In our previous article about WhatsApp, we told you that this communication channel gives you the opportunity to get a +90% open rate. It’s a fantastic opportunity for every company that communicates with its customers via mobile devices. Today, we want to take it one step further and show you how you can automate communication with your customers using WhatsApp.
It all starts with WhatsApp Business – a more advanced platform that comes with more IT and marketing features. In fact, you have two options here – WhatsApp Business Platform and WhatsApp Business App. The latter one is for small companies that are just starting with WhatsApp communication. If you want to make the most of WhatsApp’s features and automate your communication – go for the Business Platform option.
This is important because only this version allows you to leverage the API communication protocol to deliver automated conversational flows. In other words – the Business Platform can be integrated with other tools and platforms, including iPresso.
What do you need to integrate WhatsApp and iPresso?
As you already know, it all starts with an account on WhatsApp Business Platform. There is also one more tool that you need. It’s called Vonage and it enables unified communication for many platforms and tools, including WhatsApp. The good news is that if you’re using iPresso as your marketing automation platform, you don’t need to worry about setting up a Vonage account. You can do so in our dashboard.
Once you’re equipped with a WhatsApp Business account and Vonage integration, you can just go to your user dashboard in iPresso and enable WhatsApp integration. Our platform will automatically get all the needed information from your WhatsApp account. Once this part is done, you can start working on your automated communication flows! If you need more information, check out our Help Center.
Automate WhatsApp communication
There are several questions to discuss here. Some of the automation options are available directly in WhatsApp, other become possible through iPresso. Let’s have a look at your options.
AUTOMATED WELCOME AND AWAY MESSAGES
WhatsApp Business enables you to set automated messages to your customers. Welcome/greeting messages are sent instantly when someone starts a new conversation with your business account. You can send those messages to all customers or just select ones – based on your preferences. Away messages can be sent outside your office hours or when you’re on vacation.
Source: https://business.whatsapp.com/products/business-app-features
QUICK REPLIES
This is another feature available directly in WhatsApp Business. This app helps you create automated quick replies based on the information in your business profile. Such a reply can contain some basic aspects of your business or answer frequently asked questions, e.g., your:
- Office hours
- Address and contact details
- Service area
- Order status lookup, etc.
AUTOMATED COMMUNICATION SCENARIOS
If you’re looking for something more advanced, you need iPresso. With our marketing automation platform, you can create whole communication scenarios where your WhatsApp account sends automated messages and responses to your customers’ actions and choices. We use MA scenarios to make it easy and intuitive. For example, if you run a service-based business, you can set up a rule saying that everyone who asked about your price list should get a question asking about booking an appointment and that it should be sent within 15 minutes after the question (provided there were no other interactions).
In such a scenario, iPresso will help you design the communication flow (all the parameters) as well as the content of all the messages you might want to send to your prospects.
INTERACTIVE MESSAGES
With WhatsApp, you can choose from classic text, graphic, and video messages. All those messages can also be interactive and contain buttons and options your customers can choose from. And, of course, these messages can be automated as well!
Interactive messages work great when you want your customer to pick the preferred appointment date or when conducting a customer survey.
MAKE WHATSAPP PART OF YOUR MULTICHANNEL STRATEGY
WhatsApp doesn’t need to be a lonely island in your company. Thanks to our marketing automation scenarios, you can integrate WhatsApp with other communication tools and create more advanced and holistic communication flows. Imagine such a scenario – your customer ordered a quote via email, but they are not responding to it. You can add WhatsApp to the mix and send a quick and friendly WhatsApp reminder. If your email was lost or accidentally landed in spam, such a reminder can help you close the deal.
Wrapping up
There are at least five different ways in which you can automate WhatsApp communication. We invite you to consider this channel a worthy addition to your marketing strategy. Because WhatsApp allows for two-way communication, you can build more in-depth and meaningful relations with your customers. This, in turn, results in customer loyalty and improved UX.
If you’re not yet a WhatsApp user, don’t worry. This tool is really intuitive, and with our help, you can get everything done in an hour or less. If you’d like to give WhatsApp a shot, you can start by creating a free trial account on our platform. It will help you see how iPresso works in real life and how it can be integrated with WhatsApp.
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