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In recent years, social platforms have become the preferred places for consumers to interact with brands. On Facebook Messenger alone, 20 billion (!) messages are exchanged between people and brands every month.
But in most companies, the social media and customer service functions are completely separate. They sit on different teams, report on different goals, and use very different tools in their daily work.
The closer integration of social media and customer support should be a top priority if you don’t want to miss important conversations – or opportunities, Keep your customers engaged and satisfied her preferred communication channels.
Hootsuite's Salesforce integration lets you do just that. Read on for a simple guide on how it works, how it can help your team and customers, and how to get started.
Bonus: Get a free, user-friendly Customer service report template that helps you track and calculate your monthly customer service expenses in one place.
Numbers don't lie: 62% of customers say switching between service channels is a hassle. (And I completely agree!)
Instead of directing customers to submit their questions through a dedicated channel, you can meet them where they are by consolidating support channels on your side.
By integrating your social media messaging into Salesforce, you give your customers the freedom to reach you wherever it's most convenient for them—and your team a single, organized system to handle it all.
But the benefits don't stop there. Here's how a Salesforce social media integration helps your customers, as well as your social media and customer support teams. It's a win-win-win.
Benefits for your social team
Your social media team is probably inundated with messages every day, some of which are comments and direct messages that can be filed under “audience engagement”—and your social marketing team knows exactly what to do with them.
However, some questions or complaints can be better handled by experienced customer service representatives. The Hootsuite Salesforce integration makes forwarding such requests much easier.
Over and beyond Social media can… stay social. Your customer service agents don't need to log into company social media accounts to handle DMs—all relevant inquiries land in the familiar Salesforce dashboard.
Psst: Read why it makes sense for security reasons to keep access to social channels as restricted as possible.
Benefits for your customer support team
Not only will your social media team benefit from the integration – your customer support team will also benefit from significant improvements to their workflow:
- Improved response times. Your team doesn't have to wade through multiple communication channels to keep track of requests. Because everything is routed directly to Salesforce, cases are automatically created based on DMs, allowing your team to respond and provide solutions faster.
- Automated answers to FAQs. The AI chatbot built into the Hootsuite Salesforce integration can instantly answer common questions 24/7. If things get more complicated, the chatbot will transfer the conversation to a live agent, reducing the burden on your support team and keeping customers happy.
- Complete customer data. 70% of customers expect your agents to know their entire history when asking for help. With Hootsuite's Salesforce integration, your agents can see all the relevant details—from past social media interactions to order history—and easily provide more personalized responses.
Benefits for your customers
Ultimately, what matters most is providing a great experience for your customers. Here's how you can do that by connecting your social channels to Salesforce:
- Customers can contact us through their preferred social platforms and receive timely responses. 81% of customers now expect faster service and this integration makes it easier for your business to meet those expectations.
- With automatic request forwarding, Customers have to wait less time for a solution(And companies that respond within 15 minutes are much more likely to build trust and create lasting relationships with their customers.)
- 36% of customers share their experiences on social media. A personalized response can make or break your brand reputation. With access to the entire customer history, your team can provide the personalized service that customers value. This means: fewer negative experiences and more satisfied customers.
How does the Hootsuite Salesforce integration work?
Hootsuite's Salesforce integration is all about streamlining your team's work so they can focus on what matters most: providing excellent customer service.
Here is a simple overview of how it works:
1. The customer contacts us via social media
This first step is simple: a customer or prospect wants to connect with your brand through their preferred social platform and sends you a DM.
2. The AI chatbot intervenes
Hootsuite's AI chatbot handles the initial inquiry and answers frequently asked questions with pre-approved answers. If the issue doesn't fall into the FAQ category or otherwise requires a more nuanced approach, it offers to escalate the conversation to a human agent.
3. A Salesforce case is created automatically
When the chatbot escalates the request, a case is automatically created in Salesforce. This way, your customer support team has easy access to every social interaction and no request goes missing.
4. A support employee takes over
Your customer service agents can pick up the conversation right where the chatbot left off without leaving Salesforce. They have access to the customer's entire history with your brand, including social interactions and partial orders.
5. Solution (in Salesforce and Hootsuite)
Once the issue is resolved, the case is closed in Salesforce and the conversation is automatically marked as closed in Hootsuite. Everything stays in sync so your team always has a clear view of what's happening.
6. Create lead (optional)
While this step is optional, it can be a powerful tool for your team.
If a customer service rep determines that the person who made the inquiry is a good fit for one of your company's campaigns, they can seamlessly mark them as a lead. From there, they can add the person to the sales funnel and include them in the potential audience for the campaign.
Talk about cross-departmental benefits!
Which other platforms can Hootsuite integrate with?
Hootsuite is not only a social media management dashboard, but as you already know, it also functions as a powerful customer service platform.
It also integrates with over 100 tools that companies of all sizes use every day to… well, do business.
The most popular Hootsuite integrations include:
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Asana
- Base camp
- Figma
- Google Business Profile
- Miro
- Monday.com
- Performance
- Loose
- Shopify
- Trello
- Vidyard
- WordPress
…and many more. You can browse them all in our app directory.
Deliver better customer service with Hootsuite and Salesforce. Manage customer interactions in one place, easily share data with teams, and gain a better understanding of your customers across channels. It's easy.
Manage all your social media in one place, measure ROI and Save time with Hootsuite.
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
