Buffer Acquires Respondly, Moves Into Social Customer Service Market
- Written by Brian Anderson
- Published in News Briefs
Social media management solution provider Buffer acquired Respondly, a social media customer service and brand monitoring tool. The acquisition positions Buffer to move into the customer service market — an area where social media has been growing in prominence within the B2B marketplace.
Respondly is designed to help social customer service reps reach out to customers, reply to their questions and monitor what’s being said about the user's brand to offer an enhanced social customer experience.The company notes that Respondly will be rebranded as "Respond," and will remain a standalone tool.
While both Buffer and Respond will be kept separate, the company plans to integrate overlapping aspects of both tools such as engagement data and social history that can have a positive impact on both marketing and customer service initiatives.
"When we look at what happens as any industry matures, we see that a specialization of tools emerges, especially when the channel can be used for multiple different purposes," said Joel Gascoigne, Co-founder and CEO at Buffer, in a blog post. "For example, as email grew in popularity it was used for both marketing and customer service. When it comes to social media, we feel that that equally applies. Both sides of social media — customer service and marketing—are frequently rolled into one solution."