Item: Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Rating: 9
Author: Eden Wallace

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently utilize Sparkcentral in our digital care department here at Direct Energy. It allows us to quickly aggregate content and engage with our customers on social media, throughout all of our brands, and assist with any needs they may have.

Pros and Cons

Sparkcentral makes it incredibly easy to manage queues, and assist repeat customers without losing any efficiency in the conversation. Agents are able to see a constant flow of the conversation so they are able to better respond and assist the customers.
Agents are able to set up reminders so they can better follow up with customers. This allows them to either ensure resolution was achieved as expected, or surprise and delight the customer with a follow up several weeks or months out.
The workflow is one of the greatest features of Spark. It allows you to avoid agent collisions by pushing conversations to the next available agent versus agents choosing them and potentially responding twice. Agents are also able to see when a co-worker is working on a post and can move on to the next or assist if needed.

The only drawback for my group with Sparkcentral is the lack of a unified queue. We manage 19 different social pages and counting, and are unable to see all of the traffic in one location. Agents having to go between 19+ pages to check for content can make it less efficient on time.