Top 4 Sprout Social Alternatives based on 27,000+ Reviews

The character of customer support is evolving. Clients are getting extra snug with social customer service choices. 

Supply: HubSpot and Brandwatch.¹

Sprout Social is without doubt one of the social customer service software suppliers that grant direct entry to clients throughout on-line interactions; nevertheless, customers and IT professionals have reported that the product is just not an optimum answer for his or her group as a result of its drawbacks, reminiscent of excessive pricing and social media features’ limitations.

This text will cowl the options, consumer rankings, and pricing of one of the best Sprout Social options.

Comparability of the highest 4 Sprout Social options

Desk 1: Comparability by market presence

*Based mostly on the overall variety of workers on LinkedIn as of 11/14/2023.

**Based mostly on the overall variety of opinions and common rankings on Capterra, Gartner, and G2 software program overview platforms as of 11/14/2023. 

*** The convenience of high quality and high quality of assist knowledge are primarily based on G2 rankings as of 14/11/2023.

Desk 2: Comparability by options

* The # of integrations (2,500+) for Salesforce Service Cloud product knowledge represents the overall # of integrations for Salesforce.

Disclaimer: Sprout Social is ranked first, adopted by sponsored distributors )Zendesk Help Suite and Salesforce Service Cloud). Different options are organized in descending order primarily based on the overall variety of opinions they’ve acquired.

Vendor choice standards

The listings above have been narrowed in response to the seller standards talked about beneath, serving to organizations make extra correct analyses contemplating the abundance of social customer service software distributors.

• Worker dimension: 1,000+ workers on LinkedIn
• Variety of opinions: 3,000+ whole opinions on Capterra, Gartner, and G2. 
• Common score: 4+/5 on Capterra, Gartner, and G2. 
• Ease of high quality and high quality of assist score: 8+/10 on G2.

What’s social customer support software program?

Social customer service software is a software that allows human brokers to supply real-time buyer assist via social media channels, together with social media posts, direct messages, or boards.

 It has two primary functions:

1. Responding to inquiries clients might have regarding services or products.
2. Providing technical steerage and problem-solving help to clients.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social, established in 2010 in Chicago, U.S., is a platform for social media administration and intelligence focused at organizations of any dimension.²

Sprout Social helps social media advertising efforts between customers and their audiences on numerous channels (Instagram, WhatsApp, Fb, and X), releasing them up to focus on constructing relationships with their model’s most engaged followers. 

Professionals

Social media service: Busy social media entrepreneurs state that the software program’s unmatched energy is the “Good Inbox”, which they assume is a time saver for in-house customers, enabling them to deal with a considerable variety of social media accounts or inbound buyer assist requests.³

Ease-of-use: Some customers spotlight that the platform’s single dashboard permits them to learn and reply to all feedback, tags, and direct messages throughout completely different social networking platforms successfully. Additionally they say that the “Good Inbox” operate saves time by eliminating the necessity for manually logging in to a number of social media platforms independently.⁴

Reporting options: Some customers emphasize that Sprout Social’s reporting and analytics options are straightforward to make use of, permitting them to switch paperwork effectively over a number of platforms.⁵

Cons

Pricing: In accordance with customers, the value tag of Sprout Social is a significant disadvantage. Customers additionally state that the software program is considerably dearer than its opponents, and a number of other capabilities, together with customized stories and canned replies, are charged individually somewhat than included in the usual pricing.⁶

Social media limitations: A number of customers comment that it’s troublesome to customise and publish tales. One reviewer notes that it’s unimaginable to see and collect knowledge from TikTok and reply feedback.⁷⁸

Social media integrations: A number of reviewers be aware that the platform has restricted social media integration capabilities. For instance, posts on Instagram are usually not absolutely seen in gross sales apps.⁹

Social media performance: Customers anticipate to have a extra streamlined strategy of posting throughout a number of social media accounts whereas utilizing Sprout Social. They state that, whereas duplicating posts, they nonetheless want to make sure that the best consumer receives Instagram notifications.¹⁰

Consumer Scores

• Capterra: 4.4/5
• Gartner: 4.3/5
• G2: 4.4/5

Pricing (per seat/month, billed yearly)

Customary: $249

Skilled: $399

Superior: $499

Enterprise: Customized pricing

Free trial: 30-day¹¹

Prime 4 Sprout Social options 

1- Zendesk Help Suite

Zendesk Support Suite, based in Denmark in 2007, has over 5,400 workers and assists about 160,000 companies in speaking and managing their clients throughout social media platforms.¹²

Zendesk is Sprout Social various that allows brokers to decide on between public chats, tweets, messages, and emails whereas gathering buyer knowledge in a single location for a personalized buyer expertise.

Professionals

Social media customer support: A number of customers emphasize that Sprout Social is a useful software to prepare the entire buyer questions on one platform. Social media administration instruments in any kind, reminiscent of e mail, SMS, Whatsapp, or on-line media, will be successfully tracked with out something being missed.¹³

Customization: Some customers complement the flexibility to personalize options in response to their particular use circumstances; some customization options they like embody creating shortcuts or eliminating fields and buttons.¹⁴

Responsive UI: Customers admire the responsiveness of Zendesk’s UI makes all the suite straightforward to browse. Customers state that they will effectively shift between the chat screens whereas studying assist tickets and social media tickets on the identical time.¹⁵

Cons

Social media integrations: Customers anticipate to have a stronger social media presence with Zendesk, noting that the social media assist integration might be extra intensive for all social media websites reminiscent of YouTube, Pinterest, Fb, and LinkedIn.¹⁶

Preliminary setup: Customers declare that as there are quite a few options and settings accessible, software program setup might get advanced, making it unsuitable for common or newbie customers.¹⁷

Technical assist: Some enterprise-level clients acknowledged that Sprout Social’s technical assist is inadequate.¹⁸

Consumer Scores

• Capterra: 4.4/5
• Gartner: 4.3/5
• G2: 4.3/5

Pricing (per seat/month, billed yearly)

• Suite group: $55.00
• Suite progress: $89.00
• Suite skilled: $115.00
• Suite enterprise: Customized pricing
• Free trial: 14-day¹⁹

2- Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is one other various to Sprout Social with cloud-based social media service options that help customers in streamlining companies, bettering workflows, and figuring out related topics to assist human brokers in social media service operations.

Customers of Salesforce Social Buyer Service can remodel social media postings into circumstances or leads. Brokers might reply to social media feedback, posts, hashtags, or mentions from the Service Console, enabling your organization to take part in buyer interactions on platforms reminiscent of X, Instagram, Fb, and YouTube.

Professionals

Omni-channel social media integrations: Some customers admire the omnichannel functionality of Service Cloud for integrating new social media channels.²⁰

Social media customer support: Customers be aware that the software program maintains monitor of all gross sales knowledge associated to customer support whereas enabling them to have highly effective service oversight over social media profiles.²¹
Customization: Customers say that Salesforce Service Cloud permits them to customise fields to fulfill the wants of their firm effectively.²²

Cons

Social media efficiency: Some customers declare that Service Cloud doesn’t present easy use circumstances.²³

Pricing: Customers say that small companies might discover the primary subscription value prohibitively costly.²⁴

Customer support operate usability: In accordance with some customers, navigation between numerous assist points takes time and could also be improved because it brings customers to the house display screen and causes them to browse backwards and forwards.²⁵

Consumer Scores

• Capterra: 4.4/5
• Gartner: 4.4/5
• G2: 4.3/5

Pricing (beginning value per seat/month, billed yearly)

• Starter: $25.00
• Skilled: $80.00
• Enterprise: $165.00
• Limitless: $330.00
• Free trial: 30-day²⁶

3- Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a customer support software program with social service options that helps customers interact with clients on social media channels reminiscent of X, Instagram, and Fb from a single interface.

The social media administration platform has a particular menu bar for social media managers and customers to manage, oversee, and handle the social media customer support operations referred to as “Social”.  It consists of an AI-powered social sign analyzer that screens social media posts that point out your organization. Utilizing its built-in machine studying expertise, Social discovers, learns, and gives suggestions on related postings. These postings are transformed into filtered tickets, stopping the assist group from losing time on irrelevant points. 

Professionals

Customer support (tickets): Customers comment that Freshdesk interacts seamlessly with their expertise stack and that it’s easy to trace down and handle circumstances. All assist tickets (no matter channel, i.e., social media, in-app assist, piece of email, and so on.) are routed proper to their group’s Slack channel.²⁷

Buyer assist: A number of customers state that Freshdesk’s customer support is top-notch. 24/7 e mail help is out there via computerized and fixed chat, emails, cellphone calls, and social media.²⁸

Connectivity: Some customers state that the steadiness of the Freshdesk connection is highly effective, which makes it a dependable and safe social media administration software.²⁹

Cons

Pricing construction: In accordance with customers, Freshdesk’s pricing is perhaps difficult as a result of there are a number of add-ons accessible.³⁰

Social media channel fragmentation: Customers state that it may be troublesome for corporations to deal with and react to buyer requests that are available throughout many channels reminiscent of e mail, chat, cellphone, social media, and others.³¹

Crashes and buyer assist: Some customers draw consideration to the upkeep drawback that causes the Freshdesk cellular app to crash, noting that no info is given as to why the software program crashes or how lengthy it will likely be down.³²

Consumer Scores

• Capterra: 4.5/5
• Gartner: 4.4/5
• G2: 4.4/5

Pricing (per seat/month)

• Development: $15.00
• Omni-channel progress: $29.00
• Professional: $48.00
• Omni-channel professional: $59.00
• Enterprise: $69.00
• Omni-channel enterprise: $99.00
• Free-trial: 14-day³³

4- Intercom

Intercom is a customer support platform that helps companies improve their buyer expertise by delivering end-to-end engagement on social media administration platforms.

Professionals

Social media customer support: Customers affirm that Intercom’s social media channels operate precisely; there’s no want for them to refresh the web site to see whether or not there’s a message on Fb, Instagram, or some other social media web sites.³⁴

Social media communications (search software): Intercom is taken into account to be an environment friendly social media scheduling software by customers. Customers state that social media communications will be simply managed; the search software successfully collects knowledge from the entire shoppers and sends messages to them.³⁵

Ease-of-use: Opinions reveal that the shared inbox operate helps ship fast and simple assist; from the display screen, customers might effectively get hold of info, present commercials, course of leads, and supply customer support assist.³⁶

Cons

Social media integrations: Customers specific that Intercom might enhance a few of its integrations, notably with social media platforms reminiscent of Fb; these integrations seem to bug out often and should trigger communication gaps with clients.³⁷

Pricing construction: The worth construction is difficult; a number of clients have been uncertain how a lot they pay for every exercise or operate they use.³⁸

Advanced platform: Intercom appears to be a comparatively advanced social media administration software, in response to some customers because of the quite a few capabilities it gives.³⁹

Consumer Scores

• Capterra: 4.5/5
• Gartner: 4.1/5
• G2: 4.5/5

Pricing (per seat/month, billed yearly)

•  Important: $39.00
• Superior: $99.00
• Knowledgeable: $139.00
• Free-trial: 14-day⁴⁰

4 core options of Sprout Social options

The core options defined beneath are primarily based on distinctive options in contrast in Desk 2 (see above). To realize in-depth info associated to social customer software features, learn our up-to-date and data-driven article on social customer support.

1- AI chatbots

AI chatbots are clever chatbots that make use of artificial intelligence (AI) or generative AI strategies reminiscent of machine studying to develop responses over time to gather consumer knowledge and precisely be taught, analyze, and comprehend the information set for particular intentions.

AI chatbots for social media customer support: ~90% of buyer inquiries are dealt with in at most 10 messages or much less with AI chatbots.⁴¹

Nearly all of chatbot discussions are temporary and to the purpose. AI chatbots (e.g., Instagram chatbots) can management the consumer expertise, dialog movement, and response time on social media communications. This helps clients get hold of instant responses on social channels.

2- Social media monitoring

Social media monitoring is a method of reviewing and reacting to social media interactions associated to your organization, reminiscent of key mentions, feedback, postings, and hashtags. 

~80% of surveyed professionals take into account social monitoring as a key planning factor in defining social media technique.⁴²

3- Suggestions surveys

A buyer suggestions survey is a technique of figuring out and measuring the satisfaction of assorted company models or clients to look at their experiences, wants, and concepts associated to the model. 

Feedback is set by monitoring the corporate’s services or products and may typically include exactly written questions. Suggestions surveys will be delivered via direct messages, online surveys, and on-line neighborhood boards throughout social channels.

4- Customized stories

Customized stories, in distinction to straightforward stories, are insights (e.g., social media analytics) that you just develop in response to distinctive necessities to fulfill particular reporting calls for.

With customized reporting, customers can leverage a variety of visualization choices by including particular filters, guaranteeing the information is displayed in probably the most helpful method. 

Transparency assertion

AIMultiple serves quite a few tech corporations, together with Salesforce and Zendesk.

Additional studying

Learn our clear, up-to-date articles to be taught extra about social customer support options and buyer engagement automation.

For extra on customer support, try our data-driven checklist of customer experience software.

Contact us to search out out extra about social customer support:

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Exterior Hyperlinks

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