WhatsApp for business: enable better customer service 

With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp is a massive social media platform on a global scale. It is estimated that around 75.1 million people use the app in the USA, so this is a huge potential audience that one can better reach through WhatsApp. Companies can benefit from this if they have Whatsapp customer service in place.

WhatsApp is used by most of us every day. However, it has long been missing from businesses, with some exceptions. 

A few years ago, Helsingin Jokerit used WhatsApp to promote their match ticket offers, but for some reason, Jokerit stopped using it after that season. We cannot know for sure why, but until now, WhatsApp has been relatively complex for companies to maintain, not least from the security side.

Reform to enable better Whatsapp customer service

WhatsApp Business launched on 18 January 2019 for Android in a few test markets. WhatsApp for Business is aimed primarily at small and medium-sized businesses. The business version of Whatsapp aims to enable better communication between businesses and customers by making it faster and easier for both parties.

In the past, WhatsApp has allowed businesses to create mailing lists to send bulk messages to people who wanted them. It has been possible to reply to these messages without being seen by the other recipients, but there has still been no direct contact with customers. 

It was only possible to be added to mailing lists if a user precisely wished to be added to such a list, so the number of people in such groups was likely to be small, partly because the limit for groups was 256 contacts. 

Imagine that your company has a customer list of 5000 people who might want to receive offers or other messages from your company. Managing twenty mailing lists doesn’t sound very meaningful. The new WhatsApp Business app makes life easier for businesses by enabling better usability when communicating with the masses.

So in the past, using WhatsApp for digital marketing and customer service was quite challenging, but this has been improved, thanks to the new business version. With the new WhatsApp Business app, you can manage your customer contact in their commonly used channel. Whatsapp customer service works!

New exciting features for businesses

Business profiles allow businesses to add helpful information about themselves to WhatsApp, such as contact details, location, website, and, most importantly, a description of their business. This way, your potential customers can find all the essential information in one place.

In WhatsApp Business, you can save time by using artificial intelligence to set up quick answers to frequently asked questions, welcome customers to a conversation with a start message, and set an out-of-office message when you’re unavailable. 

By personalizing your introductory messages, you can give your business the image you want right out of the gate, so your customers can better remember you.

Measurability is the key to all digital marketing, and this is a feature WhatsApp has brought to its own service. You can measure the number of messages read and responded to, so you can find out the most effective approaches and tailor the content of your messages. 

These metrics allow businesses to tailor their messages to create a genuine conversation with their customers. 

With such a powerful communication channel at your fingertips, it’s worth having a clear strategy on how to make the most of it. Important things to consider are optimizing the content of messages and how often they are sent. 

As we always say at Kubla, test! Constant testing is the only way to optimize effectively, and that’s the case here too.

The best thing for a company is to have real interaction with its customers. In the past, this has been done face-to-face in a shop. Still, as the world changes, it’s crucial to deliver a pleasant interactive experience with the customer even without physical contact. 

It goes without saying that the better the service, the more likely the customer is to buy and buy again.

Whatsapp for business is also available for PC

WhatsApp Business also works on desktop. Of course, it’s been possible to get WhatsApp on a PC for a long time now (handy at work, for example), but the Business app for PC also makes it much easier to communicate with customers. 

No need to worry about your phone being flooded with messages from customers in your free time unless, of course, you want to be reachable at any time of day.

From my own experience, writing and editing messages also become easier, more comfortable, and faster with a real keyboard and screen. This is, of course, a personal preference, but I suppose I’m not the only one who loves this.

Registered business accounts

In the new WhatsApp, your user account will be registered as a business account, so users will immediately know that they are talking to a business. You can also verify business accounts, further increasing the trust users have in communicating with the company.

Trust is very important because as technology advances, all kinds of scam attempts are also increasing and are a real risk for many businesses.

Whatsapp for business - Wrapping Up

Quick and easy communication is crucial today, as customers expect to get answers to their questions without delay. We are used to everything happening now and instantly. 

Adding WhatsApp to your company’s customer service can and maybe the difference that sets you apart from the crowd. And at least the other way round, adding it won’t leave you out in the cold with customers who prefer to get things done quickly and easily via WhatsApp.

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