Today, 70% of people agree they expect to have conversational experiences with brands on social media, too. But finding ways to talk directly to your consumers can seem intimidating. So, how can you integrate conversational marketing into your strategy? Enter: social media messaging apps.

Social messaging apps give marketers the opportunity to connect with people one-on-one by creating impactful, personalized touchpoints. These channels are approachable for consumers, social media managers and customer care specialists alike.

When choosing the right apps to talk to your audience, consider why and how people want to connect with your brand.

• Do they want a quick response to a frequently asked question?
• Are they looking for a video consultation with an expert before buying?
• Do they need help using your product or service?

In this guide, we’ll break down the 11 most popular social messaging apps and their use cases. From the well-known to the often overlooked, we’ll help you find the right app(s) to reach your community.

Why should your brand use social messaging apps?

The customer journey is changing. Social media is now an essential part of reaching people, from generating awareness to creating advocacy. Consumers expect to direct message, voice chat or video call your brand when they’re in a moment of need. Social media messaging apps allow you to meet consumers’ new communication expectations while supporting your business objectives. Watch our video below for an overview of the most popular social messaging apps, along with tips to help you select the best social messaging app for your brand:

Engage in conversational commerce

About 90% of consumers buy from a brand if they follow them on social. That impressive number reveals how important it is to invest in your social messaging strategy. When brands adopt conversational commerce tools like chatbots, live chat and video consultations, they deliver easier buying experiences and win more sales.

Provide customer service and care

People will no longer settle for one-way communication or outdated 1-800 numbers when dealing with a customer service issue. They expect brands to use the most convenient channels for them, including social messaging apps.

If you’re not available to support your customers with social messaging, you will leave gaps in the customer experience. Some 67% of consumers identify responsive customer service as the most important factor in creating a positive experience with a brand on social.

Build a pool of brand evangelists

Be attentive and engage thoughtfully when people send you a positive direct message. By providing an extra level of care, you will make them feel like a top priority, and more likely to become a loyal customer.

Take it a step further by surprising some of your diehard admirers with V.I.P. discount codes, premium offers, access to exclusive live events and sneak previews. These extra steps will turn your customers into brand advocates.

Navigate a social media crisis

On the flip side, show just as much care and attention when things go wrong. Although you can’t always control a social media crisis, you can minimize its negative impact by addressing customer concerns via social messaging apps. Keep a keen eye on your notifications and @mentions to prevent negative feedback from snowballing.

Thankfully, this doesn’t mean monitoring your social feeds 24/7. Social media engagement tools like Sprout Social can notify you of engagement spikes and spot a potential crisis before it snowballs.

11 most popular social messaging apps

Now, let’s dive into the most frequently used social media chat apps.

1. WhatsApp
2. Instagram direct messages
3. Messenger
4. TikTok direct messages
5. WeChat
6. SnapChat
7. Telegram
8. Discord
9. Viber
10. Twitter direct messages
11. Zendesk

1. WhatsApp

Monthly active users: 2 billion

Key benefits:

• Chatbots
• Video and voice chat
• No ads
• Businesses can send 6 different message types

The growing buzz around WhatsApp has many marketers asking, “What’s up with WhatsApp?” As the most popular messaging app in the world, WhatsApp is proving to be an essential part of modern marketing and customer care strategies—especially for brands with a global audience. WhatsApp makes it possible to streamline all messaging with consumers in one convenient place. Whether they have an issue with their order or are looking to buy something new, WhatsApp is the channel people turn to.

On WhatsApp, you can call, video call or live chat with customers. If you face a high quantity of messages, you can also employ chatbots on the app. Although the app doesn’t allow advertising, brands have other opportunities to effectively reach consumers. For example, some leading brands use digital catalogs to help their customers discover their products and services.

2. Instagram direct messages

Instagram monthly active users: 2 billion

Key benefits:

• Integrated with Instagram
• Built-in GIF and sticker gallery
• You can add filters, effects and drawing to images
• Video and voice chat

Instagram is the most downloaded app in the world. Instagram direct messages (DMs) play an important role in its success by allowing users to connect one-on-one and in group messages. In the Instagram app, you can send DMs to all users, including brands.

Instagram DMs are a great way to dip your toe into social messaging apps. Chances are if you have a presence on Instagram, you’re already familiar with DMs, as they don’t require a separate app or account. Even when a consumer tags your brand in their Stories, you’ll automatically see it in your DMs.

Instagram DMs have built-in GIF and sticker galleries so you can infuse whimsy into your messages. If you send a photo or video, you can also add filters, effects and drawings. As Instagram continues to evolve into a video-first app, you can now make video calls and voice chat in DMs, too.

3. Messenger

Monthly active users: 1.3 billion

Key benefits:

• Integrated with Facebook
• Automated replies and chatbots
• Built-in GIF and sticker library
• Video chat

Messenger is Meta’s most-used feature. Originally launched in 2011, the app is separate from the Facebook platform, but still integrated in the user interface. Well-known around the world, Messenger is the right app for brands trying to reach a wide variety of people.

When using Messenger for business, you can create automatic replies and set up chatbots to answer frequently asked questions. This is useful for brands who receive a high volume of incoming messages.

Like Instagram, the app offers a built-in GIF and sticker gallery so you can infuse personality and playfulness into your live-chat, too. If your customer care cases go beyond chat, Messenger also provides video call capabilities.

4. TikTok direct messages

TikTok monthly active users: 1 billion

Key benefits:

• Integrated with TikTok
• Custom auto-replies

Like Instagram, TikTok messaging is integrated in the app. With 1 billion monthly active users and growing, the potential for reaching people increases everyday. But TikTok messaging is unique. To send a message, the recipient must accept your message request—even if they’re a brand.

For some consumers, this feature adds a roadblock on their customer journey. But this extra step also prevents your inbox from overflowing—which makes it easier to prioritize ongoing conversations with brand advocates, influential creators and high priority customers.

TikTok also offers an automated response option for business accounts. This helpful workaround allows you to acknowledge people sending you messages before accepting. It also enables you to answer frequently asked questions based on common keywords.

5. WeChat

Monthly active users: 1 billion

Key benefits:

• Reaches Chinese-speaking communities worldwide
• Video and voice chat
• Broadcast messaging
• Social commerce capabilities

If you’re trying to reach Chinese-speaking communities, WeChat is a must-use app. Facing steep competition, WeChat emerged as the leading Chinese messaging app because of its high message capacity and social commerce capabilities. In fact, users can send up to 45 billion messages a day. They can also send voice chats and make video calls. Like other social media platforms, they can broadcast messages publicly on WeChat, too.

WeChat’s social commerce integrations are among the best in the mobile payment app industry. WeChat Pay boasts 900 million users who send money and make purchases within the app.

For global brands, WeChat should play a pivotal role in their strategy—especially for timely events like Lunar New Year celebrations.

6. Snapchat

Monthly active users: 500 million

Key benefits:

• Disappearing images and videos
• Custom filters, effects and drawings

With certain social messaging apps, success depends on cross-promotion with other platforms. Take Snapchat for example. For people to see your content, they must subscribe to your Profile. To spark intrigue, share snippets of the highly engaging videos you’re posting on Snapchat to other social apps. This might include behind-the-scenes tours, interactive custom filters or influencer takeovers. You can also include links to your website or app in your content.

Once you amass a following and your Profile is verified, you can start having meaningful conversations around the Stories you post. For example, your subscribers can send you questions or share their love for your new product. You can also Quote your followers’ replies and share them on your Story—this level of engagement is key to creating loyal superfans.

7. Telegram

Monthly active users: 500 million

Key benefits:

• Edit and delete messages after you send them
• Location sharing
• Expiring messages
• Unique themes and stickers
• Supports group messaging up to 200,000 people

Similar to WhatsApp, Telegram is a popular alternative to traditional SMS texting—particularly for people messaging between countries. Telegram enables large group messages, location sharing and unique themes and stickers. But it also has additional features popular for businesses, including B2B brands.

In Telegram, you can edit and delete messages after they’ve been sent, or set an expiration date on a message. This could be valuable when you need to send a customer an expiring code or if you’re a B2B business sending confidential paperwork.

8. Discord

Monthly active users: 350 million

Key benefits:

• Video and voice chat
• Screen sharing
• Bottom of the funnel opportunities
• Live events

Discord, the social messaging app used most frequently by gamers, is a new frontier for many companies—even retail brands are beginning to tap into the platform’s potential.

By creating a Discord server, you are able to add channels catering to the niche interests of your community. Your channels can be private, public or view-only.

In your server, you can host live events. Whether it’s an “ask me anything” video or a gaming tournament, live events encourage advocacy and conversation within your community. Leading brands on Discord also give their consumers access to premium channels to encourage repeat purchases.

9. Viber

Monthly active users: 250 million

Key benefits:

• Built-in GIF and sticker gallery
• Video chat
• Built-in QR code scanner
• Supports unlimited group messaging

Viber, or Rakuten Viber, is another social messaging app often preferred over traditional SMS texting, especially in eastern European and Middle Eastern countries. Known for its security and end-to-end encryption, it’s marketed as one of the safest messaging apps. Viber offers group messaging with no size limitations, video chat and a built-in GIF and sticker gallery. Users with a subscription plan can also make calls to all telephone numbers.

Viber for Business allows companies to chat with customers through its platform, but this feature isn’t available in many countries. However, all brands can create ads for the app and take advantage of the built-in QR scanner.

10. Twitter direct messages

Twitter monthly active users: 217 million

Key benefits:

• Integrated with Twitter
• Chatbots
• Built-in GIF and sticker gallery

If your brand is on Twitter, you probably already use your Twitter DMs to communicate with customers. Twitter DMs are integrated into Twitter, and anyone can send other users messages. In your DMs, you can employ chatbots to provide exceptional customer care, too.

We recommend using the built-in GIFs, sticker gallery and emojis to infuse your brand’s identity into your conversations.

11. Zendesk

Key benefits:

• Omnichannel customer care
• Voice chat
• Chatbots

Although not technically a social messaging app, Zendesk is the glue that holds an effective social messaging strategy together. Zendesk is a customer service software dedicated to helping brands create meaningful, personal and productive relationships with their customers.

The software integrates with your social messaging apps to provide customer support and sales outreach at scale. You can also connect Zendesk with a social media management platform like Sprout Social to resolve issues faster across your social and customer service teams.

Manage your social messaging apps in one place with Sprout Social

If these social messaging apps are already a part of your strategy, you know the struggle of trying to balance so many channels at once. Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox unifies your social channels into a single stream to monitor all incoming messages. It simplifies customer care and outreach by making it easy to see messages, mentions and brand keyword usages at a glance.

The Smart Inbox offers tools like People View to help you provide personalized experiences for your contacts. In People View, you can foster connections with influencers, manage your VIP Lists and view conversation history with a specific user profile.

It all boils down to this: When using social messaging apps, you must make your customers feel like they’re your top priority.

Looking for more guidance to help you refine your social messaging strategy? Learn why social messaging is the future of the customer experience.

The post 11 Social messaging apps every marketer should know in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

According to The Sprout Social Index™, the most memorable thing brands can do on social is respond to their customers. So this month we scoured the internet looking for brands across industries—from pet products to business software to car insurance—who shine when responding on social. Each of these brands deliver A+ customer care, which translates to increased awareness, brand loyalty, positive sentiment and revenue.

Here’s our lineup of brands who take customer care on social seriously, and takeaways you can use to elevate your care strategy to new heights.

PNC Bank: Finance industry-approved customer care

For brands in regulated industries like financial services, social can be a perilous place. Regulatory agencies closely monitor financial institutions to ensure their social presence complies with laws and regulations (if it doesn’t, it can result in significant fines and other legal action). One rogue post can lead to the collapse of decades-old financial institutions.

The stakes are high, but that doesn’t mean financial companies can ignore social altogether. The opposite is true. Being engaged on social is vital to protecting their brand and retaining customers. For example, the 170-year old PNC Bank is dedicated to ensuring consumers’ financial wellbeing. And that includes on their service channel of choice: social media.

Their team responds to customer needs thoroughly and professionally—while protecting consumer privacy and remaining compliant. They make it easy for users to send private messages with the click of a button, and do their best to fully resolve issues without sending customers to a different channel.

They are so committed to providing service on social, they proactively ask their customers how they can assist them on a regular basis. PNC Bank’s customer care on social stands out in the crowded financial services industry. According to Sprout Social Listening data from January 13 to February 12, 2024, PNC Bank has a 64% positive sentiment rate, which is 8% and 12% higher than its two biggest competitors.

The play: Social customer care isn’t just for digital-first brands. Consumers expect real-time interactions with legacy brands, like financial service institutions, healthcare providers and government agencies too. Brands in regulated industries need a plan in place to address compliance risks and guidelines, so they can show up for their customers. Remember: The greatest risk to your brand is a customer experience filled with friction.

Liquid Death: Strategic, supportive and snarky

Irreverence to convention is core to Liquid Death’s brand. But so is transparency. The water brand is currently worth $700 million, a testament to the effectiveness of its particular edginess. It stands out in a market full of water brands—typically available in plastic containers—as the anti-establishment choice.

When responding to customers on social, they don’t adopt a professional persona that would counter their brand. Instead, they curse and communicate succinctly, while still acknowledging customers’ questions and pain points. Even when the issue isn’t their fault, like in this example.

They approach care as an arm of their content strategy, using it as an opportunity to emphasize their competitive differentiator: no plastic. Of course, they do it in their own morbid way.

The play: Adopting an irreverent, snarky brand voice on social is absolutely not for everyone. But it works for Liquid Death because these traits are baked into their brand DNA. The most important thing to pay attention to in their customer interactions is how they prioritize:

• Resolving their customers’ issues.
• Engaging with posts and comments in a way that feels genuine and authentic.
• Infusing competitive advantages into their responses.

Chewy: Melting pet parents’ hearts

For help crafting this article, we turned to Sprout Social’s community, The Arboretum, to learn which brands inspired other social pros. A brand that received emphatic praise was Chewy, the beloved pet food and products company.

As Rebecca Taylor, Social Media Marketing Manager at UserTesting put it, “I’ve never been let down by Chewy’s team. They engage with posts of my cat frolicking in boxes when his deliveries come. They respond ASAP if there’s ever an issue (even when the issue is delivery, they just reship immediately so no one goes hungry). They even periodically send little surprises, like birthday cards or portraits of my cat. I don’t know another brand who goes as far for their customer or makes you feel like they genuinely care the way Chewy does (if the Chewy social media manager is reading this, I’m a huge fan!)”

The brand is well-known for their compassionate voice, personalized service, and going above and beyond for their customers (and their pets). Even when issues seem out of their control, like when this customer said Chewy’s boxes were too heavy to lift up the stairs, they are quick to find a way to help.

One of the most impressive things about Chewy’s care strategy is that they refer to all of their customers’ pets by name, like in this response to a user on X (formerly Twitter). That level of personalization requires integrating social data with CRM software, the holy grail of seamless customer experiences.

Chewy’s investment in providing top-tier service on social pays off. According to Sprout Social Listening data from January 13 to February 12, 2024, Chewy has an impressive positive sentiment rate of 77%.

The play: Social is one cog in Chewy’s exceptionally well-oiled customer care machine. Responsiveness and proactive care are the norm for the brand across channels, and it’s clear every touchpoint is equally important to their strategy. When expanding your social care efforts, remember it’s only one piece of the puzzle. To deliver a seamless, satisfying customer experience, your brand needs to streamline your multichannel service workflow, and have the right resources on hand.

Jira by Atlassian: Your new work BFF just entered the chat

Jira’s social customer care persona might be described as “your work BFF.” They’re quick to reply to customer mentions with witty comments and affirmative messages. For a software brand, their conversations feel remarkably human. A reminder that even B2B social customer care should be person-first.

As Loren Siegel, Atlassian’s Community and Engagement Senior Team Lead, puts it, one of the company’s values is, “Don’t f*** the customer.” And that’s at the heart of everything they do, especially when it comes to customer care.

Since using Sprout Social, Atlassian (the company behind Jira) was able to cut their time to first reply down from seven and a half hours to two and a half. Siegel says our platform helps them nurture a more connected customer experience. “Sprout removes the curtain of mystery between all teams that touch social media. It really helps bring visibility between the marketing, customer care, communications and brand teams,” she says.

In the last fiscal year, revenue at Atlassian grew 26%, and 50% in the enterprise segment. Their growth can be attributed to powerful software and the overall positive sentiment consumers feel toward their brands. A major part of that is their care team.

The play: B2B brands, this one’s for you: Humanize. Your. Brand. The people who reach out to you on social want to talk to other people, so use that to your advantage. Talk like a human. Celebrate loyal fans who want to geek out over your product together. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

GEICO: There for you on your worst day

When customers reach out to GEICO, it’s usually because they’re having a really bad day. Whether they have a question about billing, run into friction on other service channels or even got into a car accident, tensions are high. Which means the customer care team needs to execute flawlessly.

GEICO excels at responding promptly and calmly on their support account, @GEICO_Service—quickly bringing the exchange from mentions to DMs, which ensures privacy protection for their policyholders.

Providing quality customer care on social is a differentiator for GEICO. Their top competitors don’t offer support on social at all, and instead frustratingly refer customers to their support hotline or their agents. As a result, Sprout Listening data from January 14 to February 13 demonstrates that GEICO has a positive sentiment score of 68%, which is 12% and 30% higher than their top competitors.

Part of their positive sentiment comes from the elevation of priceless brand assets like the GEICO Gecko, the star of their recent Legend of the Lizard documentary. But in an industry full of mascots, GEICO stands out on social for providing a complete brand experience—from content to care.

The play: Customer care on social should be part of your brand building strategy. Businesses across industries need to deliver fast, personalized care on social to outshine the competition (like GEICO), and protect the long-term health of their brand.

Engaging social content + customer care = a healthy brand

Small business spotlight: Melinda’s Hot Sauce

Unlike other brands on this list, Melinda’s doesn’t have hundreds of thousands of followers. But what this small but mighty business offers its customers is something even enterprises envy: a genuinely great product loyal customers can’t stop raving about.

The rapidly growing condiment manufacturer is quick to respond to customer comments and questions on social. When they do, the small business acts as if they are a chef making personalized recommendations to someone dining at their restaurant. Probably because they are a chef-founded company, and they put satisfying flavor and spice above all else.

Melinda’s genuine, wholesome demeanor makes it easy to cheer for the brand and its co-founders. Their efforts, on social and beyond, are why the brand has found its way on so many “best hot sauces” lists alongside household favorites.

The play: As a food retailer, it might have been easy for Melinda’s to take on a sarcastic tone, like many food and beverage industry peers. But that wouldn’t be true to their brand ethos. Larger brands should take note of the power of being true to your values, and remember that when you put your heart into your products, it shows in your customer care efforts.

Your customers are waiting for you. Are you ready?

That wraps up our second installment of the Post Performance Report. Stay tuned for next month’s edition where we’ll be focusing on brands mastering influencer marketing. In the meantime, remember these key takeaways:

Looking for more customer care inspiration? Download our social media customer service training deck to make sure your service reps understand the nuance social customer care demands.

And if you see a social post or campaign that deserves to be highlighted, tag us @sproutsocial and use #PostPerformanceReport to have your idea included in a future article.

The post Post Performance Report: Brands transforming social customer care appeared first on Sprout Social.

Net promoter score is more than just a customer service metric. It offers the combined power of quantitative and qualitative feedback, giving teams the chance to make substantial improvements to their customer care strategy.

In this article, we explain the basics of NPS measurement. Plus, we also walk you through how you can collect NPS data using Sprout.

• What is a Net Promoter Score
• Why your Net Promoter Score matters
• How to calculate Net Promoter Score
• How to collect Net Promoter Score feedback with Sprout Social
• What is a good Net Promoter Score?

What is a Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score measures customer loyalty by gauging whether or not a customer would refer your business to a friend or colleague. It’s calculated by asking customers to rate the likelihood of their referral on a scale of zero to ten. Anyone who provides a score of zero to six is a “Detractor”, while scores of seven to eight are “Passives” and scores of nine and ten are “Promoters”.

Although NPS is a type of customer satisfaction benchmark, it’s different from a customer effort score or customer satisfaction score. It measures the overall sentiment that a customer feels towards your brand, rather than focusing on a specific purchase.

Why your Net Promoter Score matters

Your Net Promoter Score is a key customer service metric. It’s a straightforward assessment that can serve as a powerful roadmap toward new and improved customer experiences—for fans and critics alike.

Understanding and tracking your NPS opens your business up to major opportunities, including:

Spotting customers at risk of churn

Your Net Promoter Score data will show your brand’s biggest promoters—and its harshest critics.

While their feedback may be hard to swallow, it’s absolutely crucial. When you proactively identify your detractors, you also create an opportunity to win them back. Once you’ve fine-tuned your NPS survey process, you can then establish a structured approach to following up with detractors. This outreach can transform negative experiences into positive ones, salvaging customer relationships along the way.

Eventually, your NPS data will be able to do more than just save one-off customers. With enough data, AI analytics tools can predict churn patterns and provide recommendations for intervention, contributing to a stronger overall customer experience.

Activating your biggest fans

Customer expectations are higher than ever. Imagine the level of satisfaction required for someone to rate a business a nine or ten out of ten in a feedback survey. Being able to accurately identify those superfans is more than just helpful—it can drive meaningful impact for your business.

Regularly measuring your Net Promoter Score gives your most enthusiastic supporters a chance to identify themselves. This information can be used to create tailored engagement programs that generate excitement and most importantly, word-of-mouth recommendations.

Once you start consistently engaging your promoters, you turn them into brand ambassadors. These advocates are invaluable, especially now that brand authenticity is at the top of everyone’s minds.

Supporting marketing efforts

Your NPS data offers valuable information about the aspects of your products, services or brand that resonate most with customers. These are more than just wins for your team—they’re valuable differentiators that can be used to support marketing efforts.

For example, say you work with a retail brand that collects NPS survey data. After analyzing trends in NPS feedback, you realize that customers love your brick-and-mortar experience—especially the help they receive from your thoughtful and experienced staff.

These insights provide the perfect foundation for a social media campaign promoting the level of service customers can expect when they shop with your brand. You might even center the campaign creative around real staff members and store locations to build a sense of community and familiarity.

Securing a competitive advantage

Tracking your NPS allows you to benchmark your performance against competitors in your industry, providing valuable insights into customer perception relative to your peers. By comparing your NPS with industry averages or competitor scores, you gain a clearer understanding of where you stand and how you stack up against others in the market.

Benchmarking against competitors also allows teams to set more realistic goals for their overall customer experience strategy. When you aim to outdo your competitors, you set your business up for great market share within your industry.

Improving customer experience

Feedback is the gift that keeps on giving. With Net Promoter Score (NPS) feedback, you can enhance your overall customer experience, resulting in more satisfied customers.

Your NPS survey data is a treasure trove of valuable customer feedback that can be segmented and analyzed to uncover pathways for improvement. This data makes it easier to align business priorities with customer needs and preferences, powering more strategic decision-making throughout your organization.

There isn’t a single department that wouldn’t stand to benefit from Net Promoter Score data. When every team is rallied around the customer, the whole business wins.

How to calculate Net Promoter Score

Calculating your Net Promoter Score starts with distributing NPS surveys at key points throughout your customer journey. This critical feedback will provide valuable insights into customer satisfaction and loyalty. For a thorough assessment of your customer retention practices, you’ll want to distribute NPS surveys:

• Shortly after customers make a purchase
• At the conclusion of support interactions
• At regular intervals (quarterly, bi-annually, etc.)

It seems like a lot, but don’t worry—there are plenty of customer service software tools that can automate survey distribution. The right solution should allow you to send out a large number of surveys at the right time to the right people in just a few clicks.

Once you begin collecting responses, you can calculate your score. To calculate Net Promoter Score, ignore Passive respondents then subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. As a reminder:

• Detractors are customers who gave a score from 0 to 6
• Passives are customers who gave a score of 7 or 8
• Promoters are customers who gave a score of 9 or 10

Your NPS can range from -100 to 100, with a positive score indicating that you have more promoters than detractors.

How to collect Net Promoter Score feedback with Sprout Social

You can send out NPS surveys at the conclusion of any social customer care interaction on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter) with the Sprout Social Advanced plan. To do so, navigate to Settings by clicking on your initials in the lower left corner of the app. From there you’ll click Customer Feedback under Inbox and Review settings.

You can use the profile picker to configure customer survey distribution for each of your social profiles. Be sure to select “Net Promoter Score™ (0-10)” as the Feedback Type for setup across all networks. This will ensure that users are prompted with the right Feedback Questions to accurately measure NPS.

You can report on your NPS using the Customer Feedback Report, which aggregates all customer satisfaction ratings collected via X, Instagram and Facebook Feedback survey responses. The report offers an overview of feedback results, along with performance data by team member and feedback responses.

What is a good Net Promoter Score?

Generally speaking, any score above zero is considered a good Net Promoter Score. However, a great customer experience strategy aims to exceed customer expectations at every touch point. To remain competitive, your true goal should be continuous improvement.

Analyze qualitative customer feedback, historical NPS score data and industry benchmarks to determine your goal Net Promoter Score. Set your sights on something realistic and achievable, and you’ll be on your way to creating a more competitive customer experience.

Are you getting the full picture when it comes to your Net Promoter Score?

People of all ages and demographics turn to social media to share praise, air grievances and everything in between. When you disregard Net Promoter Score data from social, you compromise the accuracy of your customer experience insights.

Sprout Social will help you get a more complete picture of your customer care story. Sign up for a free trial, and find out how you can drive more meaningful connections from social today.

The post What is a Net Promoter Score (NPS) and how do you measure it? appeared first on Sprout Social.

Create better customer experiences by ensuring your support agents understand the nuances of providing care on social. This social media customer service training deck will help you explain everything they need to know about the channel, including:

• Tips on delivering brand-friendly customer service across key social networks
• Instructions on when and how to escalate customer service inquiries
• Crisis management procedures, including what to do and who to call

Be the partner your customer service team needs. Download this social media customer service training deck and set your support agents up for more social media success. 

The post Template: Social Media Customer Service Training Deck appeared first on Sprout Social.

So why do so many marketing leaders continue to think of customer care as something that is “another department’s problem?” Marketing and care are two halves of the same whole. Do you care about your brand image? Do you care about overall customer sentiment about your company? Dive deep into your company’s NPS score, and the drivers behind it, and you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about.

The continued and rapid evolution of social media—a channel typically owned by marketing—from an “amplification” touchpoint to a preferred destination for customers seeking support is forcing marketing leaders to play a larger role in their brand’s customer service strategies. Social media has already become essential to brand and consumer relationships; social customer care is now also becoming a bigger piece of the brand experience.

Brands that recognize this—and answer the call with faster, personalized care—are outshining the competition, both in individual interactions and at scale. Let’s take a deeper look at this.

Rethinking the customer journey

Many CMOs orient their team’s strategy around an “ideal” customer journey: Awareness, consideration, purchase. Many other CMOs are also thinking about how customer onboarding, adoption and retention come into play.

How do you deal with bumps in the road during a trial or after a purchase? When product questions, technical problems and missing orders inevitably bubble up, your customers will need to connect with you. And whether or not you show up for them on their channels of choice will influence their overall experience with your brand.

Traditionally, businesses provided customer service on their terms. We all know the feeling of being stuck on hold as the thousandth person in the queue. Or repeating your situation to multiple service reps. Slow, antiquated and frustrating means of communication became the norm for customers.

The old ways aren’t tolerated anymore. According to The Sprout Social Index™, 76% of consumers notice and appreciate when companies prioritize customer support on social, and an additional 76% value how quickly a brand can respond to their needs.

Your customers expect that you will provide fast, quality care on social media—and if you don’t, their loyalty is up for grabs.

The right social customer service interactions can help your customers love you even more…or quickly get them to research alternatives. They touch everyone from people who have never heard of your brand or bought from you, to existing customers and brand advocates. When marketing leaders make customer care a priority in the customer journey, everybody wins.

Building a world-class brand is everyone’s responsibility

Consumers are still price sensitive, audience demographics are in flux and customer needs are evolving at a rapid pace. One bad experience can cost you a customer for life. And when it happens on a public forum like social media, the outcome can be catastrophic.

(It’s a fun time to be a marketer, right?)

The Sprout Social Index™ revealed that 8% of service teams and 16% of marketing teams exclusively own social media customer care. Everyone else was somewhere in the middle. The majority of brands agree both teams must work in harmony to deliver best-in-class service.

When social marketers alone manage social care, it can take several hours (or even days) for customers to be passed to the right service rep or get their questions answered. And when the service team is responsible for all social customer care, they can miss opportunities for positive engagement (in favor of dealing with complaints and escalations) and fail to pass on relevant customer insights.

When marketing and service teams work as partners, service agents can jump in immediately to resolve customer complaints. And social marketers can focus on crafting content, community engagement and interpreting customer data from service team interactions to make better decisions. This kind of collaboration requires both teams have compatible tools and adequate resources.

Collaboration should be more than a handoff

Many service professionals are dissatisfied with their existing tech stacks, and find it challenging to coordinate efforts with other teams. One-off DMs, long email chains and mismatched tools are to blame.

According to Q3 2023 Sprout Social Pulse Survey data, only 25% of customer care professionals rate their teams’ responses to customers on social as excellent, and only 32% are very confident in their team’s ability to handle a sudden influx of customer inquiries on social.

When reflecting on these numbers, alarm bells should sound.

Most care teams are working with piecemeal tech, leaving them underprepared and vital customer intelligence lost in limbo. This is especially concerning when it comes to social. Social is where care and marketing work most closely, and it’s a direct portal to understanding your brand performance, audience and industry. Decentralized, incompatible tools can add up to major opportunity costs.

Without shared tech to tap into social insights, care and marketing teams struggle to increase brand affinity. Almost all (94%) of business leaders agree social media data and insights help build brand reputation and loyalty. Another 88% agree social data is a critical tool in providing customer care.

As the lines between marketing and customer service blur, marketing leaders need to do more than master the handoff of tasks and tickets between their teams. They need to truly work in tandem to shift brand perception—finding processes and tools that increase productivity and surface strategic knowledge.

Customer care gives you a competitive edge

When companies master customer service and marketing collaboration, they create the brand experience audiences are looking for. What marketer out there doesn’t want to be the best of the best?

According to the Index, consumers think the most memorable thing brands can do on social is respond to them. One-on-one engagement trumps publishing volume and jumping on trends. Rather than spamming their followers’ feeds with content, savvy brands prioritize responding to customers and use those interactions to amplify their brand values. Customer care and community engagement tactics have become a content strategy in their own right.

Customer care, and everything it entails (i.e., engaging with comments and questions, review management, personalization, cross-channel support), is the critical piece of the brand perception equation. With the right social data and technology, brands can integrate care into the mix and turn it into a true competitive advantage and revenue driver.

Take Casey’s, the fifth largest pizza chain in the US. The company consistently prioritizes responding to and delighting their customers on social, and has built an impressive care-as-content strategy. They’re quick to respond to customers in their signature empathetic and friendly tone, while addressing unique needs and pain points.

As another example, Patagonia, the outdoor retailer known for its authenticity and community, has a world-renowned brand reputation. Just like the helpfulness they’re known for in-store, the company provides stellar care on social. The people behind their customer care team are quick to jump in with outdoor expertise and information about their repair program and return policy.

This level of orchestration only happens when marketing and customer service teams are in lock step.

Positive brand perception hinges on quality customer care

Customer service and marketing teams must be more aligned than ever before.

But CMOs and marketing leaders can’t let incompatible tech stacks and departmental silos define the customer experience. To truly deliver an amazing customer experience across the funnel, you must work with your customer service team to forge new processes, invest in the right resources and unite your teams in an unprecedented way.

Looking for more on the evolving customer care landscape, and how you can guide your company with an innovative strategy? Read about how Social Customer Care by Sprout Social fosters collaboration, enriches customer experiences and synthesizes customer data.

The post Marketing leaders: If you’re not hyper-focused on customer care, you’re setting your org up to fail appeared first on Sprout Social.

If you answered “we route these issues to the appropriate support agent”, then you’re probably familiar with the concept of customer service tiers. These tiers make it easy to provide all customers with speedy, reliable service regardless of the issue at hand, setting your team up to provide more quality customer service.

In this guide, we explain the basics of tiered support, along with tips on how to tailor the approach to your social customer care processes.

• What are customer service tiers?
• Why do organizations use tiered support?
• The basics of tiered customer service
• How social customer service tiers look different from standard support tiers
• How to set up customer service tiers in Sprout

Social Customer Care by Sprout Social

Deliver faster, personalized service right where they want it—your key to outshining the competition, and turning one-time engagements into lifelong brand loyalty.

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What are customer service tiers?

Customer service tiers create a structured approach to providing assistance and addressing issues by prioritizing and routing issues based on their level of complexity. The number of tiers can vary by business, but standard practice dictates that the higher the support tier, the more complex the problem.

This approach works as an escalation system, so support agents can handle issues aligned with their set of abilities and system accesses.

Why do organizations use tiered support?

Customer support tiers bring much-needed order to your case management strategy.

Without this level of structure, skilled support agents might get stuck dealing with FAQ-level inquiries, while beginners wrestle with complex problems. It’s a recipe for inefficiency, not to mention frustration on the customer’s end.

Tiered support mitigates the risk of either scenario while creating better experiences for both agents and customers. On the agent side, it creates a clear path for career growth and specialization. For customers, it streamlines the support process, increasing the likelihood of timely and frustration-free issue resolution.

The basics of tiered customer service

You have questions, we have answers. Here’s what you need to know about the fundamentals of tiered support.

How many support tiers do you need?

The number of support tiers your business needs largely depends on the complexity of your service or product. For instance, a software company may require a more specialized support tier structure compared to that of a retail brand. That said, customer support tiers typically scale from zero to three, and include the following: 

• Tier 0: This tier encompasses self-service portals such as FAQs and knowledge bases, along with bot support. These tools empower customers to independently resolve issues, offering a time and effort-saving solution for both parties.
• Tier 1: This tier of support is delivered by frontline or help desk support. This tier caters to customers who prefer engaging with a person to address routine troubleshooting issues, providing a personalized touch to issue resolution.
• Tier 2: This tier of support is typically provided by in-house technical experts. It’s meant for customers dealing with specialized problems that extend beyond basic troubleshooting. This tier offers a deeper level of expertise to address more complicated challenges.
• Tier 3: This tier is provided by highly specialized technical experts. Issues escalating to Tier 3 may include persistent challenges that call for developer investigation or questions from advanced users working with a more tailored version of your product or service.

How to define customer service tiers for your business

To define your tiered service approach, begin by assessing the different support issues your business usually deals with. Use reporting tools in your help desk software to get a clear view of recurring issues, along with those that may not happen as often but take up a significant amount of bandwidth when they do.

Once you’ve got a clear view of the business’s average support caseload, it’s time to evaluate those issues against the current structure of your customer service team. Match the expertise of your support agents with the difficulty of the issues they handle. This ensures that each support tier is well-equipped to handle specific challenges effectively.

As you implement your tiers, you’ll probably notice both shortcomings and opportunities. Document these and share them back with your team. This will establish a dialogue that supports ongoing strategic refinement, benefitting both your team and your customers.

An example of tiered support in action

Let’s take a peek behind the Sprout curtain to show what this all looks like in practice.

Our customers can initiate support requests from our website or from the platform itself. The Dashboard features a directory that enables users to self-select the type of support they’d like to receive. From there, they contact account services or our support team to reach our help center.

Customers that choose Sprout’s tier 0 support offerings use our self-service help center to access platform guides, release notes and information on managing permissions and billing. This reduces the overall amount of tier 1 requests that come through our system, while still making the option available to customers who need additional support to resolve an issue.

Tier 1 support is available through either request submission or live chat, providing customers flexibility depending on the urgency of the issue. From there, an issue can be resolved or escalated to the appropriate tier.

How social customer service tiers look different from standard support tiers

The majority of traditional support interactions take place in private conversations. On social, customers can provide their open and honest feedback to their friends, family and even some strangers, depending on the network. This may seem like a source of risk, but it’s also a major opportunity for brands that can successfully interject, navigate and shape the conversation to their benefit.

Social customer service tiers are a key tool for businesses looking to surprise and delight customers on the channel. However, they shouldn’t match the exact same criteria as your traditional customer service tiers. 

Social customer care rarely lives exclusively with one team. Creating effective social customer service tiers starts with deep collaboration between customer service and marketing departments. From there, you can set criteria for case creation. You can also determine what can be handled within your social media management platform versus what needs to be escalated to your help desk software.

Here’s what that escalation might look like in practice:

• Tier 0: A customer receives support through an automated social customer service chatbot.
• Tier 1: An agent provides support via comments or replies on a public post. This tier may also include simple questions sent via DM.
• Tier 2: An agent escalates an issue that involves sensitive customer information to a private channel or to help desk software. Anything that calls for billing, account or protected health information should be routed to your help desk software to protect your customer’s data.

How to set up customer service tiers in Sprout

Teams can create workflows that support superior customer experiences using Social Customer Care by Sprout Social. To set up customer service tiers, navigate to Settings by clicking on your initials in the lower left corner of the app. From there you’ll click Roles & Team Members under Account Settings.

The process begins with adding a new User Team. User Teams enable you to define appropriate groups of users who should receive and respond to different types of messages. In this case, that would be the agents working within a specific support tier.

Add a name, description and members to your new User Team, then click Create New Team.

Now that your team is good to go, it’s time to get case routing squared away. If you want, you can route Cases from directly within the Smart Inbox. However, if you’re dealing with a high volume of inbound messages, Sprout’s AI-powered Case Management solution would be a better choice.

Users with Administrative permissions can set up rules that automate case creation and routing by setting up Automated Rules under Global Features under Settings.

You can then set up Case Views by Tier, so that your team members only see cases that match their customer service tiers. Add custom views by going to Cases and selecting + Create New under Custom Views.

Set up Ordered Rules to ensure each Case reviews against one rule at a time, in the order you specify, so Cases are automatically routed to the appropriate tier without any overlap. Once a message matches a rule within the Ordered Rules section, no other ordered rules will run, ensuring the system routes your messages appropriately.

Bring tiered service into your customer care strategy with Sprout

Your customers deserve the same time and attention across all customer service channels. Boost confidence by easing collaboration between marketing and care with the right tools—like Social Customer Care by Sprout Social or our advanced integration with Salesforce Service Cloud. With Sprout, you can finally optimize your social customer care workflows and integrate them effectively with the rest of your customer service operations.

Find out how Sprout can help you go beyond customer expectations, at scale. Learn more about Social Customer Care by Sprout Social.

The post Customer service tiers: What they are and how to create them appeared first on Sprout Social.

The average buyer’s journey is becoming more dynamic, and social customer care is a way to capture your audience’s attention when the competition is fiercer than ever.

There’s no denying that customer retention should be a top priority if you want your business to thrive long-term. The 2023 State of Social Media Report found that 88% of business leaders agree social media data and insights are critical to customer retention and delivering exceptional customer care.

Throughout this article, learn more about how social media and social listening can play a role in retaining and delighting customers, plus several proven customer retention strategies you can implement today.

• • What is customer retention?
  • Why is customer retention important for businesses?
  • How can social media play a role in customer retention?
  • How to increase customer retention
  • The importance of social listening in customer retention

Social Customer Care by Sprout Social

The only customer care solution on the market that's built for social first. Schedule a demo today.

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What is customer retention?

Customer retention measures a business’s ability to keep customers over a given period of time. The opposite of customer retention is customer churn, a metric that shows how many customers a company has lost over that same period of time.

Customer retention rates vary by industry. For example, Statista found that businesses in the media and professional services industry have an average customer retention rate of 84% while hospitality, travel and restaurants have an average rate of 55%.

How to calculate customer retention rate

The formula to calculate your brand’s customer retention rate is:

((# of Customers at End of Period – New Customers Acquired During Period) / # of Customers at Start of Period) x 100

Why is customer retention important for businesses?

It’s common knowledge that keeping existing customers is cheaper and easier than acquiring new ones. When a customer is already familiar with your brand and product or services, you don’t need to spend as much effort and costs to attain them in the first place.

This can lead to predictable revenue that sustains your business, giving your brand a solid foundation to grow from year-over-year. A high customer retention rate also increases your overall customer lifetime value. Whether customers increase their business with you over time, or refer you to their friends and family, it means more money in your pocket per customer and reduced marketing costs.

Customer retention also leads to brand loyalty, which can be a source of continued feedback and insights into what is and isn’t working.

This is why brands often put tactics in place to keep customers around for as long as possible—a few of which we’ll explore shortly.

How can social media play a role in customer retention?

Social media is a huge asset to customer retention due to its unique ability to facilitate connections between brands and their customers. Because brands and customers can communicate directly with each other, social media provides the perfect relationship-building outlet.

It’s also a virtual gathering place filled with powerful insights about what people think and feel about your brand. Using social listening, you can get an unfiltered view into how your brand is perceived and what your audience is most interested in getting from you.

Having an active presence on social media is a great way to build relationships with your customers and make them want to continue buying from your brand. A few tactics to use include:

• Offer customer service on social media, helping clients and customers find solutions without having to leave their preferred social platform.
• Set up social media chatbots that help customers complete actions or direct them to a live representative.
• Engage with your audience’s social media content, liking and responding to posts that either mention your brand or are relevant to your products/services/industry.
• Create content that your audience will enjoy and want to interact with.
• Promote ads and social media posts that are personalized to specific segments of your audience by taking advantage of audience targeting features.
• Share genuinely helpful and authentic content that makes your audience appreciate your brand.

How to increase customer retention

Don’t let your initial investment of time, resources and relationship-building go to waste. Below are proven customer retention strategies that encourage folks to stick around for the long haul.

1. Invest in your onboarding process and customer resources

The importance of onboarding can’t be overstated when it comes to customer retention. This is the first interaction a customer has with your business after making their purchase decision—don’t make them regret it.

This realization turns onboarding into a make-or-break process. Ask yourself: Are you empowering your customers to make the most of your product or service from the start?

Doing so requires a combination of resources. From self-service options to product videos and beyond, companies should strive to put their onboarding materials front and center in as many formats as possible. This ensures you appeal to all of your customers, not just a small set of them.

At Sprout, we give our customers a variety of resources in our Help Center, so they can learn about our product based on their needs.

From product release notes and support articles to on-demand webinars, we help customers fully understand our products’ features—no matter how you prefer to learn.

The process of churn reduction doesn’t happen by accident. The more guidance you’re able to give customers, the better.

2. Create a sense of community through user-generated content

Education isn’t the be-all, end-all of customer retention.

Perhaps one of the more straightforward strategies to reduce churn is simply engaging with your customers via social.

Picking their brains. Celebrating their success stories. The list goes on and on.

Sharing user-generated content (UGC) in the form of reviews and customer photos represents a way to engage your customers and build a much-needed sense of community among your buyers.

For example, brands should make a conscious effort to share shout-outs and compliments from their customers.

And if you sell a physical product, encouraging customers to share photos of your product in action is a no-brainer. Many brands make UGC a cornerstone of their content strategy.

Among our customer retention tactics, this is perhaps the lowest-hanging but most fun. Don’t be afraid to show off your personality and engage your audience.

3. Actively ask for customer feedback to improve your experience

Gathering feedback represents a win-win for businesses and customers alike.

Not only do you show your customers that you care about providing a stellar experience, but you also gather invaluable testimonials to learn how to better serve your base.

Something as simple as an email asking for a review is a good starting point, providing an open-ended avenue for customers to share their thoughts.

These types of messages should ideally be sent relatively early in the customer lifecycle—like right after onboarding—to keep your relationship positive.

4. Speed up and step up your social customer care

No surprises here. People overwhelmingly take to social media to speak their minds.

Whether it’s a question, complaint or compliment, you need to come up with timely, thoughtful responses.

The good news is that providing social customer care doesn’t have to mean scrambling or refreshing your X (formerly known as Twitter) feed 24/7.

Instead, take advantage of your marketing tools, such as your CRM or social media management tools. Sprout’s Smart Inbox keeps tabs on notifications and @mentions from social, so you never miss a potential crisis. Make a conscious effort to reply to each response personally or refer folks to the proper social media customer service channel to get things resolved ASAP.

5. Reward your most loyal customers

Customer retention isn’t all about righting wrongs or preventing mistakes.

It’s about being proactive. Perhaps one of the best ways to ensure your happy customers stick around is by rewarding their loyalty.

There’s a reason why loyalty and brand ambassador programs are popular among brands. For the sake of retention and keeping people from bouncing to a competitor, rewards and point systems can do the trick.

For example, check out how Smashbox encourages its satisfied customers to keep spending.

This encourages long-term customers and makes your base feel like VIPs by virtue of getting better deals.

6. Listen closely to your lost customers

If you’re trying to figure out how to retain customers, look no further than the ones you’ve lost.

Whether it’s a nasty email or a good old old-fashioned roasting on social, you can’t keep 100% of your customers happy.

That said, if you want to reduce churn, you shouldn’t ignore all negative feedback concerning your brand. Listening to customer complaints clue you in on what not to do in the future. If you find that multiple customers are complaining about the same problem or concern, it’s probably time to take action.

Social listening tools like Sprout give you a detailed look at customer sentiment. You might be surprised at the common threads between your lost customers in terms of what they complain about, leading to org-wide improvements in your product or service.

7. Set expectations to create a better customer experience

Customer experience matters, as does setting expectations about the experience you provide—especially if you’re in ecommerce..

For example, what does your shipping policy look like? Do you offer exchanges and returns? Any guarantees?

These policies are key to ensuring that your one-off customers return in the future. Since they provide customers with peace of mind, you shouldn’t be shy about promoting them.

For example, companies like Red Wing Shoes promote their free shipping and return policies as soon as you land on-site. Meanwhile, they clarify further on their dedicated “Support” page.

Coupled with a generous and explicit return policy and guarantee, customers know exactly what to expect and understand that the brand is willing to commit to their customers.

Just make sure you can stick to whatever promises you make. Failure to do so can result in an unflattering call-out.

8. Keep customers in the loop about your latest products, launches and updates

Remember: Your customers aren’t mind-readers.

And besides, they’re likely juggling a ton of different products at any given time.

Rather than assume they’re aware of your latest update or read your most recent marketing email, you need to make an effort to keep them in the loop through social media as well. Build product launches and updates into your content calendar to make sure customers are informed and engaged.

9. Establish a follow-up frequency that keeps customers engaged

Again, staying on positive terms with your customers means being proactive.

Frequent check-ins, such as outreach emails or calls, help. But you have to walk a fine line between checking in and potentially annoying your audience.

When in doubt, think “less is more”, but be sure to establish some sort of check-in frequency. Doing so will also make the process of cross-selling and upselling easier and more intuitive.

There are likely tools in your marketing stack that can help here. For example, a CRM like Salesforce has a built-in follow-up frequency setting that remind you when to contact customers.

Adjust your settings to follow up with high-ticket customers more frequently and so on. Note-taking in your CRM is also a smart move to tweak your follow-ups with certain customers—like a particular customer or account who doesn’t want to hear from you frequently.

Also, consider how tools like Sprout help you keep track of your social interactions and conversations. Case Management within our Smart Inbox gives you a snapshot of your history with any given contact, making it easier to provide personalized service and care.

Consider that many customer retention programs fail due to a lack of organization. With automated reminders and message-logging, you can keep better track of your relationships and follow up in a way that makes sense.

10. Regularly share engaging content on social media

Competitors, creators, family, friends and other brands are all vying for consumers’ attention. Creating and sharing engaging content is essential to capturing your audience’s attention and keeping them interested.

Offering a regular calendar of entertaining or educational content keeps your customers engaged, your brand top-of-mind and encourages them to return for more. Regularly engaging with them through content helps strengthen the bond between you and your customer, as you work to serve their needs and interests.

Plus, your social content can also lead to organic growth as your engaged customers become brand advocates, spreading the digital word about your brand to their connections.

11. Exclusive social media promotions or contests

Special social media promotions or contests can be a powerful customer retention strategy. Contests create a sense of excitement, engaging your customers in a game of chance. They become more emotionally invested as they eagerly anticipate the results. The thrill of possibly winning prizes also encourages interaction with your social content, keeping them active and engaged with your brand.

Exclusive promotions work similarly by keeping your audience continually engaged while waiting for the next sale or special code to be released. It serves as a reward for following your brand and engaging with your content by giving them exclusive access to deals.

12. Run interactive polls and quizzes on social media

This interactive content invites your audience to participate directly with you, becoming active contributors to your brand’s content. This form of engagement can foster a sense of connection because they feel involved and their contributions are valued.

Polls and quizzes also provide valuable insights into your customers’ preferences and opinions. You can then use these insights to tailor future content to your customers’ needs and interests more effectively.

Essentially, interactive social posts engage your existing customers by making their inputs important, while telling you how to better personalize your content, which leads to greater loyalty.

13. Maintain consistent branding across channels

Consistency builds trust and familiarity. When customers know what to expect from you, they are more likely to return.

Using the same branding across platforms creates a cohesive brand identity, boosting customers’ confidence by reassuring that they’re engaging with you no matter the platform they choose. Consistency also applies to how you communicate with your audience.

Being consistent in your content and how you respond to comments, customer questions, complaints or kudos reinforces your brand’s core values and promotes a seamless experience across channels.

Fostering an environment where your customers are comfortable and know what to expect strengthens your relationships with them because you create a sense of reliability and stability.

The importance of social listening in customer retention

Social listening is a strategy that revolves around the analysis of customer sentiment about a brand. Through social media tools, brands can easily monitor online mentions and conversations around their products, services, industry or the brands themselves.

Some of these conversations can even let brands in on what their target customer is looking for. Social listening—especially when used in relation to customer retention—is much more than simply monitoring the sentiment around your brand.

Instead, it’s important to analyze what your target audience is actually saying. Pay close attention to things like:

• Issues your target audience is having with your competition. Use it to offer a better product.
• Pain points your audience has with your product. Can you launch additional features or settings to make it a better fit?
• Positive and negative sentiments about your brand. Get information to actively optimize your presence.

Using social listening tools to increase customer satisfaction, keep customers longer and improve brand sentiment.

What does your customer retention plan look like?

You’ve already done the hard part by winning your customers over in the first place. Now you need to make sure you’re paying attention to customer retention so they stick with you in the long run.

The good news is, you can easily roll out any combination of these customer retention strategies with the right data and tools.

To continue making informed business decisions, check out the latest Sprout Social Index™ with key social media statistics for 2024.

The post Customer retention strategies for 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

However, what streamlines work on the consumer’s end can create internal confusion if processes don’t adapt to keep up. Is your business ready to tackle high-volume service events across Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram and more? Are you prepared to manage the intricate workflows that come with handling different customer inquiries? If not, we’ve got the tips and tools you need to get it done.

This guide breaks down how brands, like you, can create a seamless social media customer service strategy.

Table of contents:

• • What is social media customer service?
  • Why is social media customer service important?
  • 10 tips for providing good social customer service
  • Social media customer service examples that inspire

Social Customer Care by Sprout Social

The only customer care solution on the market that's built for social first. Schedule a demo today.

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What is social media customer service?

Social media customer service is the support you offer your customers across social networks like Facebook and Instagram. Customers can request assistance via DM, a review site or through their social posts. The time it takes to triage that request and respond appropriately is what sets apart good from great social customer service. It involves not just answering queries, but actively listening and engaging with your audience.

A Booking.com customer, for example, posted on X and tagged them.

Note how Booking.com responded to this customer complaint within 24 hours. Considering 69% of customers expect a response the same day according to the Sprout Social Index™ Booking.com’s quick, empathetic reply sets a benchmark.

This way, customer care is about proactively meeting your customers’ needs. In terms of social media customer care, that means:

• Having a self-service help center
• Educating customers about your product via social content
• Interacting with customers consistently (even before they make a purchase)
• Having answers and information on hand before someone reaches out
• Offering personalized service that goes beyond automated responses

Responsiveness and resources ensure customers feel heard and valued, turning potential crises into opportunities for brand reinforcement.

Why is social media customer service important?

Social media is where your customers are. They’re already chatting, sharing and asking questions on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and X. Social media is central to top-quality customer care. Providing support there means meeting them on their turf, making interactions more convenient and immediate.

Social media customer service stats highlight how marketers are shifting their resources to scale social customer care via self-service tools, advanced social media tools, AI and automation. Here are three ways social customer care impacts your brand and makes it non-negotiable:

Boost customer loyalty

Social media creates a personal connection with customers. Based on a June 2023 survey of ~900 US and UK social marketers, our research shows that 63% of consumers agree that the quality of customer support they receive on social media significantly influences their loyalty to a brand.

This isn’t surprising when you consider the real-time, conversational nature of social media platforms. They aren’t just for complaints—they’re for building relationships.

For example, a customer tagged us on X regarding a query.

We continued the conversation publicly, showing not just that individual but also our wider audience how committed we are to customer satisfaction. It’s not just about the initial response—it’s about the ongoing dialogue, ensuring we resolve every issue to the customer’s satisfaction.

This transparency builds trust and demonstrates our dedication—key ingredients in boosting customer loyalty. Every interaction is an opportunity to prove that we’re listening and care, turning casual customers into loyal advocates.

Such proactive and attentive engagement transforms customer interactions into loyalty-building moments. It shows the company values every customer’s voice and is committed to improving the user experience.

Increase brand awareness

When you engage positively with customers online, it’s not just a private interaction. These exchanges are often public, meaning hundreds, if not thousands, of other users have the potential to see each one. It’s a powerful form of indirect marketing that boosts brand awareness.

Social media usage stats show that the amount of time internet users spend on social media is 151 minutes per day. A viral post or reply can quickly spiral into a wide-reaching discussion, putting your brand in front of eyes that might never have seen it otherwise.

Take Notion, for example. When an X user posted this, many chimed in with feedback.

Notion didn’t just view this from the sidelines—it responded with a message and a short video compilation.

Metrics show that over 1,000 people viewed Notion’s response. The post, along with the response, was likely discussed further, creating a ripple effect that significantly increased Notion’s visibility and improved its brand image.

Enhance crisis management and response

Social customer care, when coupled with social listening tools that flag certain terms, improves your crisis management skills.

Here’s the truth: news, especially bad news, travels fast. People are more likely to post about negative experiences than positive ones in hopes of attracting a brand’s attention.

But a study also shows that nearly 9 out of 10 people (88%) are more likely to look past a negative review if they see that the business responded and appropriately addressed the issue. By being present and responsive on these platforms, you can address concerns before they escalate.

Haircare brand Prose, for example, faced backlash when an ad campaign used natural hair to depict a ‘bad hair day.’

This move, understandably, upset many who saw it as a misrepresentation. Prose issued an apology, acknowledged the insensitivity of their portrayal and emphasized their commitment to celebrating all hair types.

This prompt and sincere response mitigated the issue, showcasing Prose’s responsiveness and willingness to listen to customer feedback. Such actions are crucial to maintain customer trust and manage the brand’s reputation in times of crisis.

10 tips for providing good social customer service

Let’s say you have a basic social media support strategy in place, but you want to increase your efficiency. Below are ten ways to beef up your approach.

1. Use a social media customer service tool

A social media customer service tool allows you to monitor and engage with customer service inquiries across social media platforms from one central location.

Why is this important? It streamlines the process and ensures no customer queries slip through the cracks and allows for quicker, more efficient responses. Marketing, sales and customer service teams can track conversations, analyze sentiment and manage your team’s workflow.

Take Sprout Social, for example. It enables you to monitor and respond to customer inquiries but also provides in-depth analytics to track your customer service performance.

It helps eliminate manual and menial tasks like checking notifications and switching between different social media platforms to free up your team to focus on more strategic initiatives. This means more time spent understanding customer needs, personalizing responses and building strategies that turn casual followers into loyal brand advocates.

You can use Sprout’s Suggestions by AI Assist to get alternative replies to enhance tone of voice or build a more elaborate response, so you can respond faster to commonly asked questions and allocate your mental effort to where it really matters. Additionally, Salesforce users can use Sprout’s out-of-the-box integration with Salesforce Service Cloud to connect social media interactions with more data and insights for a full 360 customer view.

2. Conduct a social customer service audit

There’s no sense in making changes for the sake of it. For a truly effective process revamp, conduct a social media audit of what’s currently working with your social media customer service strategy and what’s not.

A SWOT analysis can provide meaningful insights into where and how you can improve. What about your process is going well? Where are there roadblocks or bottlenecks? A candid conversation with your team will reveal where changes can be made.

For example, if you’re managing a high volume of messages split across multiple networks, it may be time to use Case Management within our Smart Inbox to consolidate billions of social conversations across major social networks and review sites so you can efficiently manage customer inquiries, at scale.

3. Create an internal tracking system

Good customer service creates a feedback loop that improves processes and products.

You need a way to monitor common issues that should be addressed at a company level, such as correcting an ongoing problem in your shipping process or identifying a recurring product defect. You also need to generate reports to make sure your plan is succeeding. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet.

The Tag feature in Sprout allows you to tag incoming messages with any created tag, such as “feature request” or “product complaint.” This way, you can quickly run a report on these tags to see what’s trending.

A screenshot of Sprout’s Tag Performance Report, which allows users to run a report on Tagged messages for more custom reporting options.

Any service report you generate should also include how quickly you can respond and, if enabled, how pleased someone is with your service. This feedback loop encourages you to continuously improve your quality of service.

This way, keep a pulse on customer experiences on social, eliminate stale data for good and empower stronger decision-making.

4. Personalize canned responses to increase customer engagement

The most important thing you can do as a brand is to make your customers feel like you’re listening and addressing their unique needs and preferences.

Empathetic, personalized customer service builds trust, increases customer engagement, and improves customer retention.

At the same time, crafting replies from scratch isn’t sustainable especially when it’s a balancing act between different channels. You have to create canned responses—saved messages support reps can roll out when responding to customers. These replies cover anything from general “thank yous” to specific concerns.

Luckily, Sprout’s multiple AI-enabled tools speed up social customer care while still infusing every response with your personality.

The Suggested Replies tool gives responses based on semantic search algorithms that enable the tool to automatically understand the context of an incoming message.

And, if you’re using social customer service response templates based on your customers’ frequently asked questions, you can use Sprout’s Enhance by AI Assist feature to adjust the response’s tone and length.

5. Standardize your brand’s social customer service voice

Having multiple people manage social media customer care means there’s more chance of your voice getting diluted.

You want your social approach to be cohesive across promotions, posts and service responses. It’s possible to have a “pun-tastic” attitude for original posts and a more conciliatory tone for customer complaints. Alternatively, you could go the TGI Fridays’ route and incorporate conversational cues directly from your audience.

However you approach it, document and create a brand voice strategy, so everyone on your team knows how to represent the brand on social media.

6. Document an escalation management strategy

There may be times when you can’t resolve a situation in the public sphere. Those instances call for a documented escalation management strategy.

Outline what types of situations should be escalated to a private channel like DMs or ticket support. For example, if a conversation gets contentious or personal information needs to be shared, it’s probably time to take things off the feed, the way ticketing platform StubHub does.

This way, reps only handle challenges within their wheelhouse and that teams solve customer issues quickly and efficiently.

7. Uncover crucial customer conversations with monitoring and listening

A social customer service strategy must include social listening.

With so many conversations happening via social, keeping track of every mention is often chaotic. That’s why so many brands today rely on monitoring and listening tools to uncover:

Brand mentions that aren’t directly @tagged (or misspelled brand mentions)

Competitor mentions related to your business, such as call-outs or comparisons

Compliments and shout-outs that could result in more positive customer sentiment

Listening is also invaluable for uncovering your customers’ frequently asked questions. For example, here’s a word cloud from Sprout’s Listening features that visualizes the top keywords, mentions, emoticons and hashtags found in a specified topic:

Alt text: Preview of Sprout’s Listening Messages dashboard.

For example, customer service metrics may show an uptick in volume about a specific feature or bug. You may realize that customers are stuck on the same few product features or questions. Tracking these changes via listening and writing canned responses is a win-win for your social team.

Gathering voice of customer data gives you a more comprehensive understanding of what your customers want and need. A listening tool makes the process much easier.

8. Learn from negative feedback

Don’t just use social customer service to resolve customer issues in the moment. Negative feedback is a goldmine of information that refines your product, service and customer interactions. Identify gaps in your service and pinpoint opportunities for improvement.

Consider WestJet. The airline received a post from a customer who complained that despite being promised priority service, they ended up waiting an extended period for their baggage.

This feedback was not just a complaint but highlighted a broader issue in the baggage handling process for priority and platinum customers. WestJet took this feedback seriously and promised to investigate the root cause and make necessary changes to ensure it upheld the promise of priority service. It shows its dedication to improving the experience for high-tier customers but also shows its commitment to listening and responding to customer feedback.

View negative feedback as an opportunity. Take insights from social media interactions and translate them into actionable changes that improve customer satisfaction.

9. Use AI

AI in customer service refers to using tools powered by machine learning (ML), sentiment analysis and natural language processing (NLP) to provide support to customers.

Customer service teams use these technologies to draw patterns between customer service interactions and use GPT technologies to respond. An AI-backed customer service team can then scale customer service functions, deliver more proactive customer service and improve the quality of customer support.

But how exactly do you use AI? Three areas to focus on:

• Set up customer service chatbots: Implement chatbots powered by GPT and NLP to handle routine inquiries. These bots understand and respond to customer queries in a human-like manner to provide quick and accurate support.
• Personalize customer interactions: AI analyzes previous interactions to suggest replies that are tailored to individual customer needs and preferences. For example, the Enhance by AI Assist feature in Sprout suggests response length and tone, making each interaction more personal and effective.
• Analyze customer sentiment: AI tools assess the tone and intent behind customer messages, determining whether they’re happy, frustrated or anything in between. This insight allows customer service teams to prioritize responses and tailor their approach to improve the overall customer experience.

10. Provide support in multiple languages

Offering support in multiple languages means communicating with customers in their native or preferred language to make your service accessible to a wider audience.

Without language inclusivity and multilingual support, brands risk alienating a significant portion of potential customers who may feel misunderstood or undervalued due to language barriers.

Booking.com, for example, wasted no time in responding to this query in Spanish:

By ensuring language isn’t a barrier, Booking.com provides a truly global service.

Four tips to improve multilingual support:

• Understand cultural nuances: Language is deeply tied to culture. Train your team to understand cultural nuances, expressions and etiquette to avoid misunderstandings and provide respectful service.
• Employ multilingual staff: Hire customer service representatives who are fluent in the languages your customers speak. This ensures clear, accurate and culturally relevant communications.
• Use translation tools: Leverage technology such as AI-powered translation tools to provide accurate and instant translations. Ensure you regularly update these tools for quality and context.
• Create localized content: Provide FAQs, guides and support content in multiple languages. This provides a way to preempt common questions and offer self-service options to customers worldwide.

Social media customer service examples that inspire

Now that you know the basics of providing stellar social media customer service, let’s check out some examples. Here are four brands that have mastered the art of creating lasting customer connections on social:

1. Marks and Spencer

Marks and Spencer’s social customer service stands out for its conversational and personable approach. The brand lets its personality shine by using language that friends might use in a natural setting. For example, in a complaint regarding one of their pizzas, M&S starts with “Oh no!” and adds emojis to express empathy and lighten the mood.

Such nuances turn an otherwise robotic conversation into something more genuine.

For lighthearted issues, like this issue with a Peppa Pig jelly, M&S adopts a humorous tone:

This tone of voice humanizes the brand and might even result in a chuckle or two from their customers.

An approach like this addresses its customers’ immediate needs and reinforces a positive approach to brand image.

2. Selfridges

Luxury department store Selfridge makes social customer support by clearly stating support hours and maintaining a helpful FAQ section.

The brand also responds to customer issues quickly which shows their commitment to efficiency. Where it really stands out though is its consistency.

Despite multiple team members handling their social accounts, responses maintain the same tone, reflecting a well-documented strategy that ensures uniformity in tone and approach.

Their interactions never feel robotic—they’re personalized and infused with the brand’s distinct voice. This balance of efficiency, consistency and personal touch underscores Selfridges’ dedication to a superior customer service experience, mirroring the luxury and care associated with their brand.

3. Microsoft

Microsoft optimizes customer support by setting up a separate X account for customer issues. The team isn’t just fast to respond—they customize each response to their customers’ specific issues.

What makes its social customer support even better is how the team follows up. If you don’t get back to them, they’ll reach out to ensure everything’s resolved.

This approach shows a caring team behind the screen, dedicated to your satisfaction and ready to go the extra mile to help.

4. TD Canada

TD Canada offers support across multiple platforms, including X and Messenger. Multiple channels make it super easy to reach out whenever customers need a hand.

But TD’s not just present on these channels—they’re prompt. TD understands that with banking, time is of the essence which is why, when you send a message, they reply instantly wherever you contact them.

This quick accessibility reflects the bank’s commitment to convenience and immediate assistance, making banking queries and concerns less of a hassle for you.

Modernize your approach to social media customer service

Social media is the most accessible touchpoint for customers today. It’s a suggestion box, customer service desk and call center—all in one. Modernize and automate your social media customer service to meet consumers’ evolving expectations.

Sprout Social uses AI to analyze customer sentiment, predict service needs and personalize interactions, significantly enhancing response quality and speed. With advanced tools like this, your team can focus on strategy and building stronger customer relationships.

Try out our social customer service tool today and give your teams the resources to provide quality customer care.

The post Social media customer service: What it is and how to improve it appeared first on Sprout Social.

Especially since the quality of your customer care ties directly to your bottom line. Strong service leads to longer-term customers, positive word-of-mouth and a more productive team.

But providing personalized and speedy service is easier said than done by hand. That’s where service software and automation via AI can do a ton of heavy lifting. These tools can break bottlenecks, boost productivity and delight customers at crucial moments.

Below we dig into why customer service software matters and tips for choosing a tool.

• What is customer service software?
• Why is customer service software critical for business success
• Social customer service software
• Full-stack customer service software
• Call, chat and IVR customer service software
• How to choose the best customer service tools for your business
• Ready for the future of customer service with AI?

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What is customer service software?

Customer service software refers to tools that streamline and automate tasks for support teams. These tools create positive experiences and inform brands on how to improve their service.

Here’s a snapshot of what these tools can do:

• Manage customer queries across channels (social media, email, website chatbots)
• Route, assign and prioritize support tickets
• Identify service bottlenecks
• Assess the performance of your customer support team
• Track customer service metrics (CSAT, FRT)
• Generate responses to queries (and automate replies)
• Provide resources via knowledge bases and support portals

Companies that benefit most from customer service software typically tick two boxes:

1. They have large customer bases (think: 100s of queries per day)
2. They have a complex product or service

As a result, the most common adopters of these tools include:

• Enterprise companies
• SaaS companies
• Ecommerce companies
• IT companies
• Mid-level B2C manufacturers or service providers

However, companies of all shapes and sizes can benefit from customer service tools. It all depends on your company’s priorities and the scope of the service you offer.

Why is customer service software critical for business success

Weaving yet another tool into your software stack might be daunting.

The thing is, customer service software is a must-have for modern companies.

Recent Sprout Social Index™ data highlights the high stakes of social customer service alone. Consumers today don’t just expect a personal experience. They expect a quick resolution, too.

A staggering 70% of consumers expect personalized responses from reps. Meanwhile, over two-thirds of consumers value how fast brands respond to them. 

Swift responses directly impact customer acquisition and retention alike. Customer service software helps brands improve both. Not to mention ensuring no queries slip through the cracks.

From faster response times to comprehensive service, here’s what the right tool can do for you.

Improve the customer experience to encourage long-term loyalty

Making a positive impression on your customers is and will always be a top priority.

Quick and comprehensive service can do the trick. Putting tedious tasks on autopilot means giving each customer more individual attention. This aligns with a customer experience strategy that results in long-term loyalty.

Boost your customer support team’s efficiency

Like it or not, the average consumer’s expectations are high when it comes to service.

Food for thought: 39% of consumers expect brands to respond to them on social media within the first two hours. Sixty-nine percent of consumers expect a response within the first day.

When you’re juggling hundreds of queries, even the most dedicated teams can leave people hanging. Thankfully, there are tools to boost customer service efficiency via automation.

For example, consider how tools can help your reps respond faster by:

• Generating responses and resources via chatbots
• Routing tickets to the right people through automated workflows
• Using conversational AI to provide stellar service around the clock

Gain invaluable business insights

One of the biggest benefits of AI customer service is uncovering trends. This includes sentiment analysis, unsatisfactory responses and your top reps. Having a pulse on all of the above informs how you can improve your customer experience and eliminate bottlenecks.

Track the performance of your service team and strategy

Consider how software can align your business’ customer experience with concrete KPIs. Doing so objectively answers whether you’re meeting customers’ needs or not.

For example, most customer service tools track a range of customer service metrics like:

• The volume of queries received
• Response time
• Response rate
• Resolution rate

Benchmarking these metrics can uncover opportunities to improve your service and optimize your customer service team’s processes.

Social customer service software

Below, we dig into a list of customer service tools, starting with tools focused on social media.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social’s suite of tools is built to handle cross-channel customer care on social media. This includes features that empower teams to exceed expectations when it comes to response time.

Having all of your customer interactions across social media in one place is a game changer when it comes to productivity. This ultimately leads to comprehensive, personalized service.

The ability to delegate across channels likewise saves time and reduces stress among your support team. Collaborative features coupled with powerful team analytics can likewise help your reps stay on target and keep a pulse on what’s working (and what’s not). And, our advanced integration and partnership with Salesforce Service Cloud helps reps further tailor responses to each customer with additional context and social data.

All of the features above give businesses the means to provide the best support possible.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk’s customer service suite is designed to resolve tickets at scale.

The platform empowers customers with self-service features such as guided widgets to lead users to relevant answers via your company’s knowledge base. Freshdesk also uses generative AI and automated workflows to route requests to the right reps.

Unified tickets coupled with collaborative features and data tracking, Freshdesk’s tools can handle a high volume of customer queries for big teams.

Front

With so many features and functions, customer service software can get pretty complex. Front acknowledges this upfront, instead offering users a tool “with the familiarity of email.”

The platform automates tasks such as routing and handing off tickets while emphasizing a fair balance of work among reps. Like the other tools on this list, Front supports cross-channel communication with customers. Features such as customer history profiles and in-app note-taking empower reps to personalize service without having to dig for context.

Full-stack customer service software

Integrating service tools with your CRM is a no-brainer for the sake of more comprehensive customer care. Not to mention a more complete understanding of your performance metrics.

Below are solutions that are either built into or integrated with some of the biggest CRMs.

Salesforce Service Cloud

Saleforce Service Cloud’s status as a CRM powerhouse speaks for itself and the platform’s service suite doesn’t disappoint. The platform is up-to-date with self-service AI features such as predictive analytics and generative responses which can easily be edited by reps before being sent out.

Hubspot Service Hub

As noted earlier, expectations regarding response times are high.

As a result, HubSpot’s service suite acknowledges the need for an “always-on” service strategy. The platform supports a variety of knowledge base and portal features to help customers get answers around the clock. Coupled with your CRM data and customer inbox in one place, users can provide personalized service with less bouncing around.

Zendesk

Zendesk is best known for its in-depth knowledge base capabilities. Like HubSpot, the platform strives to provide a meaningful self-service experience to open reps’ schedules to provide personalized, one-on-one customer care. Zendesk’s AI bots, content recommendations and routing are all designed to reduce support costs and likewise reduce ticket volume.

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk’s strength as a customer service tool is providing context to incoming tickets and analyzing them after they’re resolved. For example, Zoho’s Zia AI assistant handles responses by identifying self-service resources that are helpful (and keeping track of the resources that aren’t). The platform also offers sentiment analysis, ticket tagging and automated prioritization.

Intercom

Intercom’s emphasis on chatbots makes it notable among our list of customer service tools.

The platform boasts the ability to resolve half of users’ customer questions instantly through its AI-powered assistant, Fin. The bot is built to handle repetitive tasks and pulls from support content to resolve queries. This makes for an “always-on” support strategy and likewise frees up more time for reps to handle in-depth issues one-on-one.

Call, chat and IVR customer service software

Below is a breakdown of customer service tools emphasizing calls and voice features.

LiveAgent

LiveAgent offers a self-described “simple” solution that doesn’t skimp on features. The platform handles queries across channels but perhaps most notable is LiveAgent’s call center software. Call-routing, unlimited call recording and call-back requests are all built into the platform.

Aircall

Living up to its namesake, Aircall’s platform is ideal for businesses that are frequently on the phone with customers. The platform’s AI features include call summaries and phrase detection to identify trends among customer queries. Aircall’s breakdown of analytics can likewise inform teams where they might be dropping the ball with calls.

How to choose the best customer service tools for your business

Picking the “best” tool for your business requires context.

For example, are you laser-focused on social media customer service? Do you already have a comprehensive knowledge base? Will your software integrate with your CRM?

To wrap up, here are some points to consider before investing in customer service software.

Think about the size and scale of your business

This applies to both the number of customer queries you handle and their level of complexity. Some SaaS companies might be able to use automation to route people to a knowledge base. On the flip side, a service-based business might primarily one-on-one calls with customers.

Either way, brainstorm the features of any given software that can support those requests.

Reflect on the types of customers you work with

Not all customers are equal when it comes to the support they need. Likewise, different industries have totally different expectations when it comes to customer care. Ask yourself:

• Do your customers primarily communicate with your business via email or social media? What about your website? This highlights why providing an omnichannel customer experience ensures you have your bases covered.
• Do your service calls involve sensitive information (think: medical, financial)? If so, such customers will probably want (or need to) speak to a person in real time versus a chatbot. The same applies to urgent concerns that can’t wait.
• Do customers typically need special attention on a case-by-case basis? Or can their needs be largely served by a knowledge base?

Acknowledge your product’s (or service’s) complexity

Piggybacking on the point above, consider that not all service concerns can default to AI. While automation can help customers pick out plans or understand product features, human oversight and interventions from actual reps are crucial. Especially if your product is complex or requires specific, personalized instructions or steps.

Data dependence

Most customer service tools gather massive amounts of data. That said, what happens to it after the fact? What insights can you pull from your numbers and trends? This is yet again where AI can save the day. For example, AI-driven social media sentiment analysis offers a detailed understanding of customer pain points and opportunities to overdeliver as a company.

Ready for the future of customer service with AI?

The importance of customer service can’t be overstated. Going above and beyond results in long-term, loyal customers and positive word-of-mouth to grow your brand.

The key is having the right tools to meet the needs of modern customers. Features like omnichannel support, generative AI and sentiment analysis can all help make it happen.

All of these features (and more!) are baked into Sprout’s social media customer service suite. If you haven’t already, check out what Sprout has to offer to give your customer experience a boost.

The post Top 10 customer service software tools to use in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.