With over 1.5 billion monthly active users across 180 countries, WhatsApp has become the king of worldwide messaging. Although it started as a social networking site, it has become a potential business channel for customer interaction.
WhatsApp Business API and the WhatsApp Business app were inspired by Facebook Messenger and chatbots to simplify business-customer interactions. Small business owners use the WhatsApp Business app, created specifically for professional use, to communicate with clients.
On the other hand, the WhatsApp Business API helps medium and large enterprises interact with clients globally and send automated quick responses at scale.
WhatsApp Business App: What is it?
WhatsApp Business, launched in 2018, is the business version of the popular messaging app. Small businesses can easily communicate with clients using the regular WhatsApp programme. Studies show that more than 80% of people currently use WhatsApp Business for both their business and personal connections.
With billions of users worldwide, WhatsApp has surpassed SMS as the preferred method of communication. It’s commonly used for sending and receiving messages, photos, videos, and other files, making it the top corporate communication channel. WhatsApp Business accounts are recognizable as businesses, so users know they’re being contacted by a company account rather than a personal account.
What does WhatsApp Business offer?
WhatsApp Business offers businesses many advantages beyond customer interaction. Here are a few key features that businesses can greatly benefit from:
1. A Company Profile
Including the company’s contact information, address, email, website URL, and catalogue helps the target audience know more about the company and who contacts them on WhatsApp.
2. Auto-Reply
One can save commonly asked questions’ responses in the app. So all you have to do is choose the response to that question, email it whenever you are working on something else, and get a frequent query.
3. Automated Interaction
When unavailable, you can notify the person who messaged, saying you would get back to them later. As mentioned, you can generate automatic messages with this function, such as a welcome message to introduce your company or an away message if unavailable.
4. Labels
Organise your contacts and conversations using labels that you can customise, making it simple to find the chats and customers anytime.
5. Encryption
End-to-end encryption is a feature of the newer versions of the programme that safeguards your chats. You and the recipient are the only people who can read or listen to the chat.
What features does the WhatsApp API deliver?
Medium-sized and large-sized business owners reach out to clients globally at scale by using the WhatsApp Business API. WhatsApp business chatbots are created using the WhatsApp Business API to rapidly respond to client inquiries at scale and broaden your brand’s reach.
The WhatsApp business chatbots simulate regular human contact through automated discussions with consumers. It can provide a richer customer experience by getting a handle on user behaviour through training and carefully developed NLP algorithms.
Businesses are adopting WhatsApp chatbots to improve customer service, brand visibility, and engagement.
1. Encouraging Dialog
While WhatsApp excels at providing valuable customer services like notifications and alerts, its true power resides in its capacity to make it simple for marketers to communicate with customers in real-time on a two-way basis. This is essential in a world where conversational commerce is quickly taking over.
2. Safeguarding Communication
The WhatsApp Business API is built on a foundation of enterprise-level security. For instance, WhatsApp confirms all information about business accounts before activation. Customers who communicate with a brand via WhatsApp know they are speaking with a real organisation, not a phoney one.
3. Modernising Marketing
The use of broadcast messaging in digital marketing and the click-to-chat and conversation buttons, which enable customers to start a conversation with a company immediately, are two ways WhatsApp is transforming marketing.
4. Getting Integration Right
Even the most cutting-edge CX solution runs the danger of becoming ineffective, if not redundant, if it cannot completely interface with current business processes. Because of this, many businesses decide to plan, carry out, and roll out their WhatsApp solution in conjunction with an approved WhatsApp Business API provider.
WhatsApp Business’s Advantages for Small Businesses
The accompanying business tools for WhatsApp Corporate improve every aspect of business communication. They’re all free, which is the most significant part! Read the benefits of WhatsApp automation to know more about it.
In addition to being a cost-free solution for corporate communication, WhatsApp for business has two key advantages:
1. Enormous Reach
There are billions of users of WhatsApp globally, and individuals like to use it to communicate with their connections worldwide. Send and receive messages to and from any global location quickly. The platform was designed with small- and medium-sized business owners in mind.
Using the app on various platforms, including your smartphone, computer, tablet, or laptop, is a huge benefit. It functions on all platforms, including Windows, iOS, and Android. Regardless of gender or occupation, it is the software that users of all ages choose.
Additionally, small companies frequently utilise the app to communicate with their consumers, including pharmacies, grocery stores, and department stores.
2. User-friendly
One of WhatsApp Business’s most advantageous features is its user-friendly UI, which makes the programme easy for everyone to use regardless of age or educational background. Call anyone globally through video and voice with the app.
Regardless of your connection speed, it lets you instantly communicate photographs, videos, documents, contacts, and links. You can take pictures with the built-in camera and transmit them immediately. Organise specific clients, friends, or family members into groups and connect with them via audio, video, or chat calls. You can hold discussions and sync your chats across any device using WhatsApp, also available on PCs.
Small and medium-sized enterprises should be persuaded to use WhatsApp Business by its features and advantages in their advertising and sales campaigns.
Businesses now recognise the value of connecting with consumers where they are. One of WhatsApp Business’s most significant benefits is that it helps you establish a reliable, lasting relationship with your clients without requiring them to look for you on other platforms.
Businesses profit from WhatsApp’s devoted audience base and better engagement after developing a user-friendly chatbot. Customer care operations are made more efficient with the right chatbot platform, and your consumers will receive superior customer service than that of your rivals.
