Whatsapp is one of the most popular messaging apps across the world with over a billion users. With an end-to-end encryption, Whatsapp offers its users a secure and convenient communication channel as long as they have an internet connection on their phones.
Seeking to provide businesses with a simple and innovative way to communicate with their customers, Whatsapp launched a separate app for small and medium businesses. It’s only available for Android users for now but plans are underway to make it available for iOS users to in the coming months. Customers don’t need to download the new app; it’s only the business that need to download the new app as it comes with something akin to a business account.
Customer experience
The app promises a better customer service experience for both the business and the customers since it is better customized and designed to enable quick response to a customer’s needs and the business can monitor their interactions with the clients.
The Whatsapp Business app includes important business information like contacts, office/store location, company website, description of the business, and operating hours. Businesses the benefit from powerful tools like automated greetings and replies, and away messages when a customer contacts them outside business hours.
The customer – using the ordinary Whatsapp app – is notified when a business contacts them. This is an important feature because even though a good number of businesses have had Whatsapp numbers through which their customers can contact them, there have been hitherto no means of verifying the authentication of such interactions and some customers have even fallen to unscrupulous scammers.
With Whatsapp Business, customers can confirm that it is indeed a particular business contacting them.
Verification
Whatsapp Business accounts have three verification levels, each with its own badge. The three verification levels are unconfirmed, confirmed or verified.
An unconfirmed account is one whose number has not been confirmed or authenticated by Whatsapp and is marked by a grey question mark for a badge.
For a Whatsapp Business account whose number has been confirmed to tally with the contact number for the business, they get a grey checkmark badge while a verified account gets a green checkmark badge that had been trialed last year with some companies on the standard Whatsapp app.
While it is understandable why every business would want the green badge on their profiles, Techexploring.Com reports that Whatsapp is awarding the badge to a select number of businesses as it irons out the criteria for verification.
Spamming
Whatsapp Business offers businesses a good platform to connect and market their products and services to consumers like they do with e-mail marketing. Instead of collecting email addresses, you build a database of your customer’s phone numbers.
You use the database to communicate important information and market yourself to the customers.
Moderation should however be exercised since users can block your number and even report it as spam.
The future
Whatsapp payment is on trial in India and if it is successful, it could make Whatsapp a one-stop shop for all business needs. You communicate with a client, agree on a deal and make transactions on the same platform.
