With more than two billion users globally, WhatsApp is a platform that most people already know and love. All of the features that make WhatsApp so popular for messaging between friends and family are now available with WhatsApp Business Platform.
For businesses, it’s a two-way, customer-centric, meaningful conversation that can happen at any time, any place. WhatsApp Business Platform can also be integrated with your enterprise technology stack, centralising key information so your employees can spend less time searching for what they need and more time on the tasks that really matter.
Carry on reading this blog to learn everything you need to know about your customers’ favourite platform.
What is the WhatsApp Business Platform?
The WhatsApp Business Platform is a way to supply rich, personalised, interactive and engaging conversations via WhatsApp, in a simple, secure and reliable way. It’s a form of conversational messaging, which helps businesses get – and stay – close to their customers.
Platform features
Some of the features of WhatsApp Business Platform include:
- The ability to communicate with your customers at scale
- Automated responses
- Real-time monitoring of conversations
- Conversion analytics
- Customisable message templates
- An unprecedented level of security with end to end encryption and data privacy
Types of messages you can send via WhatsApp
- Marketing e.g personalised product recommendations
- Rich notifications such as order confirmations and delivery updates
- Two-way customer chats
- Alerts
To get started, customers have to opt-in to WhatsApp communications. Then they will receive either a one way message, or they can start to have interactions with a live agent, or even a chat bot.
Platform deployment
Choose from one of two options:
- Via remotely accessible online portals
- The implementation of an API, which will add WhatsApp functionality directly into your business’s existing CRM system
Why do customers love using WhatsApp to communicate with businesses?
Today’s buyers have tuned out advertising and email blasts. In fact, consumers now receive an average of 63.5 notifications per day, therefore it’s no surprise they’re prioritising which notifications they want to receive and muting everything else. Businesses need to stand out more than ever, which is why they should be considering WhatsApp Business.
Customers love using this platform to message businesses because:
- It’s one-on-one – like phone or email, it’s a one-on-one conversation, but without picking up the phone or scrolling through an inbox.
- It’s conversational – just like a phone call, WhatsApp creates two-way, customer-centric conversations, but without the on hold music.
- It’s asynchronous – messaging allows for both immediate, interactive responses and for responding when it’s convenient.
- It’s a platform they already love – customers are already using WhatsApp to communicate with friends and family.
What are the benefits of WhatsApp Business?
As mentioned above, businesses need to be heard, especially in today’s saturated market. They should provide relevant, personalised customer experiences and always-on support.
This is exactly what WhatsApp Business can do for you. It empowers businesses to connect with their customers personally, at scale, because:
- It’s intuitively conversational – businesses can get closer to customers with two-way conversations that deliver the intimacy of a phone call at the scale of email and SMS.
- It can create richer interactions – you can go beyond the limitations of text and email with fully featured messaging to create consistently richer and more delightful experiences that help drive business outcomes across the customer journey.
- It provides quality by design – WhatsApp helps businesses focus on high-quality conversations. The API has built-in user feedback controls. This helps ensure that engagement stays high over time.
- It allows you to automate and scale – all within a flexible platform that lets you deliver consistent, personalised customer experiences at scale.
How are other businesses using WhatsApp Business?
Many businesses are using WhatsApp Business to achieve success, from streaming giant Netflix to Dutch online travel agency Booking.com. In our blog here, we discuss in detail these success stories, highlighting how they’re using the platform and providing tips on how you can follow in their footsteps.
How to get started with the WhatsApp Business Platform
WhatsApp Business Platform offers businesses the opportunity to be where customers are most likely to respond as you can now send texts, pictures, videos and audio directly to their pockets, with the addition of branding and even bots for fully automated interactions.
Learn more about WhatsApp Business and how it can benefit your business by downloading our guide here. It contains everything you need to know, from features and functionalities to how WhatsApp can be used for different industries.
You can also get in touch with an Esendex expert today to find out how much the WhatsApp Business Platform costs, discuss your comms strategy and much more.
