DR: You can’t grow a valuable brand without listening to the whole story. And you can’t act on it without AI.

“Brand value is the sum total of all the conversations happening about your brand or product.”

It’s a powerful idea—and one we believe deeply at Ambassador. Yet, for all the talk about “customer-centric” strategies, most brands are only tuning into one or two types of conversation. A referral program here. A loyalty campaign there. A scattered attempt to collect reviews. But real brand value is being shaped every second across a much broader set of touchpoints—many of which are invisible to brands because they’re not being captured, connected, or acted upon. Let’s break that down.

You’re Only Hearing One Side of the Story

Brands tend to fixate on a single tactic. Maybe it’s referral. Maybe it’s loyalty. Maybe it’s review collection. These are important—but they don’t tell the whole story. Because real brand value lives in the full spectrum of customer conversations. It’s in:

A friend-to-friend product recommendation
The Slack message where someone advocates for your platform
The chat message that never got a response
The customer support ticket that created (or broke) trust
The post someone wrote that you didn’t know existed

If you’re only tracking what your platform lets you track, you’re missing what actually drives advocacy, retention, and growth.

“Firing Google” and the Wake-Up Call Brands Need

A must-watch interview between Matt Roche (Founder of Extole) and Ahmed Khattak (CEO of US Mobile) makes this real. In the conversation, Khattak shares why US Mobile made the decision to “fire Google”—cutting back significantly on paid acquisition to focus on building value through experience, product, and loyalty.

“We were paying for things that should’ve come for free—if our product, customer experience, and brand truly spoke for themselves,” he explains.

It’s not about abandoning growth. It’s about earning it. It’s about building a brand customers talk about, not one you have to constantly pay to put in front of them. That shift requires listening—really listening—to every conversation.

What You’re Missing Without a Unified View

Most brands have siloed tech stacks:

Referrals run in one platform
Reviews are handled elsewhere
Loyalty lives in a third tool
Surveys show up after it’s too late

When you separate the signals, you separate the story. There’s no way to:

Understand where real intent lives
Identify moments of delight or dissatisfaction
Spot the correlation between advocacy and retention

When signals are centralized, you gain total clarity—and total opportunity.

AI Makes It All Actionable

Centralizing your customer conversations is just the beginning. The real leap forward comes when you layer AI on top of it. That’s where Ambassador comes in. We’ve built the AI Feedback Network to turn fragmented customer signals into coordinated brand actions—in real time. When a customer is delighted, Hiro (our AI engine) can trigger a referral or review prompt at just the right moment. When behavior signals friction or risk, it can launch a retention play or alert your team. And it learns over time—making every future interaction smarter, faster, more personalized. No more manual segmentation. No more “spray and pray.” No more missed moments.

Automation with Empathy, Intelligence with Impact

AI isn’t here to replace the human side of your brand. It’s here to amplify your ability to act in the moments that matter most. It ensures:

Every happy customer becomes an advocate
Every frustrated customer gets a proactive solution
Every signal leads to something meaningful

It’s how the best brands will scale trust, growth, and loyalty.

The Future of Brand Value Is Already Here

The takeaway? If brand value is the sum total of every customer conversation, then your brand strategy needs to reflect every single one of those conversations. You don’t need more disconnected tools. You need one connected engine that listens, interprets, and responds. This is where the next generation of customer-led growth is going: ✅ Connected ✅ Automated ✅ Personal ✅ Real-time

Final Thought: Future-Proofing Brand Equity

The brands that survive the next wave of disruption won’t be the ones with the biggest paid budgets—they’ll be the ones with the best conversation intelligence. They’ll understand that customer engagement isn’t about a “channel” or a “campaign.” It’s about building compounding brand value—one conversation at a time. And they’ll make sure every one of those conversations counts.

Want to turn every signal into growth? Explore how Ambassador’s AI Feedback Network unifies referrals, loyalty, reviews, and behavior into one real-time platform. 👉 Referral 👉 Loyalty 👉 Incentives 👉 Communication Co-Pilot 👉 Hiro – AI Feedback Engine Or start by watching the conversation with Ahmed Khattak and Matt Roche. It’s the signal many of us have been waiting for.

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Feedback Is a Gift — It’s Time We Treated It Like One

Geoff — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 21:29:10 +0000

Feedback Is a Gift — It’s Time We Treated It Like One

For years, feedback has been reduced to a checkbox.
A generic NPS survey. A soulless post-purchase email. A five-star prompt that pops up before we’ve even used the product.

We’ve over-surveyed. We’ve under-listened. And in the process, we’ve lost the signal that matters most: what our customers are actually feeling — and when they’re ready to act.

At Ambassador, we believe feedback is a gift. But most brands are still using broken tools to receive it.

That ends today.

Meet Hiro: The Future of Feedback Is Here

We’re thrilled to announce the release of Hiro, our new AI-powered feedback engine that listens, understands, and acts in real time — all without relying on surveys, forms, or friction.

Hiro captures tone, sentiment, and context from real customer interactions — whether it’s post-purchase, post-support, or mid-journey — and transforms those moments into growth opportunities: reviews, referrals, product feedback, even churn prevention.

No more begging for a 10/10 score.
No more misreading passive data.
No more waiting weeks for someone to analyze survey results.

With Hiro, you can finally:

Detect voice biomarkers and emotional cues
Trigger referrals and reviews at peak sentiment
Summarize open feedback into themes, signals, and product insights
Automatically route advocates or detractors to the right workflows

👉 Explore the Hiro product page

Goodbye NPS. Hello Ambassador Score.

For over two decades, NPS reigned as the go-to metric for customer loyalty. But in a world of AI, automation, and always-on engagement, static scores and delayed surveys just don’t cut it anymore.

With Hiro, we’re introducing the Ambassador Score — a modern, predictive alternative to Net Promoter Score that uses emotional and behavioral data to capture not just what customers say they feel, but how likely they are to act.

The Ambassador Score:

Captures voice biomarker data and behavioral cues
Adjusts in real time based on emotion and engagement
Predicts advocacy, retention, and conversion likelihood
Triggers next steps automatically

No more chasing 10s. No more blind surveys. Just intelligence you can use.

Want to learn more about the Ambassador Score and how it works? Try Hir Out

From Text Messaging to Voice Signal — A New Chapter

This isn’t our first time helping brands rethink communication.

Our Co-Founder and CSO John Larson helped pioneer conversational messaging with Zipwhip, turning text into a two-way channel between brands and customers. That platform changed the game — and eventually led to its $850M acquisition by Twilio.

Now, John is helping us do it again. But this time, we’re not just building a messaging tool — we’re creating an AI network that listens, understands, and acts on the unspoken.

Because it’s not just about what customers say — it’s about how they say it.

Why Hiro, Why Now?

Customer expectations have changed. Marketing teams are leaner. And growth needs to come from within — from the customers you already have.

We built Hiro because brands need a better way to:

Understand emotional context in every touchpoint
Capture meaningful feedback without annoying their customers
Turn advocates into reviewers and referrers — automatically
Get real-time insight without hiring a full research team

Hiro isn’t a chatbot. It’s not a static survey tool. It’s an AI co-pilot that makes every post-purchase or post-support moment smarter. And it’s only the beginning.

Built on the AI Network That Powers It All

Hiro is more than just a feature — it’s the next-generation intelligence engine built on top of Ambassador’s AI-native platform.

That platform already powers:

Referral & affiliate automation
Loyalty & advocacy programs
Smart surveys & review prompts
Incentive triggers

Every signal captured by Hiro becomes part of the larger Ambassador ecosystem. That means feedback isn’t just heard — it’s used to create personalized, scalable actions across the customer journey.

Ambassador is the AI network that converts customer signals into real-time customer actions. From referrals and reviews to loyalty, surveys, and incentives, brands use Ambassador to grow through conversation — not guesswork.

See Hiro in Action

Hiro is available now for all Mid-Market and Enterprise Ambassador clients. The Ambassador Score is included within Hiro’s dashboard and available out of the box.

To learn more or schedule a custom walkthrough, visit:
👉 https://getambassador.com/ai-feedback

The post Feedback Is a Gift — It’s Time We Treated It Like One appeared first on Ambassador.

The Future of AI is here – with Hiro

Geoff — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 20:32:12 +0000

The Future of Feedback: How Hiro is Redefining Customer Insight in the Age of AI

“By 2025, 80% of customer service organizations will abandon traditional metrics like CSAT and NPS in favor of more predictive and actionable measures powered by AI.”

— Gartner, 2021 Press Release

Publication

Executive Summary:
Feedback is one of the most valuable assets a brand can receive. Yet most organizations are relying on outdated methods — surveys, NPS scores, and feedback forms that generate lagging data, poor response rates, and generic insights. According to Gartner, customer feedback mechanisms that rely solely on surveys will be obsolete by 2025 [Gartner Source]. In an era where real-time personalization, emotion detection, and AI automation are rapidly transforming the customer journey, the old tools no longer serve modern brands.

Enter Hiro, Ambassador’s AI-powered feedback engine. Hiro captures signal in real time using advanced voice sentiment analysis, contextual behavior tracking, and automation triggers — all designed to turn conversations into actions. This whitepaper explores why the future of feedback is conversational, intelligent, and automated — and how Hiro is leading the way.

1. The Problem with Traditional Feedback Systems

Traditional feedback systems were built for an earlier era — one where brands pushed out surveys and hoped for passive, delayed responses. But today’s customers move faster, and they expect more.

Over-surveyed and under-delivered: declining response rates and survey fatigue. Studies show average survey response rates hover below 10% [SurveyMonkey].
Lagging indicators: by the time feedback arrives, the moment has passed.
One-size-fits-all: static forms don’t capture emotional nuance or journey context.
Disconnected: feedback lives in silos, disconnected from real engagement channels.

“Organizations that leverage AI-powered tools for customer insights see faster decision-making, more personalized engagement, and improved retention — because they respond in the moment, not after the fact.”

— McKinsey, The State of AI in 2023

Publication

2. The Case for AI-Driven Feedback

To keep up with modern customer expectations, feedback systems need to be as dynamic as the customers they serve. AI provides a transformational alternative to traditional models.

Behavioral cues and sentiment are better predictors of churn, loyalty, and advocacy.
AI can parse tone, pace, emotion, and phrasing in real time, driving richer insights [McKinsey].
Contextual triggers outperform time-based check-ins for engagement.
Feedback loops must be fast, personalized, and frictionless to match modern expectations.

3. Introducing Hiro: Feedback That Listens, Learns, and Acts

Hiro doesn’t just collect feedback — it elevates it. Our AI-powered engine understands emotion, identifies moments of advocacy, and knows when to act. It’s built to create a closed loop of listening and response.

Hiro is a next-generation feedback engine designed to:

Listen: Capture conversations post-purchase, post-support, or mid-journey.
Understand: Use voice biomarkers and AI to analyze sentiment and intent.
Act: Trigger personalized reviews, referrals, or interventions based on customer emotion.

Core Capabilities:

Voice Sentiment Detection (tone, pacing, emotion analysis)
Automated Referral & Review Triggers
Real-Time Dashboards & Insight Summaries
Multi-Channel Deployment: web, email, SMS, chat
Integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Klaviyo, and more

"Hiro changed how we think about feedback. We no longer wait for NPS scores — now we know how customers feel in the moment and can turn that into action instantly."

"Post-support reviews used to be hit or miss. Hiro catches emotional moments and prompts reviews or referrals automatically. It’s hands-down the most intelligent feedback tool we’ve used."

Hiro gives us real feedback without slowing users down. Sentiment tags and summaries show us what to fix, what to celebrate, and what’s trending — all without sending a single survey."

4. Use Cases: Where Hiro Delivers Results

From acquisition to renewal, Hiro empowers every customer interaction with richer data and smarter decisions. These are just a few of the high-impact scenarios where Hiro thrives.

Onboarding: Identify friction early, detect delight moments.
Customer Support: Understand how customers feel about resolutions.
Post-Purchase Journeys: Convert happy moments into reviews or referrals.
Renewals: Detect disengagement before it becomes churn.
Product Feedback Loops: Capture feature requests and improvement themes passively.

5. Why Now: Market Shifts and Strategic Imperatives

We’re in the middle of a transformation in customer engagement. What worked in the past no longer delivers — and brands that delay adoption risk being left behind.

The shift to lean marketing teams requires automation without sacrificing personalization.
Customer expectations are higher; advocacy is earned in micro-moments.
Businesses must consolidate tools while improving CX and ROI.
AI is no longer a competitive edge — it’s table stakes.
Gartner predicts that by 2026, 60% of large enterprises will have adopted AI-driven customer experience platforms [Gartner]

6. Hiro in Action: Early Results

Hiro isn’t theoretical — it’s already proving ROI across leading brands. The early outcomes speak volumes.

25% increase in review collection rates
4x more referrals triggered compared to static NPS forms
70% faster feedback loop vs. traditional tools
93% of pilot users say Hiro gives deeper insights than prior systems

“Organizations using AI-powered customer insights tools report 63% faster decision-making, 60% more personalized engagement, and 57% improved retention.”

— McKinsey, The State of AI in 2023

7. Trust, Privacy & Security

Feedback only works when customers trust the process. Hiro was built from the ground up with compliance and transparency in mind.

GDPR and CCPA compliant
SOC2-ready infrastructure
Customer data never sold or reused
Fully transparent sentiment classification, audit logging, and deletion controls

8. Getting Started with Hiro

Hiro is available today for Mid-Market and Enterprise clients, with a self-serve version on the roadmap. Brands can implement in days, not months, and start capturing value immediately.

Ready to make feedback your growth engine?
Visit: https://getambassador.com/ai-feedback

About Ambassador
Ambassador is the AI network that converts customer signals into real-time customer actions. From referrals and reviews to retention and rewards, brands use Ambassador to grow through conversation, not guesswork.

Contact
For a personalized demo, email sales@getambassador.com

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You’re Not Listening: What Brands Are Getting Wrong About Customer Engagement

Geoff — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 14:20:46 +0000

The Engagement Gap Is Real—And It’s Growing

Twilio’s State of Customer Engagement Report 2023 delivers a stark truth: while nearly 70% of brands believe they’re delivering personalized experiences, less than half of consumers agree. This isn’t just a perception gap—it’s a performance problem.

Brands are overestimating their ability to deliver connected, trusted, real-time experiences. They’re stuck in a cycle of more channels, more messages, and more touchpoints—but not more meaningful interactions.

And that’s the disconnect Ambassador is built to solve.

Volume Isn’t the Answer. Signals Are.

Too many companies are still operating with static customer profiles and fragmented data. They focus on outreach quantity rather than timing and intent. They send messages. But they don’t respond to real behavior.

As Twilio’s research shows:

81% of consumers say a positive digital experience makes them more likely to purchase again.
But only 60% of brands use real-time data to personalize communications.
And just 1 in 3 companies have fully unified customer data across channels.

That’s why the best brands are moving from “multichannel” to multisignal. Not just reaching customers, but listening—then acting.

Ambassador: The AI Network That Converts Customer Signals into Real-Time Actions

At Ambassador, we’ve reimagined engagement from the inside out.

We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all campaigns or siloed automation. Instead, we’ve built the most connected AI feedback network on the planet—designed to turn every customer signal into an action that drives trust, retention, and revenue.

✅ A customer refers a friend? Instantly reward them.
✅ A shopper opens an incentive but doesn’t convert? Re-engage at the perfect time.
✅ A user finishes onboarding? Launch Hiro to capture feedback and route them to leave a review.

All of this is done automatically through our no-code Flow Builder and real-time triggers across channels—including email, SMS, WhatsApp, and in-app messaging.

This isn’t a new campaign manager. This is AI infrastructure for customer signals.

Segment + Twilio: Real-Time Infrastructure Meets Real-Time Engagement

To help brands listen more intelligently, Ambassador integrates natively with Twilio Segment, giving our clients a unified customer data layer that powers smarter decisions and faster engagement.

Already, we’re leveraging Segment to collect behavior-based signals—referral activity, loyalty interactions, incentive responses—and convert them into actionable journeys.

Next up: we’re expanding our integration with Twilio’s communication APIs to activate SMS, voice, and WhatsApp natively within Ambassador. This means clients can engage across more channels, faster—and with messages that actually make sense to the customer.

When Twilio’s report says that “trust, personalization, and relevance drive engagement,” we couldn’t agree more. But to make that happen, your tech stack needs to be intelligent by default—not just stitched together.

Ambassador is that connective tissue.

Where Most Brands Get It Wrong

Let’s break down the biggest mistakes we see (and that Twilio highlights too):

Data without activation
Brands collect tons of information but rarely turn it into behavior-based actions.
➤ Ambassador turns that data into action.
Personalization that isn’t personal
Using someone’s first name isn’t personalization. Knowing when they’re most likely to act is.
➤ Explore our referral, loyalty, and incentive triggers.
Disjointed messaging across platforms
Customers don’t care which team is sending the message—they care about consistency.
➤ Our Communication Co-Pilot ensures unified messaging across every channel.

Ambassador = The AI Customer Engagement Network

We built Ambassador to help companies close the engagement gap once and for all.

Not with more tools.
Not with more teams.
But with a connected AI network that listens deeply, learns automatically, and acts instantly.

Every touchpoint becomes a signal. Every signal becomes an opportunity.
And every opportunity becomes a personalized moment that drives growth.

Brands Are Not Lacking Data. They’re Lacking Intelligence.

Twilio’s report calls on brands to act. Customers expect relevance, privacy, and value in exchange for their attention.

Ambassador answers that call.

If you’re already using Segment, Twilio, or any real-time messaging platform, we’ll supercharge that infrastructure with feedback loops that actually do something.

It’s time to stop shouting.
It’s time to start listening—and acting.

Join the AI Feedback Movement

Plug into the Ambassador network and turn your existing customer signals into your most powerful engagement engine.

👉 Talk to us
👉 See how Hiro captures feedback in real time
👉 Explore our real-time engagement tactics

The post You’re Not Listening: What Brands Are Getting Wrong About Customer Engagement appeared first on Ambassador.

Redesigning Your Company Around AI? Start With the World’s Most Connected Feedback Network

Geoff — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 21:49:29 +0000

The generational shift is here. Founders and executives everywhere are asking the same question: “How do I rebuild—or replace—my company with AI at the core?” It’s not just about swapping out humans for bots. It’s about redesigning how your business listens, learns, and acts in real time. At Ambassador, we believe the future of customer-led growth starts by connecting every signal—every voice, click, referral, review, or drop-off—into a live AI feedback loop. That’s why we’ve built the most connected AI feedback network on the planet. Here’s how you can use it to reshape your business from the inside out.

What Does It Mean to Rebuild with AI?

AI-native companies don’t just automate tasks. They operate on real-time intelligence, powered by a dynamic feed of behavioral, conversational, and emotional signals from customers and prospects. But most businesses are still blind to these signals.

You’re sending emails—but not listening to replies.
You’re pushing loyalty offers—but not learning what actually drives retention.
You’re asking for reviews—but not capturing the emotion behind the experience.

AI doesn’t make your business smarter unless it has something to listen to.

Ambassador Is the AI Infrastructure for Customer Signals

At the heart of this transformation is a connective layer of intelligence. Think of Ambassador as your brand’s neural network for customer engagement—built to collect and activate feedback at every moment of truth. We call it the AI Feedback Network. And it’s built to: ✅ Convert signals into action: From product feedback to referral triggers, every behavior is captured, analyzed, and turned into a growth opportunity. ✅ Learn what your customers don’t say: Using Hiro (our conversational AI), we extract emotional tone, hesitation, and intent—voice biomarkers that reveal what NPS never could. ✅ Plug into your entire stack: Salesforce, HubSpot, Twilio, WhatsApp, Klaviyo—you name it, we connect it. ✅ Build AI-native workflows without code: From triggered emails to loyalty flows, Ambassador automates engagement based on what your customers are doing right now.

Why This Matters for Founders, CMOs, and Heads of Product

If you’re thinking about replacing a bloated marketing team with AI tools—or designing your next business from scratch—start with your feedback architecture. Because in the AI era:

Customer service is no longer a ticket. It’s a signal.
Marketing is no longer a campaign. It’s a conversation.
Loyalty isn’t points. It’s participation.
Reviews aren’t surveys. They’re voice-driven trust engines.

Ambassador doesn’t just help you automate what you used to do—it helps you build what you couldn’t before.

What Should You Be Doing Now?

Audit Your Signals Are you capturing real-time feedback across email, chat, voice, and in-product behaviors? If not, that’s your first gap.
Design for Self-Improving Loops Use tools like Ambassador + Hiro to trigger actions based on behavior—referrals, incentives, reviews, product insights—all personalized and automated.
Let AI Guide Strategy, Not Just Tasks Don’t just replace humans. Rethink how you collect insight. Replace slow surveys and point-based systems with real-time feedback signals.
Think Like a System Architect Whether you’re building lean or replacing a team, the goal isn’t just savings—it’s acceleration. Our clients ship faster, engage smarter, and grow sustainably.

You Don’t Need to Guess Anymore

With Ambassador, you don’t need to wait 6 months for a retention report or a loyalty program to start working. You can act now—on real signals, from real customers, in real time. We’re already powering this shift for global brands, startups, and AI-native challengers. If you’re building the next chapter of your company around AI—don’t start with tools. Start with feedback. Let’s make every customer moment intelligent. Let’s build smarter, together. 👉 Learn more about the AI Feedback Network

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Rethinking Engagement in FinTech: What We’re Hearing—and What’s Working

Geoff — Thu, 29 May 2025 21:20:28 +0000

“We’re expected to do more with less—again.”

If you’re leading growth, marketing, or CX at a FinTech or financial services company, this might sound familiar.

Over the past few months, we’ve been in dozens of conversations with teams across the space—neobanks, payment platforms, lending startups, enterprise SaaS. And we keep hearing the same things:

“Paid ads aren’t converting like they used to.”
“Our customers want more personalization, but we don’t have the team to deliver it.”
“We need to retain more users—but everything feels reactive.”

The pressure’s real. CAC is climbing. Budgets are flat. And the ask from leadership? Keep growing—without hiring, without burning out the team, and without introducing more complexity.

You’re not alone.

So where are teams turning?

What we’re seeing from the most resilient and forward-thinking FinTech brands isn’t a race to add more tools. It’s a shift toward smarter, more automated engagement strategies—rooted in trust, designed to scale.

And no, we’re not talking about another “AI growth hack.”
This is about fundamentals, executed well:

Turning customers into advocates
Keeping users engaged with relevant incentives
Listening to feedback—and acting on it
Automating the busywork so your team can stay focused

Let’s dig into the three most common themes we’re hearing—and what’s actually working.

1. Paid Acquisition Is Struggling. Referrals Are Filling the Gap.

Acquisition is expensive. And in FinTech, where trust is critical, traditional ads often fall flat.

That’s why many teams are going back to one of the oldest, most reliable growth levers: referrals.

But not the kind that lives in a dev backlog for six months. We’re talking automated, personalized, high-converting referral journeys that reward users for sharing at just the right moment—after sign-up, after first funding, after product use.

Done right, referrals can:

Reduce CAC by 30–40%
Bring in users who convert faster
Strengthen customer trust from day one

👉 Explore Referral Programs

2. Retention Is the New Growth—But Most Loyalty Programs Miss the Mark

Retention is no longer a KPI—it’s survival. But here’s the truth: points-based loyalty programs alone don’t cut it in financial services.

Users aren’t looking for gimmicks. They’re looking for value and recognition.

What’s working instead are behavior-based loyalty triggers—rewarding customers not just for logging in, but for actions that deepen their financial relationship:

Upgrading to a premium plan
Completing a savings challenge
Referring a colleague to the platform
Hitting a milestone in a financial education module

These are the moments that matter—and when brands reward them, users stick around.

👉 See Loyalty in Action

3. Data Is Everywhere. Insight Is Rare. Feedback Is Gold.

You’ve got dashboards. You’ve got surveys. But most of the FinTech leaders we talk to tell us the same thing:
“We know something’s off, but we don’t know where to start.”

That’s where real-time, behavior-triggered feedback comes in.

Instead of quarterly surveys or after-the-fact NPS, teams are embedding lightweight, timely feedback asks throughout the customer journey:

After onboarding
After a support interaction
After hitting a roadblock

It’s like having a constant signal on what’s working—and what’s not—so you can fix issues before they become churn.

👉 Learn About AI Feedback

Let’s Be Real: Tools Won’t Save You. Strategy Will.

The best teams we’re seeing?
They’re not drowning in SaaS.
They’re not over-engineering their stack.

They’re choosing platforms that connect referral, loyalty, feedback, and incentives into one unified strategy—something built for automation, not manual hustle.

Ambassador is helping FinTech teams do that. But even if we’re not the right partner for you, the takeaway stands:

Growth in FinTech today is about trust, timing, and reducing friction—not adding more software.

If This Resonated…

You’re likely already thinking this way. You know your team’s stretched. You know engagement needs to be smarter. You’re just looking for what’s working.

This blog was written for you.
Let’s keep the conversation going.

📩 Reach out
📖 Read more stories
🛠️ Explore Ambassador’s FinTech Solutions

The post Rethinking Engagement in FinTech: What We’re Hearing—and What’s Working appeared first on Ambassador.

From Founders to Future: What Microsoft’s AI-Led Anniversary Means for the Future of Brand Engagement

Geoff — Tue, 27 May 2025 17:07:05 +0000

Why the Copilot + CEO moment isn’t just a PR stunt—it’s a preview of what’s coming to your inbox, support chat, referral flow, and loyalty program.

As Microsoft turned 50, something unusual happened.

Instead of a traditional fireside chat or nostalgic video reel, Microsoft’s three iconic CEOs—Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella—sat down for an interview. But it wasn’t conducted by a journalist or board member.

It was led by Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant.

And it wasn’t just for show. It was smart, a little cheeky, and remarkably human.

You can watch the full video here:
📺 Copilot AI Interviews Gates, Ballmer, and Nadella

Why this moment matters—for Microsoft, for AI, and for Ambassador

On the surface, this was a fun marketing stunt. But dig deeper, and it’s a glimpse into the future: executives engaging with AI not as a tool, but as a counterpart—an equal in the conversation.

At Ambassador, we believe this is more than symbolic. It’s validation of what we’ve been building for the past year.

Where Microsoft uses Copilot to support internal productivity, we’re focused on the external opportunity—real-time AI that listens to your customers, reacts to behavior, and builds a flywheel of advocacy, loyalty, and feedback at scale.

Meet Hiro: Your Brand’s Own Copilot for Engagement

Hiro is Ambassador’s AI assistant—trained not just to understand, but to engage.

It asks customers the right questions at the right time
It listens (even for tone, fatigue, and frustration)
It feeds those signals into your referral, loyalty, and incentive programs
It does this without needing a big team to orchestrate it

Just like Copilot can handle emails, documents, and meetings—Hiro automates the “relationship moments” that drive revenue.

We see a future where every brand has a Hiro—not just to answer questions, but to drive action across the funnel.

Microsoft Reinvented Productivity. Ambassador Is Reinventing Engagement.

Let’s be real: most brands don’t have the engineering muscle to build their own Copilot. But with Ambassador, you don’t have to.

We’re bringing these same AI dynamics—personalized, context-aware, automation-first—into:

Referral & Affiliate: Know which advocates are ready to share, and trigger rewards instantly
Loyalty: Identify which customers are at risk and re-engage before they churn
Feedback & Surveys: Ask the right questions at the right moment—no forms needed
Incentives: Deliver hyper-relevant offers based on customer behavior

All powered by Hiro. All tied together by your real-time data.

What This Means for Leaders

What stood out in the Microsoft video wasn’t just the tech. It was the tone. Copilot was confident, curious, and surprisingly human. It shows that AI can be more than a helper—it can be a voice in the room.

That’s exactly what brands need now. Not more dashboards. Not more alerts. A voice that acts.

The Future Is Conversational. Let’s Build It.

At Ambassador, we’re not just watching this moment—we’re building for it.

Microsoft gave us a preview of what happens when AI leads the conversation. At Ambassador, we’re making sure every brand—not just the biggest ones—can do the same.

Whether you’re a high-growth startup or an enterprise brand, you now have access to your own Copilot for customer engagement. His name is Hiro. And he’s just getting started.

📺 Watch the Microsoft Copilot Interview
Satya, Bill, and Steve Ballmer get interviewed by AI

🔗 Want to see how Hiro can power your next campaign or conversation?
Get a Demo →

The post From Founders to Future: What Microsoft’s AI-Led Anniversary Means for the Future of Brand Engagement appeared first on Ambassador.

Ambassador Named a Top 10 Leader in Customer Advocacy on G2 — A Milestone That’s All About Yo

Geoff — Wed, 21 May 2025 16:13:49 +0000

Today, we’re incredibly proud to share that Ambassador has been named one of G2’s Top 10 Leaders in Customer Advocacy. This is the first time we’ve received this distinction — and it means more than just a badge or a headline. It’s a validation of everything we’ve been building toward: a company rooted in relationships, committed to client outcomes, and bold enough to believe that software should feel personal. And here’s the part we love most: this recognition didn’t come from a nomination, a campaign, or a PR push. It came directly from our clients. Every review on G2 is voluntarily submitted. There’s no fluff. No marketing spin. Just honest, unfiltered feedback from the people who use our platform every day. So when our customers say they feel supported, heard, and set up for success—it matters. When they say we helped them turn advocacy into outcomes—it matters. And when they choose to tell the world about it—that’s everything.

Why This Win Hits Home

Customer Advocacy isn’t a feature. It’s not a product line. It’s a philosophy that drives how we build, how we engage, and how we grow. At Ambassador, we believe the best marketing doesn’t come from a paid ad—it comes from a real customer telling a real story. Advocacy is the lifeblood of modern brands. And it’s also the hardest thing to fake. So being recognized by G2 for Customer Advocacy—especially as we enter this next stage of growth—is deeply personal. It confirms that what we’re doing is working, that our clients trust us, and that our product is delivering on its promise.

The People Behind the Platform

This moment belongs to our clients. We’ve seen it in your feedback and reviews. From mid-market growth companies to global enterprises, you’ve told us how you’re using Ambassador to simplify your workflows, launch smarter referral and loyalty programs, and bring AI-powered communication into every part of the customer journey. You’ve mentioned how we’re helping you not just scale—but scale with integrity. With your brand voice. With clean data. With smarter automation that adapts to your customers, not the other way around. And many of you gave direct shoutouts to our support and onboarding teams. That means everything to us. We’re proud to build great software—but we’re even prouder that our people show up when it counts. Thank you for noticing.

Momentum Is Building

This recognition comes at a pivotal moment for us. In just the past few months, we’ve added new leadership, deepened strategic partnerships, and accelerated development across our platform. We’re preparing to launch Ambassador 3.0 this summer, and with it, a reimagined product experience focused on conversation-led engagement, real-time personalization, and automated advocacy. Hiro, our AI-powered feedback bot, is already rolling out across clients—and it’s redefining how brands listen, learn, and act on customer insights. Simply put: we’re just getting started.

Thank You for Building With Us

To every client who left a review, shared feedback, or championed us internally—this is your win too. You’ve shaped the product, sharpened our focus, and helped us grow into a company that leads with impact, not just features. If you haven’t left a review yet, we’d love to hear from you. Leave one here and be part of what comes next. Thank you for believing in us. Thank you for building with us. And thank you for reminding us that advocacy—real, honest, human advocacy—is still the most powerful growth engine of all. Let’s go. — The Ambassador Team

The post Ambassador Named a Top 10 Leader in Customer Advocacy on G2 — A Milestone That’s All About Yo appeared first on Ambassador.

The Rise of Brand Ambassadors in 2025: Why People, Not Platforms, Are Winning

Geoff — Tue, 20 May 2025 14:47:53 +0000

In an increasingly saturated marketing landscape, one thing is becoming clear: people trust people more than they trust brands. And this past week, two very different—but equally powerful—announcements drove that point home. First, Sinsang Market, a leading B2B fashion platform in South Korea, announced the launch of their Sinsang Linkers Global Ambassador Program to support their expansion into international markets. Days later, Korea Tourism Organization named actress and breast cancer survivor Hina Khan as its Honorary Brand Ambassador—highlighting not only a powerful personal story, but the ability of one individual to inspire trust and spark global attention. These aren’t one-offs. They represent a seismic shift in how brands—big and small—are thinking about reach, relevance, and resonance. And it’s exactly what we’ve been building for at Ambassador.

Ambassador Programs Are No Longer Just “Nice to Have”

For years, brands viewed ambassador and referral programs as marketing side projects. Today, they’re becoming core to growth, retention, and brand advocacy—especially in a world where customer acquisition costs are skyrocketing and trust in digital advertising is falling. Here’s what we’re seeing in the market:

Ambassadors are now brand multipliers: Customers, employees, influencers, and partners all have voices—and audiences. Brands are starting to give them the tools to amplify.
AI is making programs more intelligent: With the rise of tools like Hiro, brands can now listen to voice, detect sentiment, and trigger personalized actions across referral, loyalty, and incentives.
B2B is catching up to B2C: Platforms like LinkedIn are fueling the rise of employee advocacy and professional ambassador programs in traditionally conservative industries.

These shifts are not trends. They’re transformation. The most successful companies in 2025 will be those who mobilize their networks—not just market to them.

From Transactions to Conversations

We call it Conversational Commerce, and it’s the heart of the Ambassador platform. It means moving beyond static touchpoints and building real-time, feedback-driven relationships with the people who matter most: your customers, fans, and advocates. Here’s how leading brands are using Ambassador to power this transformation:

Launching real-time referral and affiliate programs that reward the right behaviors at the right time
Activating influencers and ambassadors using no-code workflows and automated reward triggers
Capturing voice-based feedback through Hiro to identify advocates and reduce churn
Deploying incentives that drive reactivation and upsell within minutes—not months

This is not about automation for automation’s sake. It’s about being closer to your customer—faster, smarter, and more authentically than ever before.

Why This Moment Matters

The announcements from Korea Tourism and Sinsang Market this week weren’t just PR headlines. They were reminders that brands who invest in people—and the infrastructure to support them—win. That’s what we’re building at Ambassador: The Most Connected AI-Feedback Network in the World, enabling brands to turn passive users into proactive advocates, seamlessly. If you’re ready to activate your community—and grow through authentic connection—we’d love to show you how. You can start by exploring how referrals, loyalty, influencers, and automated messaging can come together into one integrated strategy. Let’s turn your customers into your most powerful growth engine.

📣 Explore the Ambassador Platform: www.getambassador.com 📬 Want to see it in action? Book a Demo

Let me know when you’re ready for the LinkedIn post and I’ll draft it to pull people into this article.

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