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May 22, 2014

Respondly – Share the Workload

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Why should one person in your office be responsible for responding to all the customer queries, requests, and complaints that come in through Twitter and general support email addresses? With Respondly, teams can share the workload and effectively engage with customers in whichever styles they choose.

At the outset, Respondly may look like a simple shared inbox tool. However, Respondly actually does much more. Create a Respondly inbox by logging in through your Twitter account and choose the workflow style that makes the most sense to your organization. Respondly’s default workflow is dubbed “team member continuity.” New conversations arrive in a shared inbox, and individual team members can either reply directly from the inbox or assign the query to a colleague. Responding to a customer query puts that team member in charge of the conversation, and Respondly automatically assigns future replies from that customer to that team member going forward.

Teams that are interested in maximizing collaboration and shared visibility can opt for Respondly’s “team centric response” workflow. The difference here is that team members have the option to claim conversations and remove them from the shared inbox. This is ideal for shift workers and virtual teams who work in multiple time zones. Finally, Respondly offers the option to “auto assign” conversations to team members as they come in. Respondly can automatically distribute queries based on assigned roles, which ensures that emails intended for the sales department don’t end up in an engineer’s inbox by accident.

Practical Uses:

  • Divvy up the work when responding to customer complaints
  • Cut down on the time it takes to respond to questions from customers
  • Distribute customer queries to team members based on their areas of expertise
  • Track incoming tweets and emails in real-time

Insider Tips:

  • Track the status of any support request over time
  • Monitor specific Twitter accounts and Twitter searches
  • Use Respondly to handle internal or external communication
  • Team members can use the service to manage tweets from their personal accounts

What we liked:

  • Every member of the team can see every email that’s come into the system
  • Respondly serves as a centralized place for teams to collaborate on conversations with their customers
  • Respondly doesn’t charge based on the number of users at a business
  • Messages related to a specific conversation are grouped together

What we didn’t like:

  • Teams can’t currently use Respondly to handle conversations occurring on their Facebook pages

Alternatives:

Company Info:

  • Launched: April 2014
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: California and New Zealand
  • Founded by: Tim Haines and Phil Cockfield
  • Web site: https://respond.ly

Costs:

  • Starter plan is $9 per month
  • Basic plan is $39 per month
  • Pro plan is $79 per month
  • Premium plan is $149 per month
  • Enterprise plan is $849 per month

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