Reply Approvals Mobile

Replies are critical when dealing with feedback about your brand or business on social. The faster the reply, the better the customer service and the more likely audiences are to engage with your brand again and again. With Reply Approvals in Sprout Social’s mobile app, you can get immediate notifications, quickly approve on-the-go replies and ensure your customer service is top-notch with responses that are on-brand, compliant and error free.

The Reply Approvals workflow has a seamless integration with the web application, all running on the Sprout platform. So if someone submits a reply for approval on desktop, Approvers receive a push notification on mobile, letting them know a reply is ready. This ensures that you never miss an opportunity to get a quick reply to your audience.

Reply Approvals for iOS

You can add replies for approval directly from the Smart Inbox in the iOS app. You can add multiple replies to a message, whether public or private, quickly, so your approvers have a variety of responses to choose from and can follow up quickly with audiences.

You can perform the following in iOS:

• Enabling and viewing push notifications
• Submitting replies for approval
• Taking action on replies

Enabling and viewing push notifications

It’s important to enable push notifications for mobile, so you never miss a reply action. You receive push notifications for:

• New replies awaiting approval
• Approved replies
• Rejected replies
• Deleted replies

You can enable push notifications to show in your iOS Notification Center for maximum visibility in real time, and you also receive notifications in the notification center () in the Sprout app under the Collaboration tab.

As a best practice, Sprout recommends enabling push notifications so you never miss reply activity. To enable push notifications for reply approvals:

1. Tap  to open the overflow menu.
2. Tap Notification Preferences.
3. Toggle Inbox Reply Approvals ON under the Team Collaboration section.
   
   

Submitting replies for approval

When messages come in, whether public mentions or private messages, it’s important to post a reply quickly to your audiences. 

As a best practice, enter multiple replies to give your Approver a variety to choose from. You can’t edit replies once you submit them, and this can cause a delay in how quickly a response can get out to your audience. With multiple options to choose from, Approvers can select which response is best for the message, without worrying about edits. 

Reply to public messages

To submit a reply for approval to a public message:

1. Access the Smart Inbox on your iOS app.
2. Tap to reply for the message you want to reply to. The Reply Bar appears at the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap  to select your reply approvers (anyone with the Can Reply permission appears in the list).
4. Tap as many Approvers as you want from the list, and then tap Done. Some Approvers appear with a blue dot next to their name. This means the Approver was active within the last 10 minutes and more likely to approve a response quickly.
   
   
5. Enter your reply or multiple replies to the public message.
6. Tap Submit. If enabled, the Approvers you selected get a notification that there is a reply awaiting approval.
   

Replying to private messages

To submit a reply for approval to a private message:

1. Open the private message from the Smart Inbox. The chat view appears, showing all the chat history.
2. Tap into the reply bar at the bottom of the chat window.
3. Tap .
4. Tap as many Approvers as you want from the list, and then tap Done. Some Approvers appear with a blue dot next to their names. This means the Approver was active within the last 10 minutes and more likely to approve a response quickly.
   
   
5. Enter your reply or multiple replies to the private message.
6. Tap Submit. If enabled, the Approvers you selected get a notification that there is a reply awaiting approval.
   
   

Taking action on a pending reply

As an Approver, you can:

• Approve
• Reject
• Delete, or
• Override

replies submitted for approval for both public and private messages. From the Inbox view in the mobile app, you can quickly view which messages have pending replies.

Note: You must have the Can Reply permission or higher in the group to be an Approver.

Approving replies to public messages

After you receive a notification that a reply is ready for approval, and the reply looks good, approve it for publishing. 

To approve a reply to a public message:

1. Open the pending reply from either a push notification or directly in the app by navigating to the Smart Inbox.
   
2. Tap on the message you want to approve. 
   
   
3. Determine the reply you want to approve (if multiple exist), tap it and then tap  to approve and publish the reply.
4. (Optional) If multiple replies are present, choose to Approve reply, reject others or Approve reply, keep others if multiple replies are present. Rejecting removes the other pending replies while keeping others keeps all the other pending replies to the message. 
   

Rejecting replies to public messages

After you receive a notification that a reply is ready for approval and the reply isn’t an appropriate response, reject the reply to the message.

To reject a reply to a public message:

1. Open the pending reply from either a push notification or directly in the app by navigating to the Smart Inbox.
2. Determine the reply you want to reject (if multiple exist), tap it and then tap . The Reject screen appears.
3. (Optional) Provide some context as to why you’re rejecting the reply, for instance, maybe the reply didn’t use your brand voice or didn’t include the correct details about a promotion.
4. Tap Reject. The reply is rejected and deleted and the composer of the reply gets notified.
   
   

Overriding replies to public messages

You might run into an instance where you want to respond to a message with your own reply, even though there are pending replies to the message.

To override a reply to a public message:

1. Open the Smart Inbox.
2. Tap the message you want to respond to. 
3. Enter the response you want to send, and then tap Send. A message appears asking if you want to send your reply instead.
4. Choose to either Send reply, reject others or Send reply, keep others. Rejecting others removes all pending replies for the message, while keeping others keeps all the pending replies to the message. 

Your reply is immediately posted to the message.

Approving replies to private messages

After you receive a notification that a reply is ready for approval, and the reply looks good, approve it to respond to the private message.

To approve a reply to a private message:

1. Open the pending reply from either a push notification or directly in the app by tapping the message.
2. Tap the reply you want to approve. 
3. Determine the reply you want to approve (if multiple exist), and then tap to approve and publish the reply to the private message.
4. (Optional) Choose to Approve reply, reject others or Approve reply, keep others if multiple replies are present. Rejecting removes the other pending replies while keeping others keeps all the other pending replies to the chat.
   

Rejecting replies to private messages

After you receive a notification that a reply is ready for approval and the reply isn’t an appropriate response, reject the reply to the message.

To reject a reply to a private message:

1. Open the pending reply from either a push notification or directly in the app by tapping the message in the Inbox.
2. Determine the reply you want to reject (if multiple exist), tap the reply and then tap . The Reject screen appears.
3. (Optional) Provide some context as to why you’re rejecting the reply. For instance, maybe the reply didn’t use your brand voice or didn’t include the correct details about a promotion.
4. Tap Reject. The reply is rejected and deleted and the composer of the reply gets notified.
   
   

Overriding replies to private messages

You might run into a scenario where you want to respond to a message immediately and not go through pending replies for a message.

To override a reply to a private message:

1. Open the Inbox and tap the message you want to respond to.
2. Enter the response you want to send, and then tap Send. A message appears asking if you want to send your reply instead.
3. Choose to either Send reply, reject others or Send reply, keep others. Rejecting others removes all pending replies for the message, while keeping others keeps all the pending replies to the message.

Your reply is immediately posted to the chat. 

 

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