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Who doesn’t know WhatsApp nowadays? According to recent statistics, the instant messaging app is used by around 33 million Italians for 14 hours per month.
The app is being chosen more and more for its immediacy and user-friendliness.
For the same reason, an extension designed for small to medium-sized businesses, WhatsApp Business, has been on the market for over a year now. This version allows businesses, companies, stores, and various professionals to easily connect with customers for quick, direct, and informal interactions.
In these days, we are facing an acceleration of digitalization, where relying solely on traditional sales and promotion techniques is no longer possible.
In this new perspective, WhatsApp Business can be an effective tool for communicating with your users. Let’s see how.
Getting Started
The WhatsApp Business app can be downloaded for free on smartphones and tablets and can also be used in the web version on your PC.
The two apps managed by the Facebook group are interconnected: every user who uses traditional WhatsApp can access a WhatsApp Business profile and vice versa.
For both versions, it’s now possible to link the WhatsApp contact with your Facebook page, accessible through the “Contacts” section button.
Firstly, you’ll need to link a phone number (mobile or landline, and in this case, a business number) to the app, which needs to be validated with an initial access code.
It’s important to know that a number can only be linked to one of the two platforms: either traditional WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business, but not both.
In the second phase, you proceed with entering some key information:
- The business name
- The type of business (selectable from a drop-down list)
- Profile image of the business (optional)
- General description (optional)
- Geographical address (optional)
Once the profile is activated, in the main section “More Options – Settings – Business Name,” you can add additional fields beyond the initial ones, such as email address, website, opening hours, etc.
Main Features
The main screen of WhatsApp Business is very similar to that of traditional WhatsApp. The sections of Chats (for groups or individual users), Status (updatable with photographic and/or textual content), and Calls (for a maximum of 4 people simultaneously) remain the same. An interesting feature of the Chats section allows filtering, searching, and selecting conversations based on different criteria:
- Unread chats
- Groups (for bilateral conversations)
- Broadcast lists (for one-sided communication: this function is useful for sending messages to multiple contacts simultaneously, but it only works if recipients have the contact saved in their contacts)
- Labels (customizable in name and color, associated with different users and/or activities)
The app allows you to maintain an active product catalog, visually intuitive and functional with vertical scrolling. The catalog can be viewed by anyone who has activated contact with the business and, conversely, can be shared by the business with all users in their contacts.
Currently, it’s not yet possible to make direct purchases through the platform, although new functionalities under development could lead to the management of advertisements or direct online payments (in the future, this might be referred to as WhatsApp Pay).
The product catalog can contain numerous cards, with the following viewable data:
- Product photos (one or more)
- Product or service name
- Price (optional field, useful for managing customized price lists)
- Product or service description
- Link (e.g., an external website for purchasing)
- Product or service code (useful in the presence of catalogs and/or management software)
(Note: No chubby cats were harmed during the writing of this article)
Settings and Additional Features
The Settings menu is quite similar to traditional WhatsApp, with a new section being Business Settings, within which various specific functions can be found.
Statistics: A section that tracks, identifies, and counts the number of sent, delivered, read, and received messages. It can be a useful tool for monitoring community management performance.
Direct Link: Shareable on any online platform, it allows users to contact the business via WhatsApp Business. At the moment, it’s not possible to search the application to find the name and contact of a business; therefore, having the direct link and/or phone number for initial contact is necessary. It’s also possible to set a default message (modifiable before sending) for those who open the direct link for the first time.
Quick Replies: Operating much like AutoText, this function allows automatic association of predefined text phrases with keywords (beginning with the “/” symbol), facilitating faster and more immediate conversations with users.
These keywords can be linked to other keywords, making it easier to search through conversation history.
Welcome Message: When a user contacts the profile for the first time, it’s possible to automatically send a customizable welcome message. It’s also possible to select the message’s target recipients (all, all not in contacts, all except…, send only to…). The functionality can be easily activated and deactivated with the on/off button at the top of the page.
Away Message: An automatic message can be set to communicate absence or suspension of business activity for a specific period of time. The message can be personalized, as can the sending time (send always, customized time, outside of opening hours), and the period (start date and end date).
The target of sending to selected recipients can be customized as in the previous functionality, as well as its activation and deactivation via the on/off button.
Conclusions
The potential that this application can offer to today’s small and medium-sized businesses is evident. Being able to communicate directly, address and resolve doubts and requests quickly, create a more welcoming environment for interaction with users, and make them feel reassured and important.
For a company, entering this context can make a huge difference: consider how much WhatsApp is a daily communication tool, how many topics and subjects are privately shared among users, and how deeply rooted the virality of information and content via mobile is. Especially in these difficult days, the group is contributing to supporting its users against the global pandemic: the WhatsApp Coronavirus Information Hub is a portal that provides various professionals, both in the healthcare system and beyond, with reliable health information and how to counter the spread of unverified news.
But all that glitters is not gold: WhatsApp Business remains a tool for business communication and, as such, requires time and attention. Communication needs to be swift; a more informal tone of voice needs to be identified that is still in line with your business’s reality. And currently, it’s not possible to accurately verify the ROI, the economic return of this activity (although it’s very likely that the Facebook group, known for its attention to user data, is already considering this).
It cannot be denied that social messaging can reach a much more dynamic, present, and intimate level of customer interaction, especially through a platform that users already trust and use. A conscious and dedicated use of WhatsApp Business can be a real turning point for many businesses.
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