The WhatsApp Business API offers companies a multitude of possibilities for communicating with their clients. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind to really get the most out of WhatsApp's business solution. That's why we put five WhatsApp Business API tips to help you get the most out of the tool.
The WhatsApp Business API (officially the WhatsApp Business Platform) is the best business solution if you really want to scale your WhatsApp communication. If you are still working with the free WhatsApp Business App, you might actually be missing out on some amazing features.
If you already switched to the API, you're in the best position to reach the full potential of the messaging app for your customer communication. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind to ensure that your WhatsApp chats with customers are really successful.
1. Answer customer inquiries within 24 hours
During WhatsApp's 24 hour window for session message, they don't charge extra for answering your customers, and naturally, responding quickly to customer inquiries is simply a standard of good customer service. Sinch Engage customers have the option to use reply templates or Chatbots, which allow companies to create automated answers for even quicker responses.
Use these easy-to-deploy personalized WhatsApp business templates that’ll save you time and effort.
2. Use Chatbots for speedy answers
80% of all customer inquiries are repeat questions, and could easily be answered with a chatbot. Use one! With the WhatsApp Business API you can actually integrate chatbots (not possible on the free Business App), and answer FAQs faster.
This will help you improve customer satisfaction without a lot of manual labor, and can help you concentrate your customer service resources on more complex cases.
3. Use notifications thoughtfully
Outside of the 24-hour window of a customer-initiated conversations, companies can only contact customers by using business-initiated notifications.
WhatsApp distinguishes between three types of conversations that business can initiate, utility, authentication, and marketing. Businesses have to use the WhatsApp API templates in order to initiate a conversation, and the scope of each type of message is automatically detected.
A utility message, for example, would be an order confirmation. An authentication message could be a one-time password, and sending the best Diwali deals would count as a marketing message.
The rate of each message is based on the type of message (marketing messages being the most expensive ones) and the recipient's country code. We therefore recommend to be very thoughtful about what type of message you send, and how often. Always calculate your return on investment beforehand to find out whether a payable notification is worth it.
Typically, with over 90% open rate, and 35% click-through rate, marketing messages on WhatsApp have excellent metrics. It's important, though, to make sure that the customers have opted in to receive promotional content, and that the content of the messages brings additional value to them.
If you use a professional WhatsApp solution like Sinch Engage, you can easily set up target groups, deploy marketing messages with a few clicks, and use our detailed analytics tool to analyze your campaigns.
4. Different costs for different countries – make sure you're well informed!
In contrast to the free WhatsApp Session Messages, the WhatsApp Template Messages (Notifications) are cost-based for the company. The cost per message is different in different countries. You can find the up-to-date prices for each country worldwide here.
💡 Read our guide about WhatsApp Business pricing to learn more.
5. Use multimedia content
„A picture says more than a thousand words“, and, in fact, quite a number of common customer service inquiries could be answered more easily with a more visual medium, like photos, videos, or even a PDF file. This can help your business resolve your support conversations more quickly and efficiently.
As you can see, typically the trick to a more successful customer communication on WhatsApp is to make it easier for customers to get the answers or information they're looking for. That'll not only improve your customer communication, but also help your business.
Get more out of messaging apps for your business, with Sinch Engage, your all-in-one messaging platform for marketing, sales, and customer service.
