As a options engineer at Sprout Social, I work with our prospects to assist them uncover the facility of social throughout their enterprise, from optimizing digital workflows to benefiting from the instruments of their martech stack.
The shoppers I converse to each day, particularly these within the B2B house, are at all times involved about proving their return on funding for social media. There are not any impulse buys within the B2B SaaS trade and quantifying the affect of social media inside the purchaser’s journey isn’t at all times simple.
At Sprout, we’re devoted to shaping options that amplify refined social methods, making a direct hyperlink from social insights to return on funding. The Whole Financial Affect™ of Sprout Social, a commissioned examine performed by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sprout, discovered {that a} composite group, primarily based on actual interviewed prospects, realized a 233% return on funding (ROI) and $1.3M in financial savings over three years.
I spoke with Loren Siegel Atlassian’s Group and Social Engagement Senior Workforce Result in find out how Sprout helps her group execute premier social buyer care, enhance group productiveness and perceive their viewers to craft higher neighborhood connections.
Atlassian began utilizing Sprout Listening in 2019. In 2021, the corporate integrated the Sensible Inbox and Publishing add-ons. They at present have 55 customers throughout varied groups together with product advertising and marketing, company communications, product communications and neighborhood.
Loren says there are lots of transferring elements in B2B software program corporations, however our platform helps nurture a extra linked expertise.
“Sprout removes the curtain of thriller between all groups that contact social media. It actually helps convey visibility between the advertising and marketing, buyer care, communications and model groups,” she says.
Utilizing Sprout reporting to outline and measure success
Earlier than utilizing Sprout, measuring efficiency was a convoluted process for Siegel’s group.
“I actually struggled with pinpointing key efficiency indicators (KPIs) and well being metrics for the group. Earlier than Sprout, I didn’t have entry to easy-to-use reporting or the flexibility to share reviews with inside stakeholders,” she says.
Siegel says proving ROI is a main focus, and he or she makes use of our platform to assist her set targets and craft social technique. Sprout makes reporting and understanding efficiency extra environment friendly and digestible.
“Sprout helps me set KPIs and uncover targets which are attainable and data-supported,” she says.
She makes use of Sprout to information and outline her group’s three major KPIs: common first reply time, response fee and rising “Model Love,” which refers back to the engagement fee on optimistic model interactions. Model Love can be the social group’s main OKR.
Siegel chosen these KPIs primarily based on knowledge accessible in Sprout by means of reporting.
She makes use of Atlassian group collaboration software program like Jira and Confluence along with Sprout’s reporting options to share her group’s successes. On a weekly foundation, Loren supplies updates on her Jira tickets to maintain management and stakeholders knowledgeable on how the group is performing towards its targets. Together with weekly updates, Siegel makes use of Confluence to collaborate along with her group for his or her month-to-month enterprise overview. Lastly, every quarter Loren publishes a quarterly well being report in Confluence utilizing knowledge from Sprout to share throughout the group.
“The quarterly well being report goes into extra element in regards to the ways that we used all through the quarter to achieve our targets. In Sprout, I discover examples of profitable moments that helped us obtain our targets. It’s been a pleasant technique to present what my group has achieved and what we’re excited about for the longer term,” she says.
Supercharging buyer care
Siegel says her group was initially—and nonetheless is at its core—a social buyer care group. She explains considered one of Atlassian’s values is “Don’t f*** the shopper,” and that’s at all times on the coronary heart of all the things they do, particularly on the subject of buyer care.
To maintain response occasions low, Siegel has a framework for her group that enables them to work by community and product line throughout varied channels. However she notes that Sprout’s user-friendly reporting supplied the insights her group wanted to develop into sooner.
“Within the first eight to 9 months of utilizing Sprout, earlier than I used to be monitoring the common first reply KPI, we had been averaging about seven and a half hours for a primary reply,” she says.
“After I lately checked, the group had a mean reply time of two and a half hours. We shaved a lot time without work our response time. This was amidst different main initiatives, together with a convention, so there was plenty of exercise on social media,” she says.
Insights from Sprout additionally assist Loren dig deeper into Atlassian’s social buyer care efficiency.
“I found in Sprout that of all of the incoming messages, it takes my group the longest to offer a response to technical questions,” she says, “We recognized this by exporting knowledge from the Sensible Inbox, utilizing tags and common first reply time to filter down and higher perceive our alternatives to enhance,” she says.
The group’s first reply objective is 4 hours, however the knowledge confirmed it was taking between 16 and 19 hours to offer a primary response for technical questions.
“We had been even capable of drill down into how lengthy it takes us to answer technical Jira questions versus technical Confluence questions,” she says.
This knowledge allowed us to take a look at different options to shorten that response time, from making certain we have now extra detailed technical FAQs to having nearer hyperlinks to assist engineers.
“[I want to] create a approach for my group to get customers looking for assistance on social into our assist portal as effortlessly as potential,” she says, “If it takes us 19 hours to answer a technical query on Twitter, that’s effing the shopper. The information helps me make that enterprise case to convey our educated assist engineers into the method,” says Loren.
“My group acts as extra of a concierge or entrance door slightly than technical assist. It could be unattainable to coach my group on all the technical intricacies of our merchandise, so I’d slightly they supply a extremely nice buyer expertise,” she provides.
Saving time with collaborative instruments
Sprout’s user-friendliness additionally saves time onboarding new teammates and streamlines collaboration, particularly for Atlassian’s advertising and marketing managers. Listed below are just some of the instruments Loren and her group depend on to save lots of time and improve productiveness.
Sustaining transparency within the Sensible Inbox
“My group lives out of the Sensible Inbox,” she says.
As a substitute of utilizing one other platform to speak internally or with audiences on social, all the things is obtainable inside one centralized channel.
Her group additionally makes use of varied customized Inbox Views to prepare incoming messages.
“In some circumstances, we’re trying on the people who find themselves @-mentioning all of our handles. We now have different views arrange with model key phrases, automated tags or VIP lists. [Seperation] permits us to section the people who find themselves speaking instantly at us versus those that are speaking about us,” she says.
“We now have a number of promoting managers for every [Atlassian] product and so they every have their very own group inside Sprout. Everybody has their very own swim lane, however on the similar time there’s plenty of visibility,” she says.
Supporting a world group with Conversations
Sprout Conversations additionally streamline asynchronous communication for Siegel’s world group. They will shortly see who revealed a submit in case there may be suggestions in a while, equivalent to a damaged hyperlink or typo, and coordinate updates.
She defined that if a teammate abroad seems into an viewers message, they might not get a response in actual time, however they will depart a remark within the group Dialog and @-mention the subsequent group member who’s coming on-line.
“[They] may hyperlink the Slack message within the Dialog so there’s a historic file of what everybody has executed, everybody who has touched the message, and the standing of the place they’re getting assist or the place they’re looking for the reply,” she says.
She additionally expressed that if one particular person on the group is out of workplace, another person on the group can swiftly bounce in to assist them. Her instance is only one testomony of the collaborative workspace instruments that prospects inform me they get pleasure from when utilizing Sprout.
Taking possession with Tagging
Siegel additionally notes how utilizing Tags within the Sensible Inbox permits her to affect technique and inside change administration.
“We’re capable of hand over duties which are higher suited to one other group or division, and I’ve the info to point out why,” she says.
For instance, over the previous few months, her group observed plenty of Model Love for Trello that the group wasn’t capable of simply see and may miss. She had her group go into the Sensible Inbox and tag all the alternatives for straightforward visibility. In a single month, there have been over 200 messages of Model Love which might have been onerous to trace, reply to and will simply have been missed.
“Utilizing Sprout enabled me to point out sturdy examples of alternatives that empowered and up-leveled the group to assist enhance the model,” she says.
“I used to be capable of make that case due to Sprout. I used to be capable of pull sturdy examples of alternatives that might have helped enhance the model,” she says.
Championing neighborhood administration
Siegel’s group additionally makes use of Sprout to strengthen their community-first mindset and supply a memorable buyer expertise. Siegel defined that her group is within the early phases of utilizing Social Listening to energy neighborhood administration, however they’ve plans to include it extra sooner or later.
“We bounce in on conversations which are occurring about teamwork, work administration or agile growth—not essentially our merchandise,” she says, “We now have three listening reviews trying on the markets that we’re in. We’ll finally use these reviews to establish [specific] individuals speaking in regards to the market or the industries we need to break into.”
As an example, they’ve a question set as much as hear for particular sport builders on Twitter.
“We need to hearken to what they’re speaking about and supply options once they’re speaking about Jira, Confluence and [other Atlassian] merchandise to construct their relationship with the model. It’s been a enjoyable new path for my group to deal with constructing neighborhood with a specific section of execs,” she says.
Siegel explains the Atlassian neighborhood began organically, but it surely’s as much as her group to behave as a lever of assist to assist it flourish.
“It’s actually vital to nurture [our community] and ensure they know that you just’re listening and so they can join with you. That’s the most important side for me—I need to make sure that my group is creating connections and identifies the subsequent step within the journey for them,” she says.
As an example, when prospects full an Atlassian College coaching course and submit about it on LinkedIn, her group congratulates them and hyperlinks them to subsequent steps within the talent constructing journey, whether or not it’s one other course, becoming a member of a neighborhood chapter or attending a digital neighborhood occasion. They use UTM hyperlinks to trace the shopper’s path past the LinkedIn submit.
“We’re right here to rejoice and promote their accomplishments and provides them the instruments they must be profitable with our merchandise internally,” she says.
Unearthing bolder paths to ROI
My dialog with Siegel is just like many discussions I’ve with our prospects about proving the ROI of social.
With an answer that will increase group productiveness, makes customer support groups extra environment friendly and removes the necessity for handbook knowledge aggregation and reporting, Atlassian reveals clearer connections between social and the underside line.
To be taught extra about how Sprout’s platform helps prospects drive enterprise outcomes with social, learn the Whole Financial Affect™ of Sprout Social.
