WhatsApp is far more than just a messenger for everyday communication between friends and family. Today, it’s a vital communication tool companies more and more eagerly use to stay in touch with their customers. What should you know about WhatsApp? And how can you use it to improve communication with your target audience? Let’s see!
According to the Digital 2022 report, WhatsApp has over 2 billion users, which makes this app one of the most popular communication tools in the world. On average, users spend almost 19 hours using WhatsApp every month, with the most active countries being Indonesia, Brazil, and Argentina (although you can find WhatsApp users in over 180 countries):
Why is WhatsApp so popular?
There are a few reasons behind WhatsApp’s popularity:
- Ease of use: This tool is really intuitive, even for less tech-savvy users. The number of options is limited to the really useful ones, so you don’t need to spend a lot of time learning how WhatsApp works.
- Internet-based communication: WhatsApp comes in handy if you want to stay in touch with friends and family living in other countries. Because this messenger uses online data, there are no costs on the mobile operator’s side. So, if you have a family living in Australia, calling them via WhatsApp is much cheaper compared to normal phone calls.
- Multiple formats: WhatsApp offers more than just text messages. You can send pictures, animations, links, and attachments. There is also a huge repository of emojis, gifs, and stickers to make communication more engaging.
- Groups: Do you want to stay in touch with many people simultaneously? Perhaps you have a soccer group meeting to play every week? All you have to do is create a group and add participants, and that’s it! Now, you can easily communicate with several dozen or even hundreds of people.
The popularity and flexibility of this tool have not gone unnoticed by the business world. As a result, you now can benefit from the offer for companies – let’s meet WhatsApp Business.
WhatsApp Business – stay in touch with your customers
If you run a company, you surely want to use effective and flexible communication channels to stay in touch with customers, especially regular ones. This is what WhatsApp is all about. Companies have two options here:
- WhatsApp Business App – this is the more straightforward solution, mostly used by SMEs that want to manage conversations with their customers personally.
- WhatsApp Business Platform – this platform is more complex and is intended for large companies that want to communicate at scale and automate communication.
WHATSAPP BUSINESS APP
With Business App, you can create a profile for your company and set an automatic welcome message for anyone who wants to text you. Here’s how such a profile looks:
With such a profile, you can showcase your business and display your company’s:
- Name and logo
- Industry/category
- Opening hours
- Products
Moreover, you can easily set three additional elements to make communication even easier:
- Away Messages (they come in handy when you are on sick leave or on vacation and you want to let your customers know about your absence)
- Quick replies (if your customers frequently ask about the same things, you can set automatic answers so that you don’t have to write each reply from scratch)
- Labels (they allow you to organize and filter different conversations so that you don’t lose them among others)
The App also enables you to sell products via this platform and easily announce special promotions and events (extremely handy solutions for online stores!). And, to top it all off, WhatsApp Business App is free to use!
WHATSAPP BUSINESS PLATFORM
This platform is mostly for the biggest companies. The biggest difference lies in the integration possibilities. The Platform uses API to integrate with your current tech stack to make mass communication streamlined. This product enables you to leverage interactive CTAs, dynamic product lists, rich media, retargeting, upselling and cross-selling, and fully-fledged customer support.
This product is worth your attention if you can use its potential. You have to be ready for investment, though, as this version of WhatsApp for business is paid, and every company gets individual pricing plans – there are no numbers available on the WhatsApp website.
Is WhatsApp for business a good idea? Yes!
Undoubtedly, you should consider this platform as a new communication tool for your company, large or small. The most important reason is apparent – the majority of your customers already use this messenger! Moreover, as our experience shows, communication with customers via WhatsApp can be extremely effective – the open rate for messages sent this way frequently exceeds 95%!
If you’ve never used WhatsApp for business purposes, start with the App version, and progress to the Platform version as your needs grow.
WHO SHOULD USE WHATSAPP FOR BUSINESS?
The simplest answer is all the companies that want to stay in touch with customers via this channel. In practice, this tool is suitable for the following types of business:
- Local businesses (service points, medical clinics, hotels, stores, showrooms and dealerships, etc.)
- Online stores
- Service companies (both B2C and B2B, but mostly B2C)
- SaaS companies
Integrate WhatsApp for business with iPresso
If you’re considering adopting WhatsApp for your business, we have good news! From now on, you can integrate this messenger with our platform. We will help you create personalized and automated messages (based on conversation and automation scenarios) to make the most of every conversation with your customers. Our platform comes with an advanced creator allowing you to build and customize specific scenarios and messages for customers with different queries:
And, as you probably expect, there’s an analytics module. It helps you analyze conversations with your target audience and measure your company’s performance in this channel. This way, nothing slips your attention, and you can easily see where there is some room for improvement.
Do you want to know more? Excellent! First, take a look at our short video introducing WhatsApp integration to our offer:
And then, go to the dedicated subpage on our website to learn more. As always, you’re free to start with a trial period to see if our platform is a good match for your company.
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