Social media has evolved from a nascent marketing channel to an integrated part of all business functions. It’s become critical for businesses to develop a sophisticated approach for how they find, communicate with and support their customers on social.
Gone are the days when brands could broadcast discounts, deals and product information and “go dark” when a customer raised a complaint. How our questions and issues are handled by companies across social directly affects how we feel about their brand as a whole.
According to HubSpot, “Happy customers spend more money and refer their friends and family members to companies that help them succeed—and dedicated customer service plays a critical role in customer happiness.”
HubSpot’s new Service Hub lives up to that philosophy, focusing on the customer to help bridge the gap between the sales and marketing funnels—as well as the customer journey—to create a more holistic and supportive experience for a brand’s customers.
Partnering with HubSpot for deeper—and faster—connection on social
At Sprout our focus is helping brands create real connection with their audiences on social with a platform that encourages authentic, real engagement. Which is why we’re excited that through our new integration, users can now use both the Sprout Social and HubSpot Service Hub together to power your marketing and customer service teams.
This integration helps bring together the teams that drive your presence on social and take care of your customers. With the integration, you can:
- Answer service inquiries faster by routing messages that come through social media to your service team in HubSpot
- Communicate bi-directionally and collaborate to resolve tickets
- Visualize the status of your support requests from both Sprout Social and HubSpot Service Hub
We’re always looking to partner with companies and tools that make it even easier for our customers to achieve their growth goals,” said Brad Coffey, Chief Strategy Officer at HubSpot. “Sprout Social’s offering does just that, and we’re excited to have them on board as a Connect Partner.”
The importance of social as an engine for customer care
You don’t have to look far to find examples of why responsive and authentic customer care on social media is so important for a brand. In fact, study after study tells us that consumers want to connect with brands on social and that interaction is paramount to building an authentic, long-lasting relationship.
If consumers are turning to social media to help resolve their problems, it’s important for you and your brand to be prepared.
Here are how some companies are doing it right:
A personal approach
Building a connection with your customers often takes a personal touch, especially when it comes to customer service. Extending your brand personality into every interaction can mean a lot of coordination and documentation in the backend but it can pay dividends with your audience feels like you’re a person rather than a faceless company.
Why? Fifty-seven percent of consumers say the top reason they reach out to brands on social is to ask a question. (Sprout Social Index, 2018)
The next most common reason? Forty-five percent say it’s because of an issue with said product or service.
Yelp Eat24 accomplished this through creating connection and answering questions via social media in a friendly and personable way.
A scalable approach
When fielding hundreds if not thousands of customer service questions on social, it can be overwhelming for a team to juggle a help desk queue and monitoring social media inquiries.
Smart businesses are automating where they can and focusing the human touch on high impact interactions.
And consumers will not wait more than four hours for a response time on social, while the average brand responds in 10 hours (Sprout Social Index, 2016).
Evernote uses social automation to drive efficient customer care to better serve their customers and scale their team.
A collaborative approach
And when social customer care is a shared initiative, creative and meaningful experiences can be created for your social audiences.
We’ve seen many examples of brands not getting social customer care right, but when they do it well, consumers reward them: 24% of consumers have recommended a company on social media. (HubSpot)
Adore Me uses collaborative social customer service to save the team time so that they can romance fans beyond reactive response.
Putting the customer first: using social to power your flywheel
Consumers expect more from their interactions with businesses and brands today. Social is in a unique position to be the hub that powers a business forward.
Social is a cross-functional hybrid of research and development, HR, corporate communications, content, PR, digital advertising and customer care.”
Lizz Kannenberg, Head of Brand Strategy
Whether you run a small business or work in the enterprise, manage client social at an agency or are building a social media team at your company—social media has the capability to move your entire business forward, not just your marketing.
The flywheel approach puts the customer at the center of your business functions.
And when connection is at the center of your social strategy, it brings you closer to what your audience wants and needs and enables you to invest in long-term relationships with your customers.
Sprout Social and HubSpot: better together
As businesses become more customer-centric, lines blur between which department “owns” the customer. It’s when marketing and customer service departments collaborate and work together that they actually provide better, more seamless experiences.
When you connect your Sprout Social and HubSpot Service Hub platforms, you’re empowering teams to do what’s right for the customer.
Find out more about the Sprout Social and HubSpot integration today.