Since its inception in 2009, WhatsApp has become the most popular messaging platform in many parts of the world. This has not gone unnoticed by businesses, who are leveraging Meta’s platform to promote their products and provide services.
Research published by cloud communications platform Twilio in early 2024, found that 52 percent of consumers are highly protective of keeping WhatsApp as a personal channel to communicate with friends and family. With that in mind, 50 percent of Twilio’s survey respondents said they are less forgiving when information sent on WhatsApp is irrelevant to them.
However 41 percent of respondents said they would be more receptive to these messages if they were hyper-personalized, in other words, responding to them in real-time with targeted information. In fact, WhatsApp is an ideal tool for companies to personalize their communications as part of their loyalty strategies (you can read more about how important hyper-personalization is here).
By mid-year, further research commissioned by CommBox found that WhatsApp is Gen Z's preferred channel when contacting a brand.
Below we take a look at how brands use WhatsApp in various ways to engage with customers and provide services. But first, let’s explore the features WhatsApp’s business platform offers.
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What is WhatsApp Business?
WhatsApp Business is a version of the channel specifically designed for companies to interact with their customers more effectively. It provides a set of features and tools that cater to business needs, enabling companies to create a professional presence on WhatsApp and engage with their customers through the app.
On the platform, brands can create a dedicated business profile with essential information including their description, contact details and website link, as well as showcase their products and services.
Its dedicated messaging tools can automate and quickly respond to customer inquiries, with replies for frequently asked questions, greeting messages for initial contact, and away messages for when the business is unavailable. It also provides customizable labels for businesses to quickly sort chats (for example for new customers, pending payments or shipped orders), and metrics, such as the number of messages sent and read.
"WhatsApp Business has dedicated messaging tools that can automate and quickly respond to customer inquiries."
It also has the capability to integrate with other Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and larger companies can make use of the WhatsApp Business API to integrate WhatsApp messaging into their existing customer service and communication systems, allowing them to scale customer interactions.
So valuable is this last feature that there are many vendors now offering products for customer service agents that come pre-integrated with services like WhatsApp, Telegram and Messenger. One example is Zoho Desk, which has created its Instant Messaging (IM) Framework for organizations to integrate any messaging service they use with Zoho Desk. This lets business users build automated self-service flows that help manage interactions with customers quickly and securely.
What customer experience features does WhatsApp have?
Here are some common ways brands are leveraging WhatsApp to engage with customers:
E-commerce
India has Meta’s largest market with 500 million WhatsApp users. As a result, users in this region have been the first to benefit from functionalities such as e-commerce. In 2022 Meta partnered with JioMart to offer its first end-to-end shopping experience on WhatsApp, enabling customers to buy and pay for groceries within the chat.
Meanwhile in Brazil, customers can make Mastercard and Visa payments to small businesses easily through the app thanks to third-party payment providers.
Order updates
Brands can send order confirmations, shipping updates and delivery notifications directly to customers through WhatsApp. Zomato, a food delivery company in India, issues notifications through the app to let customers know where their food is throughout the journey, from the moment they order until it is delivered, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Customer service
A study by YouGov found that 54 percent of respondents using WhatsApp to communicate with businesses do so for customer service inquiries.
Sporting goods retailer Decathlon decided to use WhatsApp after finding that email and phone support led to slow response times. Automated messages, and the asynchronous nature of the chats (enabling agents to dip in and out of conversations thereby handling multiple tickets at once), were among the benefits the company found as a result. It has since seen a 50 percent decrease in average handling time and a 98 percent reduction in response time.
Centralized communication
Dutch car company Muntstad partnered with third-party vendor Trengo to manage conversations across multiple channels in one tool. Previously, the after-sales teams spoke to customers via WhatsApp Business and email, while the sales team communicated via Facebook Messenger and the live chat on the company’s website. With teams based in different locations this made handling customer communications complicated.
By integrating Trengo any team member can now easily pick up conversations from any channel in a centralized location, which has had the knock-on effect of increasing sales through WhatsApp business.
Marketing
Marketing messages, promotional offers and updates about new products or services can be sent in the chat to customers, either through broadcast lists or targeted messaging.
Online shopping mall Kikuu built a customized workflow on the WhatsApp Business Platform to announce product sales for its customers in Africa who had opted in to receiving marketing messages. By embedding a click-to-product-website button, its customers are able to visit the website and make a purchase.
Customer feedback
The app can also be a useful way to collect feedback through surveys or polls. Automated templates enable businesses to send out survey questions for customers to answer without having to respond to emails or click onto an external website. Brands can then gather valuable insights and improve their products or services based on these responses.
WhatsApp Business in 2024 and beyond
Meta's own research into channel choice has found 75 percent of adults want to communicate with businesses in the same way they do with friends and family. At the end of 2023, Meta started testing a new WhatsApp feature in the UK that allows brands to send direct marketing messages within WhatsApp to users who have given their consent to receive them.
Then, in August 2024, Meta announced a partnership with Zendesk that would allow Zendesk to launch a new outbound customer messaging app called Relay. The new service allows companies to proactively connect with their customers at scale using outbound messages in WhatsApp, and then manage all conversations natively in Zendesk.The proactive bulk messagging service promises to improve targeting and personalization, effortlessly create messaging templates and drive higher sales through timely and relevant proactive communication.
“Consumers now expect real-time, personalized communication from brands, akin to what they experience in their personal lives. By adopting proactive messaging strategies, businesses not only meet but exceed these evolving expectations, delivering timely and relevant information through channels that customers already use and trust,” says Mike Keohane, RVP of business development at Zendesk.
As the demand for personalized customer experiences continues to grow, WhatsApp's role in customer interactions has become increasingly significant, particularly with the rise of AI-driven automation which is facilitating things like real-time order updates and efficient customer service.
“Today’s consumers demand personalized experiences with their brands and at the same time they expect to buy their product or services at the best-value possible,” explains Rick Van Esch, managing director at mobile messaging solutions provider Sinch Engage. “To satisfy these expectations, we see brands adopting AI-powered interactions with customers on channels like SMS, WhatsApp and Instagram.”
Looking ahead, WhatsApp's influence on customer engagement and brand communication could expand further with AI-powered chatbot integration, multimedia messages to showcase products and video calling for remote assistance.