Case Studies Archive | Sprout Social https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/ Sprout Social offers a suite of <a href="/features/" class="fw-bold">social media solutions</a> that supports organizations and agencies in extending their reach, amplifying their brands and creating real connections with their audiences. Thu, 26 Jan 2023 19:26:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://media.sproutsocial.com/uploads/2020/06/cropped-Sprout-Leaf-32x32.png Case Studies Archive | Sprout Social https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/ 32 32 How Sprout Social helps Goally engage with and learn from parents of neurodiverse children https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/goally/ Thu, 26 Jan 2023 19:26:00 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=168911/ Goally, based in Denver, Colorado, offers an app and electronic device that use therapy-approved methods to gradually teach neurodiverse children how to complete basic Read more...

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Goally, based in Denver, Colorado, offers an app and electronic device that use therapy-approved methods to gradually teach neurodiverse children how to complete basic tasks in collaboration with their parents and other caregivers.

“Goally helps ease the lives of families with neurodiverse individuals,” said Kaelyn Brooks, Digital Marketing Specialist at Goally. “We help parents focus more on the fun stuff with their kids, like goodnight kisses and playing outside, rather than nagging them through routine activities.”

To better understand the complex needs of parents with neurodiverse children, Goally turned to Sprout Social for help extracting actionable insights from social conversations across various channels, including TikTok. They’ve been using Sprout’s Listening tools since the beginning of 2022, and the insights gained so far are helping the company evolve its social media strategy. Sprout has empowered Goally to build brand awareness and connect more effectively with its primary target audience: parents.

@goallyapps

No party like a Goally party 🙈 Anyone else see progress with their child? Share some hope👇 #skiptothegoodpart #talker #specialneedsmom #autism

♬ The Good Part – AJR

Sprout’s Listening tools validate the company’s vision and help answer tough questions

Social listening is essential for helping Goally confirm it’s providing technology that’s truly helpful. “We’re a social impact company, and we care a lot about making life easier for neurodiverse families,” said Brooks. “So, we listen to what people need, and we pride ourselves on making products and implementing features based on what we hear from our customers. We don’t always get things right at first, but we learn how to make it right. We chase that with everything we’ve got, and we just listen.”

Using Sprout for social listening helped Brooks surface a common need of parents raising neurodiverse kids: They want to see their children become independent.

“That learning has really validated our vision as a company,” said Brooks. “We know the problem we’re chasing is real, and we’re providing a solution—a really good one, too. Education is often lacking in the world of neurodiversity, and people don’t know where to get information. Social media channels like TikTok offer a unique and accessible way for people to ask authentic questions and get answers.”

Using Sprout is well worth your time, energy and investment because it’s one of the most helpful tools to build a community. Sprout validates social media strategy like no other tool that I’ve found.
Kaelyn Brooks
Digital Marketing Specialist

Sprout helps Goally connect with influencers and drive conversions

While Facebook is important for conversation, and Instagram is valuable for getting how-to information, Brooks said TikTok is “the go-to place” for Goally’s audiences to learn how the company’s technology works.

“TikTok is a place to share authentic stories and build trust,” Brooks noted, adding that Sprout’s Listening tools helped her understand the value of authenticity to Goally’s audience. “When they get on TikTok, they don’t want to see dancing,” she said. “They want to see a mom sharing a story about a really hard experience she had that day or what a therapist said that really helped her kid. It’s authentic vlogging that’s found nowhere else.”

TikTok is also a place for making valuable connections with creators and influencers. Through Sprout, Goally has identified relevant influencers who are bolstering brand awareness and raised Goally’s profile on TikTok. Without using Sprout, Brooks wouldn’t have found one particular influencer who helped her connect with other key influencers. “Social influencers are vital to helping with our conversions,” said Brooks. “The last two times we’ve done a major influencer push on TikTok, we saw the number of users on our website with intent to buy increase by about 4%.”

According to Brooks, Goally also saw its branded search rate increase 58% during its social influencer push in August 2022—compared to January 2022, when the company first started using Sprout. “Our subscriptions also increased 89% during the month of August when we were using TikTok and Instagram influencer campaigns,” said Brooks.

@goallyapps

Let’s 👏 normalize 👏 AAC! It’s a language that deserves to be understood by our world. #aac #autism #talker #specialneedsawareness

♬ original sound – Goally

Goally is using Sprout to track follower trends, which has helped them confirm that TikTok is a place they need to stay active. “Since April 2022, we’ve been consistently growing at 254% month over month, every month. As of December, we have more than 3,000 followers,” Brooks said. “That’s pretty small compared with most companies, but it’s a really big deal for us.”

The increase in Goally’s follower count on TikTok has been rapid since we started using Sprout. That’s given us a reason to stay on TikTok—because we’re finding that there are people incredibly interested in what we’re posting there, and they’re really quick to hit ‘follow.
Kaelyn Brooks
Digital Marketing Specialist

Sprout’s Smart Inbox enables personalized customer care and engagement

Sprout’s Smart Inbox has been especially valuable for keeping on top of Goally’s audience engagement.

If someone comments on a TikTok that we posted two months ago, I could easily miss it if I didn’t have Sprout’s Smart Inbox. It helps us make sure people feel like they’re being heard. With Sprout, I’m certain every single person who comments on our posts, whether new or old, is replied to and cared for quickly and easily.
Kaelyn Brooks
Digital Marketing Specialist

Sprout helps Brooks decrease the amount of time she dedicates to answering questions and chasing comments on individual platforms—which gives her more time for campaign planning and data collection. “I estimate that my productivity has increased by at least 50% since I started using Sprout’s Smart Inbox,” said Brooks.

As for measurement and reporting, Goally uses Sprout to track engagement rates and impressions, both organic and paid. Most of this data is tracked monthly, but Brooks and her team run reports more often to determine the effectiveness of a particular campaign or test new ideas.

@goallyapps

Halloweekend done right 👻 we love our local denver neurodiverse families! Drop the city do you think needs an event like this next year 👇 #sensoryactivities #autismacceptance #autismparents #neurodivergent #audhdtok #allthethingsshesaid

♬ original sound – Goally

Build genuine connections with your community

Brooks harnessed Sprout’s Listening tools to connect Goally’s product development to the needs of their target audience, forge influencer partnerships and improve community engagement.

Learn how Sprout Social can help your team foster impactful relationships with your followers. Request your free demo today.

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How Sprout Social helped Ivanti quickly create a best-in-class brand ambassador program https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/ivanti/ Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:39:35 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=167729/ More than 40,000 companies around the world look to Ivanti to help them meet remote work-related IT challenges so their employees can work productively Read more...

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More than 40,000 companies around the world look to Ivanti to help them meet remote work-related IT challenges so their employees can work productively and securely from anywhere. The Utah-based IT software company, which has 36 offices in 23 nations, delivers industry-leading unified endpoint management, zero trust security and service management solutions through its Ivanti Neurons IT automation platform powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“Ivanti manages and secures the ‘Everywhere Workplace,’” said Sal Viveros, the company’s Head of Global Corporate Communications. “Businesses depend on our technology to automatically manage, secure and service all of the on-premises and edge devices in their IT environment—from laptops to phones to virtual reality headsets.”

Part of Viveros’ role at Ivanti is to help increase brand awareness for the company and promote senior leadership’s expertise in how businesses can use technology and services to make the “Everywhere Workplace” possible. One of Viveros’ frequent collaborators at Ivanti is the Director of Social Strategy, Jamie Laliberte Whalen, whose responsibilities include shaping influencer marketing strategy and leading Ivanti’s newly reimagined brand ambassador and incentive program.

“The brand ambassador program is near and dear to my heart,” said Whalen, who joined the company in November 2021. “I wanted the program to be really successful. That’s why I reached out to our customer success team at Sprout Social to help us identify what we needed to do to improve it.”

Benchmarking brand ambassador program performance—with insight from Sprout

Whalen leads a social media team who deliver on Ivanti’s global social strategy with support from a system of internal stakeholders, like Viveros, and additional resources and tools, including Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social.

The assistance Whalen specifically sought from the Sprout Social team was twofold: First, she wanted to know what a best-in-class brand ambassador program looked like, especially for Ivanti’s industry. Second, she wanted insight into how Ivanti’s current efforts were stacking up against those top-tier metrics.

“In short, I wanted Sprout to tell us where we are and where we need to be so we could set reachable goals to move us toward becoming best-in-class,” Whalen explained. “I told the customer success team at Sprout, ‘Give me the key performance indicators and other metrics that we can hold ourselves accountable to, so I can bake that into our social strategy for the year.’”

Sprout’s team came back with a host of relevant data for Whalen to examine, including information on how similar programs by Ivanti’s competitors were performing and what tactics they were using. Whalen also received details on user adoption and engagement levels and signup rates for both best-in-class programs and Ivanti’s own program.

Whalen said, “We learned that our program had about a million in reach per month. Also, our adoption rate was just 17%. Some people would consider those numbers good, but in my view, they weren’t good enough. I also learned from Sprout that a best-in-class program has about a 30% adoption rate, and we obviously weren’t even close to that.”

After reviewing the data from Sprout, Melissa Puls, Ivanti’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, told Whalen she wanted to challenge everyone in the organization to utilize the program. “I told her I’d already included it in our social strategy,” Whalen said. “I knew it would be powerful if we had a program that allowed everybody to access and share content at the right time, wherever they are. The voices inside our company are the strongest voices. They are on the front lines, working hard every day in our ‘Everywhere Workplace’ to make sure Ivanti’s brand is standing up.”

Underscoring the value of employee advocacy—starting from day one

To increase utilization of Ivanti’s brand ambassador program and drive employee advocacy, Whalen and her team, with help from Sprout, examined how the current program was structured. “We looked at it holistically and examined its backend taxonomy,” she explained. “I wasn’t the first owner of the program, so I had to step back to understand how it was set up initially and determine how we needed to run and support it moving forward.”

One need Whalen identified was an internal communications plan that would “let everyone know how awesome the reshaped program was going to be.” She said, “It’s not my program, it’s everyone’s program. And I think a key reason we’ve had so much success in improving it is because we made the point to get people—including executive leadership—involved and excited about it early on.”

Whalen said her team prioritized creating content and posting it to an intranet site to help employees understand how to use Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social. “We developed new videos to explain what Sprout is, how to use it on a desktop, how to use the mobile app, and more,” she said. “We also created resources like blogs and how-tos.”

This information is now a part of Ivanti’s onboarding process for employees.

New hires are excited and want to be part of something big, and onboarding provides the perfect opportunity to get them on the Sprout platform and become a brand ambassador.
Jamie Whalen
Director of Social Strategy

The social media team at Ivanti also realized that many existing employees didn’t know about the program—or hadn’t been educated well about how to use the Sprout tool. “We had two different groups to educate, so we created a quarterly newsletter to help everyone know what content is available for them to use and offer tips to help them succeed,” said Whalen. “There’s been a lot of follow-up by email, too, to highlight wins and keep people engaged.”

Measuring results and telling the value story through Sprout’s analytics

Using contests like gift card giveaways and other special events as incentives have helped drive employee engagement in the brand ambassador program. That includes Invanti’s sales and BDR teams, who were among those unfamiliar with the program and initially uncertain about the value it could provide. “Let’s just say I had a ‘Jerry Maguire’ moment with them,” Whalen laughed. “I was like, this will help me help you. Let me show why this is beautiful, and why it’s worth your time to participate.”

The education and incentivizing Whalen and her team have provided has paid off—delivering a quick and impressive return on investment, in fact. “By the end of the first month of revitalizing the program, we had 17 million reach and an adoption rate of nearly 46%—which is well over the 30% benchmark for a best-in-class program,” said Whalen. “Also, after launching our incentive program, we went from 1,000 to 3,000 shares in the first month, and then up to 17,000 shares within the first quarter.”

The newly thriving brand ambassador program at Ivanti is also helping the company save about $500,000 in marketing costs this year through earned media. “That’s a lot of money that Ivanti doesn’t have to spend on marketing thanks to our brand ambassadors,” said Whalen.

Executive leadership at Ivanti is not only paying close attention to these results, but also is engaging with the brand ambassador program as well—including acknowledging employees’ efforts. Whalen shared this example: “After our first contest, our CEO reached out to the three winners to thank them personally for being brand ambassadors. He was so impressed by these individuals and what they were able to do for the company. I don’t think these folks had ever talked to our CEO before, but now they were all in a conversation because of something they’d done together.” 

“Social media is critical to building the Ivanti brand, and using our employees to help communicate with our customers is important because it’s more authentic and more credible,” said Viveros. “With help from Sprout, we can provide information to our employees to share easily with our customers through social media. It’s a way for our key messaging to touch our customers directly.”

Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social is also really easy to use. I’m posting two to three messages per day myself, and it takes me just seconds to do it.
Sal Viveros
Head of Global Corporate Communications

Whalen credits the wealth of data and insights and the partnership that Sprout Social has provided for helping Ivanti’s brand ambassador program quickly achieve best-in-class performance. “We’re up to 17,000 shares monthly with our brand ambassador program—which gives us a lot more reach and a lot more eyes,” said Whalen. “I think that through our partnership, we have created a beautiful effect.”

Analytics that help communicate the bottom-line value of social media efforts to stakeholders and the “business-to-human touch” the customer success team delivers are top reasons Whalen said she’d recommend Sprout Social to other marketers. “You’re not just working with a company—you’re working with people,” she said. “Sprout really wants the best for your company. They will create a plan for you to become a best-in-class program. That’s what they do. Many companies say they do that, but Sprout has actually helped us do it, and we have the results to show for it.”

We couldn’t have succeeded without the data, insight and partnership we got from Sprout. We’re up to 17,000 shares monthly with our brand ambassador program—which gives us a lot more reach and a lot more eyes. I think that through our partnership, we have created a beautiful effect.
Jamie Whalen
Director of Social Strategy

Learn how Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social can help extend your social reach. Request your free demo today.

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How employee advocacy tripled Vizient’s social media engagements https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/vizient/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 21:27:21 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=166195/ Vizient is the largest healthcare performance improvement organization in the US. They use social media to help them achieve their mission: connecting healthcare professionals Read more...

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Vizient is the largest healthcare performance improvement organization in the US. They use social media to help them achieve their mission: connecting healthcare professionals with knowledge, solutions and expertise that accelerate performance.

“The content we produce has tangible impacts on the healthcare industry. We provide educational resources to healthcare professionals that help them stay informed,” says Elida Solis, Social Media Director at Vizient.

When the COVID pandemic began, Elida and her team jumped into action. They refocused their content on the emerging needs of the healthcare community. To amplify their message, they tapped into the power of employee advocacy and tripled their impressions in the first six months.

A screenshot of a Vizient LinkedIn post about the COVID booster

Their strategy proved so effective they were awarded “Best Use of LinkedIn” by PR News.

In two years, Vizient turned their employees into brand advocates, gained thousands of new followers and increased their awareness and engagement with the help of Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social.

Tapping employee networks to make thought leadership accessible

Before the pandemic started, Vizient was in the early stages of developing their employee advocacy program. After lockdown measures were put in place and their work went virtual, they accelerated their advocacy project plans and launched with a small pilot group.

Employee advocacy is a new initiative for us. During the pandemic, our Member Performance team—like everyone else in the country—couldn’t travel to meet their clients. It was a critical time. They had our COVID resources, but they struggled with how to share them. They didn’t know what to say or how to share the messages broadly.
Elida Solis
Social Media Director, Vizient

Sprout’s Employee Advocacy solution provided Vizient team members with streamlined access to company content and pre-approved social messaging, which made them feel more confident sharing posts with their network.

A screenshot of Vizient's CEO sharing a LinkedIn post from Vizient's employee advocacy library

By posting prepackaged content on LinkedIn, I have been able to reconnect with former colleagues, expand my network and engage in interesting conversations with my community. If you’re looking for an easy way to help your team stay current on relevant information and expand your brand’s influence in the market today, I would recommend Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social.
Richard Ponder
Assistant Vice President Pharmacy & Care Delivery Product Strategy, Vizient

Soon, the initial results were in and the pilot far exceeded Elida’s expectations. Within three months, Vizient saw double the engagement compared to their traditional organic social channels and gained thousands of new followers.

Vizient leadership decided it was essential to expand the program to other teams. One-by-one other departments were onboarded, and Vizient continued to see record-setting impressions.

Elida and her team were determined to make Employee Advocacy implementation as user-friendly as possible.

She says, “It was a commitment to our employees. We are giving them a tool that’s easy to use. It’s a straightforward, time-efficient way to reach their networks.”

Elida and her team provided support, including an internal advocacy resource hub that houses a product demo, instructional guides and on-demand webinars. The resources equip Vizient employees with personal branding tips to elevate their social presence and maximize the advocacy program.

Providing value to customers and team members alike

Vizient’s employee advocacy success is rooted in their commitment to providing value to their audience and team members.

For example, at the onset of the pandemic, Vizient immediately halted all ongoing content development efforts to refocus their entire strategy on COVID-related educational resources.

As Elida says, “We, as a company, made the decision to make a lot of our content available to healthcare professionals outside of our membership program. We knew it was a critical time to share timely updates in an efficient, accessible way. Social media played a key role in helping us do that.”

By putting the needs of their audience at the forefront of their strategy, Vizient saw significant performance improvement—from their engagement rate to follower count.

To maximize the effectiveness of employee advocacy, Elida knows their content must resonate with Vizient team members as well. She makes it a top priority to provide them with 10 to 15 insightful content stories they actually want to share.

She advises team members to, “Share what’s most relevant. Don’t think of it as ‘promoting content.’ Consider what your network wants to learn more about. When you share a post, customize the copy to infuse your experience and make it relevant for your audience.”

Above all, Elida and her team want the content to make a positive impact on healthcare and the lives of professionals in Vizient’s community and beyond.

Elevating the value of social and advocacy

When Vizient first started using Sprout’s platform of social management tools, they made it clear they needed to communicate social performance results with executives and other departments on a regular basis. Their most important key performance indicator (KPI) was engagement.

Using customized versions of Sprout’s performance reports, Elida and her team create monthly and quarterly reports that elevate the value of social across their company.

At Vizient, we’re really fortunate because our senior leaders get it. They really understand the importance of social. They see the results in our performance reports and they’re actively engaged and participating in our social initiatives.
Elida Solis
Social Media Director, Vizient

As Elida says, “We’re able to view the metrics and the results from the number of active employees—the amount of shares, the resulting impressions and engagements. About 85% of our employees in the system are active, and that’s a big win for us.”

A screenshot of a post shared by Vizient's Chief Culture DEI officer from their employee advocacy library

But equally important is their employee satisfaction, which is the ultimate value of the program. In every internal survey they’ve conducted, their Employee Advocacy satisfaction score was 98% or above. On average, 67% of employees reported receiving greater network engagement because of the program.

Since we started using Sprout’s Employee Advocacy solution, my network has become more engaged. I get asked about my company more than ever and people comment on how active I am on LinkedIn. It makes it easier for me to interact with my connections on social. I would highly recommend Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social to other companies considering it.
Carl Taggart
Vice President, Zone Leader NE & SE US—Spend Management Services and Delivery, Vizient

Elida points out that although employee advocacy is voluntary, the Vizient team shares posts because they find it beneficial and enjoy celebrating company culture.

Sprout Social helps Vizient extend brand awareness

For Elida and her team, employee advocacy has increased brand awareness, supported recruitment and generated lead opportunities. It’s also giving Vizient employees the ability to amplify content through their own voice and perspective.

Learn how Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social can help extend your social reach. Request your free demo today.

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How the Atlanta Hawks created a slam dunk social strategy using Sprout Social https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/atlanta-hawks/ Tue, 30 Aug 2022 18:35:49 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=164047/ The Hawks do it for their city. On and off the court, the NBA team creates all-star experiences for fans near and far. From Read more...

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The Hawks do it for their city. On and off the court, the NBA team creates all-star experiences for fans near and far. From winning games to hosting charity events, everything they do holds true to their mantra: True to Atlanta.

This attitude applies to their digital presence, as well. “We’re harnessing the youth and exuberance of Hawks basketball to tap into new social audiences,” said Katie DuPre’, Atlanta Hawks’ Social Strategy Manager. “That boils down to telling our basketball story while also telling the story of the city we love.”

Building on a well-loved brand while meeting growth goals and the needs of several corporate partners can be a lot to manage. Delivering on their mission requires real-time insights, creative testing and consistent communication with external stakeholders. To pull it off, the Atlanta Hawks social team relies on Sprout Social for the assist.

Nothing but net-new insights

Creating content that audiences can’t get enough of isn’t a game of chance. For the Hawks, it’s all strategy.

“We’re a data-driven social team,” said DuPre’. “Our audience’s preferences are always evolving and that changes how we package and distribute content.”

DuPre’ and the rest of her team rely on Sprout’s Tagging feature to pinpoint what audiences will want next. Their sophisticated Tagging structure allows for more granular reporting on content performance by type, theme and campaign.

“Everything we post gets a content pillar tag and a content medium tag, at minimum,” said DuPre’. “We also create campaign ID tags for any larger marketing campaigns. For example, when we were at All-Star Weekend, all live content coverage got a specific tag. After the event concluded, we were able to go back and recap the success of our event coverage.”

The Hawks’ content pillar Tags align with key themes that ladder up to their strategic branding goals, including telling their basketball story, community outreach and more. Sprout’s reporting tools have helped DuPre’ quickly identify overall audience preferences and preferences by theme.

“Sprout allows us to create more honest benchmarks for our content,” said DuPre’. “Being able to assess performance by content pillar lets us be smarter about what we post because we know what will resonate the most by network.”

From partners to teammates

On top of amplifying their brand message, the Hawks social team is responsible for delivering social results to over 35 corporate partners.

The A/B testing we’re able to do in Sprout has afforded us a lot of flexibility from our partners. They trust us when we decide to try new things.
Katie DuPre'
Social Strategy Manager, Atlanta Hawks

“We have a ton of departments that work together to drive revenue,” said DuPre’. “A chunk of that revenue is made through content on our channels. We use Sprout to share biweekly reports on all our brand partnership content.”

Reporting on the end results is only half of their process. They also share proactive insights on what’s working across social so they can overdeliver whenever they have the chance.

“The A/B testing we’re able to do in Sprout has afforded us a lot of flexibility from our partners,” said DuPre’. “They trust us when we decide to try new things. For example, we recently tested a more casual approach to social videos taken at community events. We had a player shoot a simple, hand-held video and compared that performance to some of the more polished videos we’ve shared in the past.”

Being able to test these changes has helped DuPre’s team influence content strategies across several partnerships. “We saw a lot more success with the casual content format. It communicated the goal of the event and took some strain off our video team. Being able to share that performance data with our partners has been huge for us.”

Listening to the crowd go wild, online and in the stands 

Performance metrics alone can’t adequately communicate all of the love the Hawks team receives on social. To get that extra layer of insights, DuPre’ relies on Sprout’s Social Listening tool. 

“We use social listening to get a more complete picture of larger campaigns, like a jersey launch or our brand refresh,” said DuPre’. “We’ll set up a Listening Topic that covers relevant keywords or hashtags connected to that campaign. Then we use that data to support recap presentations that we share across the organization.”

With Listening data, the Hawks social team is able to turn reports into a story that communicates how they’re building their brand online.

“A lot of internal stakeholders love seeing the Topic Insights Word Cloud and Sentiment Summary. When we launched the Martin Luther King Jr. Nike City Edition jersey earlier last season, it was met with 99% positive sentiment.”

DuPre’ feels that Listening data from Sprout helps their team showcase social’s true impact on the organization. “When we take our raw data and present it alongside listening insights and the support we’re seeing from other brands we know and trust—you can’t help but say ‘Wow, we did a great job.’”

A new roster of social media all-stars

DuPre’ and her team are working to unite the city of Atlanta over a shared love of basketball and their city. Using data from Sprout, they’re able to recreate slam dunk successes time and time again.

Learn how Sprout Social can help your team craft a data-driven social strategy. Request your free demo today.

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How Allegiant Air’s customer relations team is taking flight with Sprout Social https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/allegiant-air/ Fri, 27 May 2022 15:54:45 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=160102/ “Together we fly.” That’s the philosophy that lifts Allegiant Air off the ground. Known for their low cost and à la carte service, this Read more...

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“Together we fly.” That’s the philosophy that lifts Allegiant Air off the ground. Known for their low cost and à la carte service, this Las Vegas-based airline’s mission is to make travel more accessible. And as a direct sales company, being accessible on social media is a key part of their customer care and engagement strategy.

According to the 2021 Sprout Social Index, 31% of customers prefer to leave feedback on social media—and Allegiant’s social-dedicated Customer Relations team knows the importance of staying on top of customer comments.

We have drastically increased how many messages we’re replying to across platforms, especially on Facebook. And we’re servicing more customers even though our team has been consistently the same size.
Alyssa Salazar
Customer Relations Manager

“Having social media allows us to respond to and help retain our customers, as well as build brand loyalty,” said Allegiant’s Customer Relations Manager Alyssa Salazar.

The airline industry has been hard-hit during the pandemic, with ticket sales dropping and customer needs skyrocketing. Since 2020, Sprout Social has helped Allegiant organize thousands of messages, collaborate more easily and focus on customer retention. Amid the pandemic, Sprout empowered Allegiant to continue to connect people.

Forwarding the gold (wings) standard of customer care with Instagram DMs

With around 15% of their customer inquiries coming through social, Allegiant’s team knows that a seamless customer care experience is crucial—to them and their customers.

Salazar manages a team of customer service agents who provide coverage seven days a week answering messages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The sharp increase in messages has meant an increased need for speed. In Q3 2019, the Customer Relations team responded to 8,185 messages across their social channels. In Q3 2021, that number nearly doubled to 14,490.

Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox helped them take off.

“We have drastically increased how many messages we’re replying to across platforms, especially on Facebook,” Salazar said. “And we’re servicing more customers even though our team has been consistently the same size.”

Weekend-bound. 😎📸: @ny_coronao

Posted by Allegiant on Friday, January 14, 2022

Having Instagram Direct Messages (DMs) in the Smart Inbox has also helped them, especially considering the fact that 35% of US consumers turn to Instagram for customer service. Salazar’s team used to answer Instagram messages natively on an iPad, limiting responsiveness and speed.

“Access to Instagram DMs has helped us tremendously,” Salazar said. “Our agents have all given us positive feedback about how this is pushing us forward, making our team more efficient and serving our customers faster.”

We have certain types of responses that we use for different questions. Tagging based on specific keywords clarifies what the issue or concern is about so we can quickly respond.
Alyssa Salazar
Customer Relations Manager

Tagging to avoid turbulent teamwork

With hundreds of messages divided across agents, staying organized is crucial. On top of maintaining speed with pre-crafted answer templates, Allegiant Air uses Sprout’s robust internal tagging capabilities to identify duplicate messages, prioritize DMs and organize workflows.

“When the agents start their day, they remove any duplicate messages and start assigning messages to themselves to work on,” Salazar said.

Using a tagging system featuring rules built around keywords helps them quickly identify what a customer needs and how to respond.

“We have certain types of responses that we use for different questions, so tagging based on specific keywords clarifies what the issue or concern is about so we can quickly respond.”

A conversation between a customer and Allegiant Air in which the customer is asking for assistance and Allegiant acknowledges that they have responded to them via DM

Building brand loyalty with customers on the ground and 30,000 feet up

“We’re not necessarily an everyday type of product,” said Content Marketing Specialist Tiana Schenk. “But we want to be top-of-mind when someone books a trip, so that we can connect travelers to the people, places and memories that matter most.”

It’s tough to build brand loyalty when your product isn’t one you use every day. “COVID-19 has definitely shifted how we operate and function as a company overall,” Salazar said.

Staying on top of inquiries on social has helped Allegiant better communicate options available to customers based on company policies and other factors. In some cases, that means offering customers options that allow them to maintain their ticket for later use, while allowing the airline to maintain crucial sales.

Sprout is also integral to another piece of the brand loyalty puzzle—celebrating customers who celebrate Allegiant. Sourcing and sharing user-generated content has become a smoother, more collaborative process between the Content Marketing and Customer Relations teams by assigning tasks in Sprout.

Putting the "sun" in Sunday. 🌞📸: @kmht.jake

Posted by Allegiant on Sunday, January 23, 2022

“When folks on the Customer Relations team interact with customers or when we search for content to publish on our social channels, having the ability to simply assign a task over to the Content Marketing folks so that we can ask for the rights to use those photos is a seamless process,” Schenk said.

Allegiant responding to a customer praising their airline and service

Sprout Social helps Allegiant Air keep customer service flying high

With Sprout Social, Allegiant Air stays steady. Using the Smart Inbox has made their customer relations strategy and team collaboration smoother, giving them more time to focus on nurturing their social channels and customer loyalty. Above all, they’ve found new ways to put the customer first by more quickly identifying their needs.

If you’re interested in seeing how Sprout Social can help make your customer service team’s and customers’ experience more seamless, request a personalized demo or start your free 30-day trial today.

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All aboard: How Purdue University increased their social media engagement by 24% https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/purdue-university/ Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:36:15 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=158633/ Known for their engineering school, Purdue University takes a scientific approach with everything they do—including social media. And when it comes to investing in Read more...

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Known for their engineering school, Purdue University takes a scientific approach with everything they do—including social media. And when it comes to investing in their digital presence, Purdue is going full steam ahead.

“Purdue’s social media content is used to tell stories about Purdue Boilermakers and connect with students—past, present and future,” says Assistant Director of Digital Engagement, Abby Eddy.

When Abby jumped onboard in 2019, she was faced with building a team from the ground up to broaden social’s reach and impact across the Purdue community. The Digital Engagement team was born, and has become a well-oiled machine. Thanks to the team including–three social media professionals and five interns, followers now engage with Purdue’s social content more than ever.

Purdue uses Sprout Social as a cross-departmental hub to level up social listening, create robust reports and keep their content on track.

Engineering engagement for students and alumni

The Digital Engagement team manages all of the University’s non-athletic channels across Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and Pinterest with more than 900,000 followers combined. And as their name suggests, they have a laser-focus on engagement.

We use Sprout’s Profile and Post Performance Reports to identify our top posts and to see what engagement looks like across channels monthly. We’re always looking at how we can replicate the success of top posts on other channels, and adjusting content accordingly.
Abby Eddy
Assistant Director of Digital Engagement, Purdue University

“We’ve always had the motto that you can have a million followers, but if only a thousand are interacting with your content, your channels are useless,” Abby tells us.

Using Sprout takes the guesswork out of understanding what content resonates. “We use Sprout’s Profile and Post Performance Reports to identify our top posts and to see what engagement looks like across channels monthly,” says Abby. “We’re always looking at how we can replicate the success of top posts on other channels, and adjusting content accordingly.”

Sprout's cross channel analytics

Sometimes, diving into analytics uncovers surprises that guide future strategies.

“We found that people love our nostalgic ‘then and now content’—it unifies alumni as well as current students, especially on Instagram. But it was surprising to find out that these posts performed really well on LinkedIn,” Abby says.

Then & now. Purdue’s campus nearly 100 years ago and today. #PurdueGrowth.

Posted by Purdue University on Friday, July 10, 2020

Purdue also uses Sprout to make sure they never miss an opportunity to interact with their audience. “Our interns are in the Smart Inbox daily,” says Social Media Specialist, Kolby Hagmaier. “They filter one channel at a time and look at comments from the previous 24 hours with the hope that everything is marked ‘complete’ at all times.”

The system they’ve developed is working. With 4.5 million total engagements, they’re already 151% to goal for the 2021-2022 school year.

We use Tags for every piece of content that we publish within Sprout, from overarching brand pillar tags to post-specific ones.
Kolby Hagmaier
Social Media Specialist, Purdue University

Where Boiler Up means listen up 

Purdue’s social team uses Sprout’s Listening feature to keep their ear to the ground and finger on the pulse of campus conversations and brand health. “We have alerts set up to help monitor spikes in conversation around specific topics,” Social Media Manager Ashlee Shroyer tells us. “It’s a helpful way to immediately identify if something is gaining traction—good or bad.”

In catching a crisis, speed matters—especially if a request for more information comes straight from the top.

“We’ve received requests from our President’s office to quickly run a report on topics and how they’re appearing on social media,” Ashlee tells us. “With our general ‘Purdue University’ topic, we’re able to search quickly by keywords to provide a fast snapshot.”

Social listening has also helped them collaborate with the Strategic Communication team to keep an eye on potential crises before they spin out. This keeps them proactive—not reactive. “It’s hard to know when something is starting to bubble up,” Abby tells us. “So if the Strategic Communication team gets wind of something, they can ask us to create Listening Topics to monitor it.”

But listening isn’t all crisis mode and no fun. The team also uses the Word Cloud (see an example of the Word Cloud for Sprout’s fictional coffee brand below) to identify  unexpected gems that inspire content—from conversations and themes to emojis.

“We see a lot of emojis in there,” Kolby tells us. “We’ll implement those same emojis in our posts to stay in lockstep with our audience.”

Sprout Social's word cloud in the listening tool

Using Tags to keep tabs on content and connect students

Purdue has a unique marketing superpower—an ambassador program of around 50 students who bring a first-hand perspective to their digital presence.

“Boiler Ambassadors use Sprout for their student-run Instagram account,” says Ashlee. “We provide Sprout training to all of the students so that they can publish and tag content, as well as run their own reports.”

After receiving Sprout and brand voice training, the students have free reign of their Instagram account and create content themselves. Using a special tag just for the ambassadors helps the student team and the Digital Engagement Team filter their specific posts.

With student ambassadors, interns and a full-time team powering Purdue’s social presence, maintaining one brand voice when responding to comments is key—especially when you’re fresh off of a 2020 rebrand.

Sprout is used as a cross-team hub where everyone can find pre-written responses in a unified brand voice—both evergreen FAQ responses and templates for events like big games or commencement.

“We have specific language we want to weave into comments and responses,” Abby emphasizes. “So we created a set of pre-populated responses in the Sprout Social Asset Library that our interns can pull from, which gives them the flexibility to respond to comments on the fly but also makes sure they’re comfortable with the language we’re using.”

Boiler Ambassadors use Sprout for their student-run Instagram account. We provide Sprout training to all of the students so that they can publish and tag content, as well as run their own reports.
Ashlee Shroyer
Social Media Manager, Purdue University

Keeping teamwork on track and revolutionizing reporting

A robust social team needs a robust organizational system to match. The Digital Engagement team has mastered the art of tracking and reporting on content. “We use Tags for every piece of content that we publish within Sprout, from overarching brand pillar tags to post-specific ones,” says Kolby.

They use the Tag Performance Report on a weekly basis to help their whole department quickly understand the impact and success of content. And they’ve used Sprout to revolutionize digital reporting—on their own team and interdepartmentally.

“The analytics we pull from Sprout are a major piece of the monthly digital performance reports we share with the full marketing department,” Abby tells us. “Those highlight everything from our social metrics and campaign updates to website analytics.”

Using Sprout, they are able to share social findings with the larger marketing department to celebrate successes, suggest data-driven changes and provide insight into their efforts.

Their ability to prove their efforts and results with data has built trust between the Digital Engagement team and marketing leadership—granting them the autonomy to post content that works.

“Sometimes we have to push back on the amount of content that we’re asked to push out because the volume of posts has gone up. But when that happens, we see engagement dip a little bit,” Abby tells us.

All aboard the future of social at Purdue 

Purdue has recognized and harnessed the power of social. They’re even using it to power larger digital initiatives. Having met and exceeded their 2021-2022 engagement goals, the Digital Engagement Team already has their eyes set on what’s next. In the future, they plan to even more closely track the role social plays in driving audiences to their admission site and converting them into future Boilermakers.

If you’re ready to connect your teams and your audience through the power of social media using Sprout Social, start your free 30-day trial or request a personalized demo. Get ready to tap into the game-changing insights waiting for you and your brand.

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How Grammarly delivers engaging customer care with Sprout Social https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/grammarly/ Wed, 27 Oct 2021 14:40:31 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=155688/ Each day, over 30 million people and 30,000 teams turn to Grammarly for writing help that goes beyond a quick spell check. Whether you Read more...

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Each day, over 30 million people and 30,000 teams turn to Grammarly for writing help that goes beyond a quick spell check. Whether you need to edit for correctness, delivery or engagement, Grammarly provides quick tips that support effective communication.

When it comes to stand-out customer communication on social, Grammarly uses Sprout. With Sprout Social, the Grammarly social support team can manage user questions, product concerns and audience conversations across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This streamlined approach helps them create a dialogue with current and potential users while finding opportunities to surprise and delight as they go.

“We want to help people be even more confident that they can achieve effective communication, whether they’re writing for school, professionally, or even through text message. We use Sprout to help make those connections possible,” said Emma Hanevelt, Social Media Insights Analyst.

Clear, consistent customer care

Hanevelt works with a team of 10 led by Manager Beth Hibbert. Together, the team is responsible for engaging with the Grammarly audience, answering user questions and analyzing social data for business insights. With Sprout, they’re able to respond to messages across networks quickly and efficiently.

“We’re in the Smart Inbox daily, managing posts and DMs from Twitter and Facebook, as well as Instagram comments,” said Hanevelt. “We’ve also launched Brand Keywords tracking, so we can respond to users who mention Grammarly without tagging our account.”

Grammarly’s social support team spans two time zones, with support agents based in both Canada and Ukraine. In less than two years (during which they brought Sprout on), their average time to first response (TTFR) decreased more than 80%.

“We love the team Conversations feature,” said Hanevelt. “If someone working out of Kyiv isn’t able to solve an issue by the time they log off, they can leave a note. Then, the Vancouver team can pick it up and continue the conversation with all the necessary context.”

Streamlining their social support process to a single platform has also helped surface data that Hibbert can use internally to manage and grow her team. Insights from Sprout inform coaching conversations across the social support team, which ultimately lead to stronger customer service.

“With the Inbox Team Report, we can see our overall message volume across channels and better measure agent productivity,” said Hibbert. “If I’m having a one-to-one with someone, I can use their specific report to highlight their performance or dig into growth areas. It’s been a game-changer for us. ”

Delivering product insights with tags

The Grammarly team leveled up their Smart Inbox use by developing a comprehensive tagging strategy that allows them to organize incoming messages based on their content. Tags empower Grammarly support agents to do the foundational work needed to uncover advanced customer insights.

“It’s one of the most important features for us,” said Hanevelt. “Because every message that comes into our inbox gets tagged, we can quickly pull specific feedback when needed. If any of our product managers come to us asking for messages on a certain product, we have it. We also build quarterly reports on themes we find in our social messages.”

So far, their approach to tagging has helped surface valuable user stories for the Grammarly product and user experience teams, as well as company leadership.

“Once a month, we combine tagging insights from Sprout with Zendesk reports to create a deck that gets shared across the organization,” said Hanevelt. “It’s how we keep others up to date on trends and opportunities we’re seeing in customer support.”

Setting the tone with listening

In 2021, Grammarly began using Sprout’s Social Listening tools to monitor brand health and competitive share of voice. Since then, they’ve been able to extract even more product insights from priority platforms like Twitter and Reddit.

These insights have driven further collaboration between the social support team and the rest of the business. Hanevelt’s long-term goal is to make Listening a key lever for the broader marketing, product and user research teams.

“Right now, I’m focused on making social listening a more known resource,” said Hanevelt. “If I see someone share a slide deck in Slack, I’ll go to them and ask ‘How can I support you with social insights?’ We’ve set up monthly syncs with our consumer insights team, as well as our user experience team, so I can complement their work with listening data from Sprout.”

Hanevelt sees major opportunities for social listening at Grammarly, and has been creating slide decks to share insights from Sprout with the wider organization.

“Hopefully, we’ll start hosting more hands-on workshops so we can bring social stories to the forefront of the conversation,” said Hanevelt. “We want to share our social data so we can help shape product decisions across Grammarly.”

Grammarly is rewriting the rules of customer care by sharing industry and competitive insights that inform proactive decision-making. If you’re interested in seeing how your social data can do the same, request a personalized demo or start your free 30-day trial today.

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Sprout Social helps keep NJ TRANSIT’s social strategy on track https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/nj-transit/ Wed, 28 Jul 2021 14:00:48 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=149825/ In 2020, COVID-19 disrupted the transportation industry, but the nature of the unprecedented pandemic made it all the more important to keep customers informed Read more...

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In 2020, COVID-19 disrupted the transportation industry, but the nature of the unprecedented pandemic made it all the more important to keep customers informed and safe. The previous year, NJ TRANSIT served nearly one million daily riders across its trains, buses and light rail each day. Those customers rely on these services and, through the upheaval of 2020, social media was the first place they turned with questions and concerns about their trips.

Customer experience is at the heart of the NJ TRANSIT brand. “Our company’s goal is to give customers the best experience possible through social media so they have everything they need for an enjoyable trip,” said Carol Mack, NJ TRANSIT’s Director of Events and Social Media. To deliver a great customer experience, NJ TRANSIT needed a social media management solution that would help them optimize customer care efforts, streamline response management and provide timely updates about their services. They needed Sprout Social.

When people think of transit, we don’t want them to think of just equipment and stations so we use social to give our employees a voice and to humanize them to the public.
Carol Mack
Director of Events & Social Media, NJ TRANSIT

Supporting cross-functional strategies 

While NJ TRANSIT uses Instagram as their primary platform for branding and LinkedIn is for more professional purposes, they’re most engaged with their customers on Facebook and Twitter. What’s unique about their Twitter strategy is that in addition to their main NJ TRANSIT Twitter account, they also run 14 accounts that are each dedicated to a specific transit line.

Their content strategy for each line account is simple: provide real-time updates for travelers. Having service-specific accounts keeps important, relevant information organized and accessible for transit riders. It also means that the NJ TRANSIT social team can focus their corporate Twitter handle on their brand messaging, news, initiatives and anything else that’s important to the customer.

Another important characteristic of NJ TRANSIT’s customer care and social strategies is how they draw attention to the people behind their brand. “When people think of transit, we don’t want them to think of just equipment and stations so we use social to give our employees a voice and to humanize them to the public,” said Mack.

For example, the NJ TRANSIT Police Department does much more than provide high-quality safety and security for the transit system. They also have an outreach program staffed by five outreach officers throughout the state that helps connect the homeless with necessary social and medical services, as well as housing opportunities. The police department’s Twitter account gives them a platform to share those lesser-known efforts, which has made a major impact on humanizing the department.

The Police Department has an intelligence division that uses Sprout’s powerful Listening features to monitor conversations across social. Using keywords and location-based searches provides the department with timely access to conversations occurring across the transit system. This intelligence gathering allows them to deploy resources to maintain the safety of our customers and employees systemwide.

Highlighting their people and initiatives also helps shape NJ TRANSIT’s employer brand and influence recruitment. “Hiring qualified people is very important to us. We’ve taken extra efforts to make sure we use social media to help our human resources department get the best talent that they can,” said Mack. “When we started using social to assist with hiring bus operators, we saw a 60% increase in resumes.”

We work directly from Sprout’s Smart Inbox and it’s straightforward just like a Twitter stream, so it’s also very easy to get people up to speed on how to use it.
Kevin Minott
Senior Communications Coordinator, NJ TRANSIT

Keep your wheels turning on social

While the content strategies differ between the line accounts, the police department account and their main account, the entire NJ TRANSIT social team uses Sprout’s Smart Inbox to monitor each account in a single feed. Before using Sprout, the team would have to log in natively to each line account to respond to customers, which negatively impacted response time—an important metric for the team’s customer service strategy.

The confusing, disorganized user interface of their former platform negatively impacted response time. “We work directly from Sprout’s Smart Inbox and it’s straightforward just like a Twitter stream, so it’s also very easy to get people up to speed on how to use it,” said Kevin Minott, NJ TRANSIT’s Senior Communications Coordinator. “I was able to get our SVP of communications and customer experience up and running on Sprout in just one day.”

I am in love with the Task feature. It ensures that all the information we need in order to respond stays with the right message.
Carol Mack
Director of Events & Social Media, NJ TRANSIT

Don’t lose your train of thought

Whether customers are asking about a technical issue or need information about a schedule change, they want to know they’re being heard. The NJ TRANSIT social team works to respond and communicate with empathy and accuracy, which often requires collaboration with other departments. For example, they are currently working with their IT department to build a comprehensive response team in Sprout. Sprout’s Tasks feature in the Inbox helps make that collaboration seamless.

If, for instance, they receive a message on social about a problem with their mobile app, the social team can assign a Task to the IT Sprout user. Then, that person will look into the issue and provide context or an answer to the social team in Sprout. The social team will polish the copy and respond to the customer.

“I am in love with the Task feature. It ensures that all the information we need in order to respond stays with the right message, ” said Mack. “Before using Sprout, we’d have to copy and paste from the platform we had into email and vice versa.” For someone like Mack, who gets around 400 emails a day, keeping that thread of information separate within Sprout is essential.

The results are in

According to the Sprout Social Index™, 76% of customers expect a response from a brand in the first 24 hours of sending their message. In the first half of 2021, NJ TRANSIT exceeded those expectations maintaining an average first reply time of 30 minutes.

It’s not just the Smart Inbox that speeds up processes for the NJ TRANSIT team. “Sprout has amazing analytics tools that we didn’t have access to with our last management platform. Now, we run engagement reports for our senior vice president of communications and customer service, monthly reports for our board, weekly communication reports, response reports and more,” said Minott. “Sprout has allowed us to do this with ease.”

“To give you an idea, Kevin used to spend three days on reports that now take three hours,” Mack continued. “We used to have to calculate response time manually because in our old platform, it would count us as being non-responsive when we were offline. With Sprout, we can put work hours in so the Engagement Report calculates our real response rate for us.”

Sprout Social, at your service 

Customer care and experience are what NJ TRANSIT’s brand is all about. When selecting a new social media management platform, they were looking for a software and team that would give them the same level of support. High-quality customer care was an important deciding factor in their decision to work with Sprout.

“Where Sprout came out on top was understanding us and treating us as individuals. They didn’t give us a one-size-fits-all approach or treat us like anyone else. We’re a transportation agency, so we have different needs, and that understanding of who we are really matters,” said Mack. “Every time we reach out, Sprout gives us the same customer care that we were promised from the first time we spoke to them. They really are just 100% there for us.”

Our team of experts will always respect your unique needs and treat your business with care. Start a free, 30-day trial today or request a demo to get a customized tour from our team.

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How MeUndies weaves customer care into the fabric of their brand https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/meundies/ Tue, 01 Jun 2021 17:20:12 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=149895/ MeUndies is no ordinary underwear and loungewear brand. They’re on a mission to fuel self-expression through their “softer-than-soft” products designed with comfort, body positivity Read more...

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MeUndies is no ordinary underwear and loungewear brand. They’re on a mission to fuel self-expression through their “softer-than-soft” products designed with comfort, body positivity and creativity in mind.

When MeUndies was founded in 2011, it was the first brand to offer an online underwear subscription. By the end of 2020, the brand had sold 16 million pairs of underwear. Between the brand’s Instagram shop, product tags, ads and rich influencer network, Instagram has long been, and continues to be, a fundamental part of that business growth. Such a robust social commerce strategy needs a customer care strategy to match.

When TK Lynch joined MeUndies as the Social Media Support Coordinator, he built a dedicated customer care strategy tailored for social. “Our philosophy is that if any problems come up for our customers, we want our brand to feel like a friend who’s on their side,” said Lynch. “We want to create an experience that doesn’t feel like you’re dealing with a customer service representative. Social allows us to create a customer experience that’s personable and casual, while still being effective.”

MeUndies’ customer care strategy encompasses social channels, but Instagram is where their customers most actively seek support, especially via Instagram Direct Messages (DMs). Until recently, Lynch and his team managed Instagram DMs and Story Replies natively, which created a host of issues. But now, with the help of Sprout Social’s Instagram messaging features, MeUndies’ team delivers customer care with greater efficiency, flexibility and accountability.

The need for speed

The Sprout Social Index™ Edition XVI: Above & Beyond found that 40% of consumers expect brands to respond within the first hour of reaching out on social media. TK initially had the same expectation for MeUndies. When he joined the team, the goal for the social customer care program was to respond within one hour for all message types, across all channels.

When the team handled Instagram messages natively, agents had to manually log responses and calculate response time in a Google Sheet, which was cumbersome. Now, Sprout’s Smart Inbox collects all inbound Instagram direct messages, mentions and comments in a single stream.

To say they’re crushing their initial one-hour to response goal would be an understatement. Between February 1 and March 31, 2021, alone, MeUndies received over 12,000 inbound Instagram messages, 24% of which were direct messages, and maintained an average first reply time of 19 minutes.

They no longer have to manually calculate those metrics either. “Having Instagram DMs in Sprout has really enhanced our customer support efforts. Our response metrics are all calculated within Sprout, which gives a clearer picture of how we are doing on Instagram and how that stacks up against our other social channels,” said Lynch.

Collaboration tools everyone can get behind

MeUndies often has three agents, along with Lynch, working to resolve customer service inquiries on Instagram at the same time. When the team was still doing so natively, they had to be careful not to duplicate efforts or overtake another agent’s conversation.

Previously, there were no time stamps on individual messages and no visibility into which agent sent each message. Customers would see read receipts, so in instances where MeUndies needed more time to craft a response, it would appear as if they’d left the customer on read. Those are all issues Sprout’s Instagram DMs integration solved.

“Now, we can easily see who has responded in a long message history. Our team members can also easily assign messages as Tasks to themselves or another agent if their shift is ending,” said Lynch. “Even the little things like collision warnings in Sprout, which tell us when another agent is typing a reply, are critical to us. These features have made an immense difference in the overall quality of our customer care.”

Message tagging is also highly valuable to MeUndies as it helps the customer experience team track different inquiry types and gives leadership across the organization visibility into what is happening on social.

“We tag everything. So, if someone asked us about billing issues that we’ve resolved on Instagram, for example, we could easily pull the Tag Report and share that data with them,” said Lynch. “We’re also in the process of syncing this with our entire company so that data funnels into a centralized system. That’s going to give leadership a really good top-down view, and they quickly see how our customers on social relate and differ from customers reaching out on our other support channels.”

Underwear and customer care for every body

With Sprout Social, MeUndies’ Instagram customer care strategy is more seamless, consistent and personalized. “Our mindset at MeUndies is to embrace being unique. We carry that passion over to social. We never just copy and paste responses even if there’s a standard answer,” said Lynch. “Now that our workflow is integrated into Sprout and we’ve eliminated manual processes, we can focus on what really matters: providing the best customer experience possible.”

Learn how your business can benefit from Sprout Social’s customer care and messaging capabilities. Request a free hands-on demo today.

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Customer support and content solutions: Why Sprout Social is just the ticket for TUI UK https://sproutsocial.com/insights/case-studies/tui-uk/ Wed, 07 Apr 2021 14:00:14 +0000 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/?post_type=casestudies&p=149391/ From hillside hideaways in soaring mountain ranges to enviable villas with ocean views and white sand beaches—wherever you want to go, TUI can take Read more...

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From hillside hideaways in soaring mountain ranges to enviable villas with ocean views and white sand beaches—wherever you want to go, TUI can take you there.

TUI is the UK’s leading travel brand, serving millions of customers each year as they embark on holidays, flights and cruises all over the world. And with more than two million people following TUI UK and First Choice, a subsidiary of TUI, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, that’s a lot of holidaymakers to keep track of.

TUI UK’s social media networks are an essential connection point between the brand and its customers. On one side of social, the brand team prioritizes engagement, reaching new audiences, promoting their offerings and creating transparent content for their customers.

“We focus a lot on building confidence in TUI by being as transparent as possible about our offerings. We’re always drilling into what people are saying about our brand to understand key themes and sentiment, which informs parts of our content,” said Naomi Bressan, Social Community Manager for TUI UK and Ireland.

On the other side of social, TUI has a dedicated customer service team. The travel industry revolves around customer experience, and if things don’t go to plan, delivering top-tier customer service is a must. As social media becomes the primary destination for customer service, TUI uses Sprout Social to ensure its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram bases are covered.

When the global pandemic hit, we received customer queries on an unprecedented scale. Sprout enabled us to get our teams up and running as quickly as possible, with the Sprout customer support team going above and beyond to help us when we needed it most.
Nicola Smith
Senior Social Marketing Manager, TUI UK & Ireland

Creating stronger a customer support system amid global travel disruptions

The start of the new decade kicked off swimmingly for the TUI team. But then, COVID-19 took everyone by surprise and completely disrupted the global travel industry.

In February 2020, TUI received 53,900 messages across their TUI UK and First Choice social channels. By the end of March, that number increased by 269% to more than 198,000 messages.

At the time, TUI UK had 30 customer service agents, along with support from the Brand Social team, managing the increasingly overwhelming number of inbound social messages. As call volumes increased many customer service agents were moved to answer inbound calls so 61 people from across TUI volunteered to assist.

Sprout also provided immediate customer support, offering TUI UK additional user seats and efficient training for the volunteers.

“When the global pandemic hit, we received customer queries on an unprecedented scale. Sprout enabled us to get our teams up and running as quickly as possible, with the Sprout customer support team going above and beyond to help us when we needed it most,” said Nicola Smith, Senior Social Marketing Manager for TUI UK and Ireland .

Shifting gears to serve new content 

As the customer service team worked its way through the Sprout Smart Inbox each day, they’d tag inbound messages to categorize inquiries and keep track of recurring themes and topics. Meanwhile, as TUI’s brand team adjusted their content strategy, they were able to use insights from tag data to determine which kinds of content they should prioritize and proactively communicate.

Interspersed among posts about TUI’s dream destinations, they began sharing content highlighting new TUI policies, health and safety measures, refund information, travel advice and more.

TUI’s team also uses social listening to influence their content strategy, monitor brand health and glean insights about their competitors. “We regularly report on sentiment around our brand and in Sprout, we can see where there are dips and spikes. Then we can click in to view those messages to understand what’s happening and why,” said Bressan.

With regard to their competitors, TUI looks at sentiment, emerging topics and their own share of voice in travel-related conversations. “If people are asking about luggage, trip amendments or specific destinations, for example, we can see how frequently people are talking about us, compared to our competitors,” said Bressan.

Returning to high days and holidays

With Sprout’s powerful social solutions, TUI UK continues to connect with customers, navigate change and overcome new challenges.

“The Smart Inbox capability, along with Message Tagging, helped us to respond to over 500,000 customer queries in three months with a remote team of 61 people. We could not have done it without Sprout,” said Smith.

Sprout’s Engagement Report, which tracks response rate and reply times and the Inbox Team Report, which customer care metrics at an individual level, give everyone on the TUI team visibility into customer service performance.

In Sprout’s Tag Report, TUI can easily analyze the performance of specific content themes like “COVID content,” which garnered more than 28 million impressions and 3 million engagements between March 1, 2020 and August 31, 2020.

“I couldn’t recommend Sprout enough. Sprout support is so easy and quick,” said Bressan. “It’s got everything that social marketers and customer support teams could want all in one place, which makes it easier to do the job at hand.”

Take your content and customer care to new heights with Sprout Social. Request a personalized demo or start your free 30-day trial today!

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