Sentiment Announces Industry First Chat App Integration to Enhance Multi-channel Engagement

FARNBOROUGH, England, March 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Sentiment has become the first enterprise-grade social customer service platform to add chat app integrations for WeChat and Line. People see social media as a 'live' channel to find the answers they need and increasingly they want responses in near real time.  The immediacy of chat apps is also seen as a fast route to resolution and usage as a customer service tool is expected to grow in 2016 as consumer expectations increase around fast response times.  

Chat apps are becoming increasingly important compared with volumes of social data. Instant messenger services and chat apps now account for 3 of the top 5 global social platforms. Forward thinking organisations are already beginning to integrate these channels into their customer service strategy. Primarily the move is driven by a need to be where customers are, but it can also take some of the heat of complaints away from more public forums leading to less reputational impact.

As the trend for customers contacting brands via mobile continues to accelerate, large enterprises are beginning to be inundated by customer service requests via these routes.  Consumer uptake is increasing and brands which do not look at this risk being left behind by customers who don't want to go back to picking up the phone or sending an email.

WeChat is one of the largest standalone messaging apps by monthly active users, popular in China, with over 650 million active users each month.  Japan-based Line has over 212 million monthly active users.

Leon Chaddock, CEO at Sentiment comments, "Part of the growing attraction of chat apps is the time factor.  It provides a medium for customers to interact with an actual person at a brand in real time and get an immediate answer to their question via apps on their mobile devices they are familiar with."

The latest enhancement to the Sentiment platform available Spring 2016 will enable social customer service teams to handle social enquiries more efficiently and improve social engagement. Companies are also able to target customers and prospects by location and send offers and messages proactively.

Integrating chat apps with social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram means agents can seamlessly handle questions and complaints through one intelligent inbox and continue conversations without putting the brakes on quick resolution. Using Sentiment customers have found over a 75% drop in response times and a 74% increase in response rate.

Leon Chaddock concludes, "We are committed to making our social engagement capabilities best-in-class, and enabling our customers to deliver exceptional social customer service. This integration demonstrates our continued focus on innovation and desire to offer the best engagement experience from a single point of access.  It will empower organisations to be increasingly responsive to changing social expectations."

For more information please visit http://www.sentimentmetrics.com

About Sentiment 

Sentiment is a cloud-based social customer service platform that uniquely provides marketing, publishing and customer service capabilities.  This has enabled 100s of major brands across the globe to deliver social marketing and social customer service from a single, integrated app.  This unique functionality enables brands to calculate the value and intent of customers.  It allows organisations to prioritise and purposefully engage with the highest value contacts at exactly the right time, to ensure that positive perception of reputation is extended beyond the social customer service function to the business as a whole.  

Sentiment focuses on driving value on behalf of clients, increasing operational efficiencies while minimising the cost of engaging through social.

PR Contact
Anita Matthews
Sentiment Marketing
Anita.matthews@sentimentmetrics.com
+44-(0)845-658-9945
@smetrics.com