In recent years, social platforms have become the go-to places for consumers to interact with brands. Every month, 20 billion (!) messages are exchanged between people and brands on Facebook Messenger alone. 

But in most companies, 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 everyday work. 

Bringing social media and customer support closer together should be top of mind if you don’t want to miss out on important conversations — and opportunities to keep your customers engaged and happy on their preferred communication channels.

With Hootsuite’s Salesforce integration, you can do just that. Keep reading for a simple guide on how it works, how it can help your team and customers, and how you can get started.

Bonus: Get a free, easy-to-use Customer Service Report Template that helps you track and calculate your monthly customer service efforts all in one place.

Why should you connect your social media with Salesforce?

Numbers don’t lie: 62% of customers say switching between service channels is a hassle. (And I wholeheartedly agree with them!)

Instead of instructing customers to submit their questions through a dedicated channel, you can meet them where they are by consolidating support channels on your end. 

By bringing your social media messages into Salesforce, you give your customers the freedom to reach you where they’re most comfortable — and your team a single, organized system to handle everything. 

But the benefits don’t end there. Below you can dive into ways that a Salesforce social media integration helps your customers and social and customer support teams. It’s a win-win-win. 

Benefits for your social team

Your social media team is likely flooded with messages every day. Some of them are comments and DMs that can be filed under audience engagement — and your social marketing team knows exactly what to do with them. 

But some are questions or complaints that experienced customer support agents are better equipped to deal with. The Hootsuite Salesforce integration makes handing off such inquiries much easier. 

On top of that, social media gets to… stay social. Your customer support agents don’t need to sign in to the company social accounts to handle DMs — all of the relevant inquiries land in Salesforce’s familiar dashboard.

Psst: Read up on why keeping access to social channels as limited as possible is a good security practice.

Benefits for your customer support team

The integration doesn’t just benefit your social team — your customer support team will also see major improvements to their workflow:

  • Improved response times. Your team won’t have to dig through multiple communication channels to stay on top of inquiries. With everything routed directly to Salesforce, cases are created automatically based on DMs. This empowers your team to respond — and offer solutions — faster.
  • Automated answers to FAQ. The AI chatbot built into the Hootsuite Salesforce integration can answer common questions instantly, 24/7. When things get more complicated, the chatbot hands off the conversation to a live agent, reducing the load on your support team while keeping customers happy.
  • Complete customer details. 70% of customers expect your agents to know their entire history when they reach out for help. With the Hootsuite Salesforce integration, your agents can see all relevant details — from past social media interactions to order history — and easily provide more personalized responses.

Benefits for your customers

At the end of the day, what matters most is creating a great experience for your customers. Here’s how connecting your social channels to Salesforce can do that:

  • Customers can reach out on their favorite social platforms and get timely responses. 81% of customers now expect quicker service, and this integration makes it easier for your business to meet those expectations.
  • With automatic inquiry routing, customers spend less time waiting for a resolution. (And businesses that respond within 15 minutes are much more likely to build trust and create lasting relationships with their customers.)
  • With 36% of customers sharing their experiences on social media, a personalized response can make or break your brand’s reputation. By having access to their full customer history, your team can deliver the personalized service that customers love — which means fewer negative experiences and more happy 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 really matters: delivering great customer service.

Here’s a simple rundown of how it works:

1. The customer reaches out on social media

This first step is simple: a customer or prospect chooses to get in touch with your brand on their preferred social platform, and they send you a DM.

2. The AI chatbot steps in

A customer reaching out to a brand via Instagram DM

Hootsuite’s AI chatbot handles the initial inquiry, responding to common 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 transfer the conversation to a human agent.

3. A Salesforce case is automatically created

A list view of customer inquiries from social media in the "Cases" section of the Salesforce customer service dashboard

When the chatbot escalates the inquiry, a case is automatically created in Salesforce. This way, your customer support team has easy access to every social interaction, and no inquiries fall through the cracks.

4. A support agent takes over

A view of the customer's Instagram DM reachout in the Salesforce dashboard

Your customer service agents can pick up the conversation right where the chatbot left off, without leaving Salesforce. They’ll have access to the customer’s full history with your brand, including social interactions and part orders.

5. Resolution (in Salesforce and Hootsuite)

Resolving a customer inquiry from Instagram in Salesforce

Once the issue is resolved, the case is closed in Salesforce, and the conversation is automatically marked complete in Hootsuite. Everything stays in sync, so your team always has a clear view of what’s happening.

6. Creating a lead (optional)

Creating a qualified lead in Salesforce after resolving a customer inquiry from an Instagram DM

Although optional, this step can be a powerful tool in your team’s hands.

If a customer support agent notices that the person who submitted the inquiry is a good match for a campaign your business is running, 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 target group for the campaign.

Talk about cross-departmental benefits!

What other platforms does Hootsuite integrate with?

Hootsuite is not just a social media management dashboard that — as you already know — doubles as a powerful customer service platform. 

It also integrates with over 100 tools that businesses of all sizes use every day to… well, do business. 

The most popular Hootsuite integrations include: 

  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Asana
  • Basecamp
  • Figma
  • Google Business Profile
  • Miro
  • Monday.com
  • Notion
  • Slack
  • Shopify
  • Trello
  • Vidyard
  • WordPress

… and many more. You can browse them all in our app directory.

Deliver even better customer care with Hootsuite and Salesforce. Manage customer engagements in one place, easily share data between teams, and get a better understanding of your customers across channels. It’s easy. 

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The post A very easy guide to the new Hootsuite Salesforce integration appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.