In an industry where scale and efficiency are vital, choosing the right social media management tool can be the determining factor in a marketing agency’s success. This was the crucible Ashley Rector faced as her agency, Quimby Digital, experienced rapid growth.
Initially partnering with Agorapulse, the agency then made a brief shift to Sprout Social due to a perceived gap in the feature offerings, only to return to Agorapulse within less than a year. This case study looks at Quimby Digital’s journey and uncovers the decisive factors that influenced the agency’s choice to return to Agorapulse and stay there.
The Challenge of Scaling
With a growing client base of nearly 50 accounts, Rector was facing the complex task of creating an efficient workflow for the day-to-day operations of her agency.
“With scale comes more chaos,” says Rector. “And as a social media marketing agency, managing approvals internally through the client side has always the biggest burden for us.”
Along with the many other tasks on her plate, such as ensuring timely content publication, and assessing the ROI of the content produced, Rector quickly realized that she’d need to streamline things if she was going to continue scaling effectively.
Starting With Agorapulse
From the outset, Rector knew that Agorapulse would be a good fit for Quimby Digital.
“You guys were a no-brainer,” she remarked, citing the client-facing aspects of the tool as a standout feature.
“We wanted something that was as simplistic as possible for my clients to go and review and provide feedback. And for them, it has always been a challenge to log into a tool and have to do that. And you guys have the magic calendar link, and all of our clients love that. It was really easy for them to just click on it, provide feedback. They didn’t have to remember passwords. It just was easier.”
Additionally, the cost-effectiveness of the tool and the highly responsive customer service were what sold Rector on partnering with Agorapulse.
An Unexpected Detour with Sprout Social
Although Quimby Digital had a positive experience with Agorapulse, a quest for new functionalities like the TikTok API integration eventually led Ashley and her team to explore alternatives. The agency eventually settled on Sprout Social’s enterprise plan.
“Sprout Social was one of the few platforms offering the TikTok API, so it seemed to be the best option at the time,” recalled Rector.
However, after just a few months into their contract at Sprout Social, the experience began to sour.
The social listening feature, which was initially considered a valuable addition, turned out to be underutilized due to its high cost and lack of interest from the clients. Additionally, there were changes in pricing of beta features, which were now counted as add-ons, leading to substantial cost increases.
However, the most frustrating part of the experience with Sprout Social was the lack of quality customer support, says Rector, who described it as “disjointed.”
“There’s like 50 different people you have to go to for an issue, and there isn’t one person who understands your account, which poses another issue when you’re having 50 issues. And they’re spread out across five departments, so nobody knows what’s going on.”
Not only was the team at Quimby Digital dissatisfied with Sprout Social’s services, but their clients also expressed a preference for the functionality that Agorapulse offered.
“Everyone wanted to go back to Agorapulse,” said Rector.
Returning Home to Agorapulse
When the agency realized that the increased costs and challenges with Sprout Social weren’t going to be resolved, they decided to revert to Agorapulse.
The decisive factors included:
- Better client functionality
- Cost-effectiveness
- Superior customer service that Agorapulse offered
- Instagram grid view added
Additionally, Agorapulse had introduced a TikTok integration to the platform, which was the primary reason that Quimby Digital had switched in the first place.
A Renewed Partnership
Since switching from Sprout Social back in April, Rector’s team has rediscovered the benefits of Agorapulse, appreciating features like the bulk upload, social media ROI tool, and easy scheduling.
“It has been going really well,” says Rector. “The team has had nothing but nice things to say and hasn’t had any issues.”
Quimby Digital’s return to Agorapulse streamlined operations and resulted in substantial cost savings for the agency amounting to $1,700 a month, or $20,400 annually.
But for Quimby Digital, the greatest benefit of Agorapulse goes beyond the intuitive features or the money saved.
“Agorapulse felt more interested in the outcome and productivity of our agency and the agency’s future, versus at Sprout, we were treated like just another person in line,” says Rector.
“So if your ethos as an agency is to treat your clients like they’re just another person in line, then I can see why you’d choose Sprout. But we are a high-touch agency that is very invested in the outcome of our clients. And those are the kind of partners that we want to partner with. That’s why Agorapulse made sense.”
Photo Credit: @Getty Images, Canva
By providing a cost effective, client friendly, and responsive solution, Agorapulse emerged as a partner that could support Quimby Digital on their path to sustainable long-term business growth.
To see how Agorapulse can help your agency scale more effectively, book a demo with a member of our team today.
