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Key Takeaways
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Unified data is the foundation for luxury CX. Having a unified view of customers across markets helps to gives a lean marketing team the visibility it needs to deliver consistent, elevated experiences. Pre-built automations help small teams move fast. SAP Engagement Cloud’s library of proven automation tactics enables brands to launch campaigns quickly. These automations can either be used as-is or modified. Leading brands are preparing for an agentic future. Forward-thinking organizations envision a near future where a single instruction to an AI agent produces a ready-to-launch, cross-channel automation, and they’re building the foundational connected software now to enable that future. |
In a world full of pressure to deliver faster outcomes and apply AI for greater efficiency, sometimes reaching for a hot cup of tea is the most soothing and relaxing moment of the day.
AVANTCHA Tea believes in the best of both worlds: scaling for global markets with AI assistance, while also keeping humans in the loop and delivering truly personal and exceptional customer experiences.
Read on to how this premium brand is growing its reach while always keeping quality top of mind.
The challenge: Fragmented systems vs. global ambitions
AVANTCHA Tea is a luxury tea brand with operations spanning Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and Thailand. AVANTCHA sells not only tea but the lifestyle around it, so how the brand speaks to customers matters as much as its products.
For a premium brand like AVANTCHA, delivering consistent customer experiences across multiple markets is no small task, especially with a small marketing and IT team and fragmented systems. Because systems didn’t talk to each other, and markets operated in silos, the brand struggled to achieve a unified view of the customer.
"AVANTCHA Tea was looking at our markets in silos. We took a step back, looked at our entire digital ecosystem and architecture, and decided what needed to elevate our entire strategy, starting with the infrastructure. Our approach to CX should be as holistic as our approach to tea. We chose SAP Engagement Cloud because it gives us the tools we need to create a more elevated and personalized customer journey."
For a luxury brand, loyalty is created through every interaction and genuine connection to the experience around the product. The state of loyalty in today’s market is sensitive, though, according to research uncovered by the 2026 SAP Customer Loyalty Index.
Loyalty Challenges in 2026
To meet customer expectations and deliver enriching experiences at every touchpoint, AVANTCHA turned to SAP Engagement Cloud for AI-driven omnichannel engagement.
The solution: Omnichannel engagement and native AI capabilities
The AVANTCHA team started with the essential core e-commerce systems before turning to automated customer engagement as the next step for their emotive, lifestyle-led brand. After evaluating what was available, AVANTCHA chose SAP Engagement Cloud both for its industry-specific tools and for its ability to create a single, omnichannel view of the customer across every market.
As explained by Karim El Alaili, Head of eCommerce and IT, “There’s never a perfect tool for everything, but in this case, SAP Engagement Cloud marked every check box.”
Automating global engagement with a small team
Rather than building campaigns from scratch, AVANTCHA leaned on SAP Engagement Cloud’s library of pre-built, proven automation tactics. Some automations launched as-is, while the AVANTCHA team modified others for the brand. The pre-built campaigns reduced effort to strategizing and enabled the team to go from implementation to a fully live program in a matter of days.
Within six months of launching SAP Engagement Cloud, AVANTCHA created 16 global automation programs that were either live or in build, supported by a lean team of fewer than 15 marketers and IT supports.
One example is the brand’s “A taste of what we do” introductory journey. A first-time website visitor can request a sample, which triggers an automated flow for WhatsApp, email, or a retargeting segment, depending on the customer. By connecting with customers on their preferred channel, AVANTCHA can smoothly welcome them into the ecosystem.
Personalizing the customer journey at scale, with AI on a short leash
Tea preferences differ sharply by market; what’s popular in Bangkok is very different from Dubai or Zürich. With customer data unified in one solution, AVANTCHA segments its audience and tailors messages, offers, and timing to each market, using A/B testing and AI-assisted subject line generation to keep improving performance.
AVANTCHA chooses to limit AI use for now, applying it to the testing of subject lines. For a luxury, emotive brand, the caution is an intentional decision to apply human judgement to the brand messaging. The team’s approach is to let AI accelerate the move from idea to draft, then bring the human element back in at editing stage, accelerating the process without losing the brand’s voice.
The impact and ambitions for an agentic future
The new automated campaigns have achieved 5–10% click-through rates, nearly double the brand’s prior KPIs, and email open rates are 50–60%.
Going forward, the AVANTCHA team envisions a near future where a single instruction to an AI agent produces a ready-to-launch, cross-channel automation. Although that future isn’t fully here, the building blocks already exist, and the goal isn’t for AI to replace the team but to amplify what a small team can do.
That philosophy is AVANTCHA’s throughline: test constantly, treat every result as data, and don’t be afraid of a hypothesis that turns out wrong, as long as you learn from it and iterate.
"Technology is only as good as the people using it day to day. Just try, learn — this is how we grow. We can only move forward with the right brand governance and the right people in place. This is how we will be able to guide AI agents to achieve the best outcomes and exceptional experiences for our discerning tea lovers."
Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely. SAP Engagement Cloud is built for true omnichannel personalization. You can orchestrate seamless 1:1 customer journeys and tailor content across email, SMS, mobile, push, web, in-app, and even offline channels – all from a single solution. By unifying your data and channels, SAP Engagement Cloud helps ensure every interaction is consistent, relevant, and timely, regardless of where your customer engages. It’s personalization at scale, made simple.
AI marketing automation tools streamline campaign execution by automating tasks such as customer segmentation, content personalization, and send-time optimization. This leads to more timely and relevant interactions, improving customer engagement and conversion rates.
Look beyond open rates. The metrics that matter are conversion rate per flow (not per email), revenue attributed to automated sends vs. manual campaigns, and customer lifetime value for subscribers who enter automated journeys vs. those who don't. Also track unsubscribe and spam complaint rates per automation – a flow that drives short-term clicks but increases opt-outs is working against you.
Start with your data. The most common gap in marketing automation is disconnected data, where automations only have access to web behavior and lack purchase history, loyalty status, or inventory data. Look for a solution that connects customer, product, and operational data into a single engagement layer, so your automations can make decisions based on the full picture.
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