Royal Enfield builds a loyal biker community through AI-driven marketing

With a legacy dating back to 1901, Royal Enfield is the world’s oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production. A cult favourite among biking enthusiasts globally, the brand is synonymous not just with classic and beautifully crafted motorcycles, but also with the pursuit of exploration and adventure. 

Over the years, the company has built up a loyal community of riders through curated motorcycling expeditions around the world, as well as biking clubs and an annual motorcycle festival, the Motoverse. 

“A Royal Enfield is more than just a bike – it’s an experience, a lifestyle,” explains Jatin Chhikara, Head, Digital Marketing and CRM, Royal Enfield. “People love being part of the Royal Enfield community because of everything it represents - freedom, camaraderie, and the pure joy of motorcycling.”

Data silos disrupt customer experiences

For years, Royal Enfield’s first customer touchpoint was digital. But when COVID-19 struck, the entire customer journey moved online. Customers could purchase a motorcycle on the website, order parts digitally, and even book a service on wheels through a mobile app. However, these interactions were managed on separate tools which fragmented customer data and experiences. 

Teams ended up with duplicates of customer names which created confusion. What’s more, CRM systems across the sales and marketing funnel didn’t talk to each other. This lowered operational efficiency, and diluted the impact of marketing campaigns.  

It was time to turn things around.

“We want our riders and community to have an absolutely A-grade and connected experience from the moment they land on our website, to when they visit our physical stores, book a test ride, buy a motorcycle, and have it delivered,” says Chhikara. “That’s now possible with Salesforce.”

In Their Own Words…

By using Salesforce to unify their customer data and profiles, Royal Enfield has been able to provide more personalised customer experiences. Watch this video to see how that is helping them deepen engagement.

A unified customer profile helps teams understand and serve customers better

Royal Enfield uses Data 360 to connect all customer data – including their purchases, preferences, intent, and behavioural footprint – in a single source of truth. Over 17 million customer profiles from dealer CRMs, ERP software, internal databases, cloud platforms, the company website, and customer app have been harmonised and consolidated into nine million unique and unified customer profiles. 

“Before Salesforce, we struggled to make sense of customer data scattered across 820 different fields and 80+ data streams,” recounts Chhikara. “But with Salesforce bringing all that transactional and behavioural data into one place, we have a much clearer and richer understanding of who our customers are, how best to engage with them, which motorcycles to pitch, what next best actions to take, and more.”

Targeted campaigns improve customer engagement rates by 100%

Royal Enfield leverages Agentforce Marketing to generate targeted and contextual communications at scale across the customer lifecycle. 

With a single customer view, campaigns are smarter. Teams know when to upsell or cross-sell, and when to promote a motorcycle accessory or extended warranty simply by looking at the customer’s transactions and behaviours, both online and in-store.

By sending customers the right message at the right time, Royal Enfield has increased engagement rates by 100%. And with sharper targeting, the volume of customer communications has reduced by 50%, improving marketing efficiency.

Teams also use Salesforce Personalisation to tailor the customer’s website experience based on their browsing behaviour. So, every time the customer books a vehicle on the website, or engages with the online riding community, or purchases motorcycle apparel from the digital store, they’re shown content that’s relevant to their needs. This, coupled with 60+ live web experiences, has increased propensity scores by 12%. 

Other improvements that the company has seen with audiences exposed to personalisation tactics are a 52% increase in web traffic, a 32% increase in time spent on the website, and a 2.7x surge in conversions from bookings, offsetting the company’s Salesforce costs.

Now, emails, SMSes, WhatsApp messages, and push notifications are no longer managed separately, but on one integrated platform. This has reduced costs by 15%, while also ensuring that customers have a seamless, omni-channel engagement experience.

AI-powered recommendations deepen engagement with millions of bikers

With Salesforce AI, Royal Enfield can predict the best time to send customers communications, the optimal frequency of those messages, and the likelihood of customers engaging with that content. Einstein’s machine learning algorithms also help customise product and content recommendations across channels.   

For riders at the Motorverse festival, Royal Enfield built a full-service AI assistant known as the MotoCaptain bot. With it, the brand became one of the first to launch and sell a motorcycle entirely on WhatsApp. 

Innovations like these are strengthening the company’s bonds with its community of six million Royal Enfield motorcyclists.

Actionable intelligence helps dealers convert up to 23% of high-propensity leads

With Salesforce, Royal Enfield’s leadership team has complete visibility into business trends, strategies that are (or aren’t) working, and sales performance metrics. These insights are used to motivate regional teams, distributors, and dealers to perform better.

Dealers are also empowered with actionable intelligence that helps them succeed. For example, every lead that’s sent to them comes with a propensity score – so, dealers can prioritise their sales efforts. And with insights on prospect behaviour, dealers know what to upsell and to whom. They’re able to have more intelligent conversations with the right prospects. As a result, high-propensity leads are converting at 23%.

Salesforce Professional Services simplifies the implementation journey

While implementing Salesforce, Royal Enfield worked with Salesforce Professional Services to lay the foundation for a scalable, future-ready tech stack. 

“We had an excellent experience with the Professional Services team who made a complex implementation look simple,” notes Chhikara. “Thanks to their proficiency, we were able to deliver the entire project on time.”

Next: AI will unlock richer insights that improve customer engagement even further

Royal Enfield now wants all its connected data sources on Salesforce to talk to each other for deeper insights. And with Gen AI, the company hopes to create sharper customer personas and profiles.  

“By activating all the intelligence we’ve gathered on Salesforce, we want to become even more relevant and contextual in our messaging,” says Chhikara. “The goal is to pull, not push customers to our brand.”

Using CRM + data + AI, Royal Enfield has transformed customer touch points across its channels, dealerships, mobile app, and website to deliver a standout experience. That's now being extended to post-sales engagements like motorcycle servicing and warranty support. 

Across the customer journey, targeted campaigns and real-time personalisation are helping the company forge deeper customer bonds, expand its community of fans, and get more people to embrace the lifestyle of motorcycling.