2023 Index Discussion & Giveaway!

In regards to Question 2, using the Chat Bot function within Sprout has helped reduce response times for many of our clients and help field questions to save time internally and also improve our community management which has proven super successful for building brand loyalty for many of our customers.

Question #!...the ultimate content evolution is to have an intimate knowledge of the target market/audience at every stage...

Discussion 1: 

It’s good to make sure we reply to questions and engage with related social media pages. Additionally, checking DMs daily and replying to make sure our followers feel seen and heard. It’s important to keep the conversations professional yet conversational.

For Question 1: so much social customer care is reactive...the brand engages once a customer is having a negative experience. Brands can engage with consumers proactively while they’re still in the consideration phase (asking questions about products or services that match your offering, etc) to begin building rapport and loyalty before conversion.

Question 2: Gaps

In larger organizations, social customer care is often scaled with standard processes and canned responses. This can negatively impact the brand as responses might appear to be robotic or lack empathy.

Brands can bridge the gap by deploying a social concierge approach to support - establishing a specialized team of product experts who respond to users with empathy and specificity. 

While canned responses can help with time management, it may be the most important to appear more personal. Individuals would rather have a conversation with a brand that acts more human than robotic. The tone of a brand will help build audience loyalty. Keeping the tone conversational yet professional is important.

The social support team should not only link with Marketing. Support needs to consistently interact with Product, UX, Operations, and Eng to have a full understanding of the issues that might affect users. Also, the social support team is one of the best sources of valuable user feedback in real time - insights which need to be continually funneled back to the x-f team in order to continually optimize products and processes.

Question 2: The gap in customer care occurs when there are repeating questions from customers. While having templated/saved responses is helpful, the best solution for us is to create content that answers those questions and educates the audience, simplifying and expediting their experience/interaction with our content.

For Q#3: I’m in a small office that is a marketing agency. Having a quarterly meeting with our CEO and Marketing Director will probably reveal business goals I didn’t even know were on the mind of our CEO. That could definitely spark using our social accounts in a different way. We currently use them the most for social proof rather than hard selling our services, but I have a hunch that could change after a conversation.

The first question got me thinking about the type of interactions that I’ve seen from those that follow brands on social media – in terms of initial interaction / seeking out a brand on socials for one-off interactions, I’ve noticed this happens more with the goal of finding discounts / product information.

However, in terms of getting folks to stick around and actually FOLLOW your brand, I would argue that resonance is super important (with resonance meaning content is entertaining, educational, emotive; ‘hooks’ people in some way) – you get followers to stick through having folks want to follow you with engaging content. 

This observation may be more relevant for select categories and demographics, particularly amongst younger audiences (Gen Z in particular).