There is a new kid in the tech world: WhatsApp Business. This android mobile app allows small business enterprises to create business WhatsApp profiles that they can use to communicate with their employees and clients. It even has automated business greetings and replies for quick communications. The profile can include email and physical addresses, business description, website URL, and other pertinent business details.
Case study: The facts
WhatsApp for Business is available not only in the Play Store but also on the web. That will make it easier for businesses to manage their profiles and to pursue varied business leads. From the web, business owners will be able to track their progress through the analytics data this app provides. It is expected that this new trend will hit the ground running immediately it is rolled out across the world.
WhatsApp Business accounts will need WhatsApp verification, just in the same manner that Twitter and Instagram verify accounts. Also, every business WhatsApp number will be verified to ascertain that it belongs to the business in question and to eliminate the chances of fraudsters pausing as business people. The verification will also help other WhatsApp users to distinguish between private accounts and business accounts.
Can a business send WhatsApp messages in the ordinary way that users send amongst themselves? Yes, they can, but the users ought to opt-in for the messages first. It will be incumbent upon businesses to market their businesses and create quality, sharable content for their audiences so that they can convince them to opt-in for WhatsApp Business pages.
5 Advantages of WhatsApp Business Accounts
Initially, the WhatsApp Business app was limited to Android users who operate businesses in the US, the UK, Italy, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico. Since its inception slightly over a year ago, the app has launched in many countries now and is gaining popularity impressively well. As such, early adopters of this new service stand to gain in the following, among other ways.
1. SMEs will be easily discovered
With the verification that business accounts now get from WhatsApp, businesses will be easily seen and discovered by prospective clients. Also, the fact that a business will be able to share its addresses- both email and physical- means that customers will have more avenues to interact with a business. This wasn’t previously possible with the ordinary user-to-user WhatsApp as business accounts operated like any other individual user’s account.
2. Easier customer interactions
Custom and quick replies help business managers and promoters to respond to customer questions easily and quickly. You can, for example, save replies to the frequently asked questions and then instead of typing responses every time those questions come up, you can simply reuse the messages you had saved earlier. Greeting and automated messages, on the other hand, will help you to engage your customers in a hospitable manner even without having to think too hard for what to tell them. Day Translations is a great example of how they have integrated Whatsapp in their business. Because of their international market, they have included Whatsapp as a form of easy communication and also part of their internal working system.
3. Tracking ability
WhatsApp for Business allows you to track your messages in order to identify who read them, which demographic within a population reads your messages, who acted on the message, and who ignored. That way, you will know where you need to improve in regards to your content and which gender or age bracket to target.
4. Easy flow of feedbacks
If you can receive feedbacks fast enough, you are able to act on the information before things get out of hand. WhatsApp for Business gives you the chance to interact with your customer in a more like face-to-face or one-on-one engagement. This ease of flow of important information gives you leverage over competitors within your niche.
5. Translation ability
NH Global Partners say that “Thanks to WhatsApp’s increased features, it is now possible to communicate instantly with your workers in China or other Asian countries. That is good for business. As a matter of fact, it is now possible to incorporate a translation app within WhatsApp and use it to instantly translate chats from Chinese, for example, to English.” This eliminates the need for going back and forth trying to translate chats and replying to them. If you have been working with a translation company or a professional employer organization in China and East Asia as a whole, then WhatsApp for Business will improve your interactions with these business associates.
