WhatsApp for Business: connect with your target audience easily
Companies are increasingly trying to connect with their target audience. Even in terms of communication, they are increasingly opting for fast and effective tools that their target group also uses. WhatsApp is responding to this trend and has introduced WhatsApp Business. Will you soon be using this tool as well?
What is WhatsApp Business?
WhatsApp Business is a free tool that businesses can deploy to serve their customers in an approachable way. WhatsApp Business can be used by small businesses as an Android app and by large companies as an API. To deploy WhatsApp Business, you can use a mobile number, which has not been used for WhatsApp before, or a landline number.
Why WhatsApp Business
Naturally, we have known social sharing via WhatsApp for a while now. WhatsApp Busines brings other benefits on top of that. For instance, customers can easily get in touch at the touch of a button. Not only useful for customer service, but bookings and tickets can also be shared easily this way. In addition, you can add important company information to the account. This way, (new) customers quickly see the company location, description, e-mail address and a link to your company's website. Service can also be improved and speeded up by enabling automatic responses. For example, let them know when you are absent, so that your contact knows when to expect a response.
Are you afraid of losing track? WhatsApp Business has thought about this too. For instance, you can label calls so you can distinguish between new and existing customers, for example. In addition, WhatsApp Business displays in statistics which messages have been sent, delivered and viewed. In the future, this option will hopefully be expanded to include a statistic showing the average response time.
WhatsApp Business vs other platforms
The popularity of WhatsApp continues to grow, Newcom research shows. With almost 12 million users, it is therefore the most used platform in the Netherlands. This is in contrast to platforms like Facebook and Twitter. To capitalise on this trend, it is important as a company to also have a presence here, so that your leads and customers can easily ask questions. In addition, WhatsApp's open rate is above 90%, while that of mail, for example, is only around 20%1. WhatsApp Business could therefore be an ideal platform to share newsletters or other information with contacts.
Sample case
Now I hear you thinking, how can I start using this most efficiently? That's why we provide some examples, to show how you can use WhatsApp Business. For example, we ourselves use WhatsApp Business at Sterc as an extension of our customer service. In addition, WhatsApp Business can also be used to answer questions about bookings, as we implemented at VVV Texel.
WhatsApp Business is one of many applications for 2019. Want to know more about all the online trends you really shouldn't miss in 2019? Download our Online Trend Report and get to know more about the 5 online opportunities of 2019.
1https://frontapp.com/blog/2015/10/07/why-sms-is-the-new-channel-for-customer-support/