In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app targeted at small business owners, called WhatsApp Business, which allows businesses to communicate with their customers who use the standard WhatsApp application. The WhatsApp Business app makes it easy, to personally connect with your customers, highlight your products and services, and answer their questions throughout their business experience.
WhatsApp can also help medium and large businesses to provide customer support and deliver important notifications to customers with ease.
Every business owner wants to showcase their products and services in front of their potential customers. However, most small businesses cannot afford much during the early stage of their business. “WhatsApp business account“ makes it possible to successfully promote your business without spending a lot of money.
WhatsApp Business is free to download, which is built by keeping small business owners in mind. It is considered to be the world’s fastest-growing communication app, as it has already replaced the general messaging/ texting application.
Below are a few notable features available in WhatsApp business,
Automated Messages
In the WhatsApp business account, you have an option to set an ‘away message’ which helps to send an automatic reply to your customers, when you are away. This allows you to acknowledge their message and convey the time at which they can expect a manual response from your side.
Greeting Messages
You can also setup a greeting message, which will be an automated response to your customers, which creates a best-first impression.
Quick Replies
Quick replies help you to save and reuse messages that you send frequently. This allows you to quickly answer common questions in no time / less time.
Let’s look into the 5 creative ways to get more from your WhatsApp business account.
1) Using WhatsApp for Internal Team Communication
The main advantage of WhatsApp is that almost everyone uses it and it does not require any training. One more advantage is that you do not need to spend time and ask your team to check WhatsApp as they are anyway hooked to it.
Internally we can create WhatsApp groups and share instant messages for which an email is not necessary. WhatsApp Web makes it even easier to type messages if you are using your laptop or PC.
2) Using WhatsApp for Customer Communication
If your follow-ups are done on WhatsApp instead of direct phone calls, you can expect 40% more responses. No one encourages phone calls from unknown numbers but we are more likely to respond to personal messages especially via WhatsApp. When you start using WhatsApp for customer communication, you can notice better responses and engagement.
By this means, you can be a little informal. For instance, you have sent a quotation to your potential customer but haven’t heard from them, what do you do? You either call them or send a follow-up mail in formal language. Instead of doing this, you might get a quick response if you just send a short message on WhatsApp asking about the status. Nowadays many small businesses had started using WhatsApp to announce new offers or send festival greetings to their customers.
3) Using WhatsApp for Customer Support
WhatsApp can be used as a great tool for customer support to make it simple because of its wider reach. Your customers would always prefer to send you a message over WhatsApp rather than calling a helpdesk number or raising a support request.
New businesses like Wazapper are providing tools & APIs to set up customer support systems using WhatsApp. However, using WhatsApp for customer support may not suit for all types of businesses. So, choose WhatsApp as a customer support tool based on your organization needs and depending on the number of customer requests.
4) Using WhatsApp for Marketing & Promotion
You can use WhatsApp to send images or short video clips of your products, audio files and text messages to customers across the world. There is fewer restrictions on the format and delivery chances are higher compared to SMS or Email.
National marketing head, Rajat Uppal, Red FM, says, “WhatsApp is the new SMS. We have realized that WhatsApp can be a very strong marketing tool. It is a good platform for direct communication with our listeners”.
This does not mean that you should share unwanted messages / spam your customers with WhatsApp messages. Ideally, you should use WhatsApp to get in touch with existing customers rather than trying to reach new customers. Everyone do not like messages coming from unknown numbers. If you want to use WhatsApp in a responsive way, you will need to come up with creative ways to promote your business using WhatsApp.
5) Creative Usage of WhatsApp for Business
People started building new businesses using WhatsApp as a primary platform and some are using it to improve their business cost-effectively. Below are some creative usages of WhatsApp.
Concierge Service
This Mumbai-based errand-running service Russsh, uses WhatsApp as a booking platform. You can order a cake, flower delivery, or courier service using WhatsApp.
Food Ordering Using WhatsApp
Local restaurants are now offering their customers an option to order food using a WhatsApp message. Customers can communicate their preferences instantly.
Medical Consultation
Family doctors have now started offering consultations on WhatsApp. It can’t replace a face-to-face visit but you can always text your doctor and ask about common medical queries. Medical outlets are now accepting the photos of prescriptions and delivering the medicines.
Government Services
The Delhi Police last year launched a dedicated helpline powered by WhatsApp: 9910641064. On the first day of launch day, they received more than 23,000 messages and complaints on this number. The Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) is offering Volvo bus helpline service through WhatsApp.
Does WhatsApp play an interesting role in your business? Please feel free to share your story in the comments section below.
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Very nice post, You have covered this topic very easily.