Responding Quickly Or Providing The Right Answer To Customer Questions?

Social media response speed vs. accuracy: which matters more? Scott Morris, CMO at Sprout Social, shares research on the disconnect between marketer perceptions and consumer expectations. He reveals how AI can handle routine customer inquiries while preserving brand voice, and explains why an immediate empathetic response often outperforms a delayed perfect answer in maintaining customer relationships. Show Notes Connect With:Scott Morris: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro, and joining me to discuss the difference between what marketers think and what consumers actually want from social media is Scott Morris. Scott is the Chief Marketing Officer at Sprouts Social, which is a social media management and analytics platform. And his team recently surveyed a group of customers, social practitioners and marketing leaders to uncover how consumer relationships are changing and how that's different than what social media platforms want. And today, we're going to discuss those findings and how marketers can break through the noise. All right, toss up. What matters more, quickly responding or providing the right answer to customer service questions?

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  Both.

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  Now, it's a toss up. You got a big one.

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  I would say speed is of the essence.

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  Two-thirds of users expect a response within 24 hours or they're going to go to a competitor if you're not responsive. So the answer can't not be speed. Quick personalized answers are the expectations that people have in today's landscape, but overly generic. Eric replies are no longer acceptable either. So you got to balance this. And that's what I mean. What I say, it's a little bit of both. Consumers value originality. So ensuring messages are personalized specifically to what they're looking for. And accurate, as we just talked about, is a really effective way to find balance. And this is an area where AI can help. No, not an AI influencer and not a chatbot, but for basic routine questions, AI can respond at scale.

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  And it can even do it in your brand's voice and it's getting better and better at doing that. And a great reason for doing that is that marketers don't have to spend as much time on that, on kind of the menial rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat stuff. And they can instead focus on that more authentic crafted outreach that requires that human touch. For me, I think the immediate response is actually more important than the perfect answer that's delayed. Because I think what you can do when you're dealing with angry customers is be sympathetic and empathetic first. And then say, let me go work on a solution. I mentioned the experience I had. My grill was broken. It took too long for me to get through customer service, trying to use text message. And eventually I went on to social and started barking.

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  And what I wanted was someone to come in and say, hopefully a real person, to come in and say, dang, that sucks that the grill doesn't work. It's really rare that that happens. It sounds like you went through the steps already for customer service. Hang on a minute. Let me see what I can do for you and I'll be back to you shortly. That buys you the time to go get the perfect answer without having the, here is the resolution upfront. So I think that the immediacy actually matters more than the perfect solution upfront. I agree. It's that whole perfection is the enemy of the good, right? Getting something out quickly, showing that you're listening, that's what's most important, that you're listening, that they were heard, even if you don't have the final answer for them right there.

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  All right, and that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks to Scott Morris from Sprout Social for joining us. If you'd like to get in touch with Scott, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes, or you can read Sprout Social's research on consumer and marketing behavior by visiting their website, sproutsocial.com. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or follow us on YouTube. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.