Abstract
This research develops a guiding framework for Small, Medium, and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) towards the adoption and utilisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an agent for Customer Engagement Marketing (CEM), investigates the implementation and use of AI to enhance customer engagement among SMMEs within South Africa. SMME’s play a vital role in driving South Africa's economy, making substantial contributions to job creation, innovation, and economic development. However, in South Africa, these businesses face high failure rates, with limited resources, high competition, and structural challenges often threatening their long-term growth. Although technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence, presents significant opportunities in improving productivity, customer engagement, and competitiveness, SMMEs have shown persistently low rates of technology adoption. This hesitancy to embrace digital solutions, coupled with challenges including limited resources, digital infrastructural deficiencies, customer AI-CEM resistance, external support and insufficient knowledge of AI technologies. The study aims to address these issues by exploring AI tools that can improve CEM, evaluating the effectiveness of current strategies, and identifying both challenges and opportunities in AI implementation, with a view to develop an SMMEs AI adoption framework.
A combination of quantitative and qualitative research approaches is applied to the study, using a mixed-methods approach within a pragmatic paradigm. Surveys, interviews, and document analysis were used to gather data. Qualitative insights were obtained from 21 interviews with SMMEs, while quantitative data came from 244 respondents. The qualitative data underwent thematic analysis to identify recurrent categories and emerging themes from the interviews, while the quantitative data were analysed using Python 3.8 to provide descriptive, inferential and exploratory statistics.
The findings reveal that AI has significant potential to enhance customer engagement and optimise marketing strategies. However, SMMEs continue to adopt technology at a low rate because of several barriers, such as limited funding and a lack of knowledge about AI implementation. Specific AI tools that could improve marketing for SMMEs
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were identified, particularly those that allow for personalised customer interactions and automate repetitive marketing tasks.
Despite this potential, many SMMEs lack a structured framework for integrating AI into their operations, limiting their competitiveness against larger enterprises. The study suggests a comprehensive framework tailored specifically for SMMEs to facilitate the adoption of AI technologies. This framework offers practical, step-by-step guidance on integrating AI into marketing strategies, helping SMMEs to improve engagement with their customers.
The study also emphasises the necessity of resources and training to enable SMMEs to use AI efficiently and fully realise its promise. The necessity of this research stems from its potential to develop a framework that will possibly support the sustainable expansion of SMMEs in South Africa and close the gap between advanced technologies and SMME practices. This study intends to foster strong customer relationships, increase marketing efficacy, and support the SMME sector's long-term economic resilience by providing valuable insights about the practical process to adopt and use of AI for CEM.