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WhatsApp is the world's third most popular social media platform — only behind Facebook and YouTube. But even more important is that it's the most trusted messenger app among people from ages 18 to 64.
Nowadays, these popular platforms are evolving beyond simple messages to family and friends. WhatsApp is quickly becoming one of the most effective ways for businesses to reach their customers as well.
In this article, we'll tell you everything you need to know about WhatsApp customer service and why you should use it for your business. Keep reading to learn more!
Why WhatsApp Customer Service is a Great Channel For Brands To Interact With Their Audience
WhatsApp offers businesses a unique and simple way to communicate with their customers. It offers several benefits that more than five million businesses are now taking advantage of. Let's take a look at a few.
The flexibility of Message Formats
WhatsApp offers a wide range of message formats that can be sent to and from customers. This includes text, videos, images, and even PDFs.
Depending on the message that you're trying to get out, you can use specific formats that will resonate with your audience better than a plain text message.
For example, if you have an upcoming event, you can help your customers visualize it through a short video. If you need to explain the steps to build one of your products, you can include screenshots and images. If you want to showcase new designs in a catalog, you can use a PDF.
If you want to give a simple update about a delivery, then, of course, a simple text message might be all you need. You can even come up with more creative ideas through the use of voice notes, calls, or live videos.
WhatsApp is Already Highly Trusted As a Secure and Credible Channel
Since its inception in 2009, WhatsApp has grown into one of the top messaging and social media platforms in the world. People already trust the brand as a secure channel — which is no easy task for any business. Borrowing WhatsApp's credibility can give your business a big boost.
Customers are always looking for the balance of having a fast and convenient way to communicate but in the safest way possible. WhatsApp does this with its highly touted end-to-end encryption, which gives customers more confidence when dealing with your business.
WhatsApp also features a way to validate your business account's authenticity by showing a message that you're an official WhatsApp business account.
WhatsApp Is Fast and Easy to Use
What's your gut reaction to contacting customer support for a business? It's probably not ideal. You might need to find the company's website, locate the customer service form, submit a query, send an email into a black hole, and hope that it comes back with a reply.
Think of WhatsApp customer support as the next generation of business communication. All you need to do is grab your phone, find the business on WhatsApp, and send a message within seconds.
WhatsApp loads incredibly quickly, is easy to use and is intuitive for pretty much every age group. Adding their impressive interface to your business is a great way to build customer loyalty and enhance your brand's image.
Magnify Your Business's Visibility
When you add your business to the WhatsApp database, you're giving over two billion users in over 100 countries visibility and access to your business.
Businesses can easily broadcast to their contacts and customers can find your customer support with a click of a button. As the world continues to migrate to social media platforms, it only makes sense that your business does too.
How To Get Started With WhatsApp For Your Business
Let's take a look at how to use WhatsApp in customer service. Getting started is simple and integrating it into your business's customer support strategy is a breeze.
1. Make Your WhatsApp Business Profile
When you open up WhatsApp, the first step will be to build a business profile. This will include information that will help your customers find you easier on the app. It is also crucial to build credibility for your brand.
Your customers will also understand the best way to interact with you and what they should expect.
You can add information about when your customer service hours are, what kind of questions you can answer, and other links such as your customer service email or company website.
2. Let Your Customers Know You're On WhatsApp
No one will know you're on WhatsApp if you don't tell them you're there. You can start by adding your WhatsApp number to all of your business's online locations, including:
- Your home page on your website
- Your contact page
- Your email signatures for you and your employees
- Any newsletters or promotional emails
- Social media account bios
Make it as easy as possible for your customers to find your WhatsApp profile. You can do this by adding a "click to chat" link wherever you have your customer service contact info. You can even add QR codes that automatically open a new chat through WhatsApp.
Next, you can create email or social media campaigns to let them know that you're now available to chat through WhatsApp. Let your customers know how easy it will be to reach your company and how it will benefit them.
3. Respond and solve all kinds of queries instantly
By complementing WhatsApp with a conversational AI platform, it is possible to solve queries and provide support throughout the customer journey, from acquisition to retention. In addition, conversational AI allows users to communicate with businesses by providing responsive responses no matter how they are worded.
With a conversational AI platform, you will be able to offer through WhatsApp:
- Open and natural conversations. The experience will be more fluid, empathic, and similar to human interaction.
- Automatic transfers to a live chat. Ideal for solving complex cases that require human intervention, without leaving the chat window.
- Scalability. You will be able to answer the number of queries that are necessary without any type of technical intervention or inconvenience.
- Ease of use and no-code implementation. A conversational platform for customer service should be able to be implemented or modified without the need to go to a technical team.
4. Integrate WhatsApp With Your Tech Stack
It's important to integrate WhatsApp with the rest of your tech stack and customer support channels. By doing this, you can create a holistic experience for your customer support team as well as your customers.
Integrations make a significant difference between a basic interaction with a frequently asked questions (FAQ) chatbot and an authentic conversational encounter. In the former situation, the chatbot is restricted to providing descriptive or instructional answers, whereas in the latter, it can complete transactions entirely within the chat window.
For example, customers that are already in your data-base system will be easily identified even if they contact you through your new WhatsApp channel. This will allow you to greet them by name and integrate their previous tickets and customer service requests for a seamless experience.
Thanks to an integrated platform, your clients will be able to:
- Receive personalized responses.
-Perform trading operations from beginning to end without exiting the chat interface. For instance, conducting a bank transfer, activating a card, or downloading an account statement right when they need to.
5. Send Proactive Messages to Customers
A great way to use WhatsApp's customer support tool is by sending out messages that can help your customers before they even reach out. To do this, you'll need to have customers opt into service updates.
Some examples of this could include:
- Appointment reminders
- Shipping notifications
- Parcel tracking numbers
- Flight status alerts
You can even follow up with customers to see if they need any help after a purchase. This is a great way to establish and nurture the relationship between your business and its customers.
Related Article: Engage: How to Send Proactive Discounts Via WhatsApp
6. Track Your Results
Whenever you incorporate a new channel into your business, it's crucial to track and analyze how well it's working. You can do this by asking for feedback through the app through the use of surveys.
You can also check your customer satisfaction score to see how effective your new channel is. See any changes that have occurred after adding WhatsApp to your customer service strategy.
Automating Support Through WhatsApp with AI Chatbots
Want to take your new customer service channel to the next level? Start using chatbots for WhatsApp. Utilizing chatbots is a great way for businesses to start reaching out to customers around the world at scale. Through the use of WhatsApp Business API, you can easily integrate chatbots into your customer service strategy and increase your brand reach.
By using WhatsApp chatbots, you can provide the best customer service around the clock. Let's take a look at some of the benefits.
Benefits For Customers
When customers are looking for help in customer service, they often aren't considering business hours. When they interact with chatbots, they can get instant answers to their questions without having to worry about what time it is. This leads to higher satisfaction rates.
Nowadays, artificial intelligence technology is creating incredibly valuable experiences that can personalize conversations and add value to a customer's experience from start to finish.
Benefits For Businesses
For businesses, giving their customers instant interactions leads to higher customer retention and engagement. By automating certain channels, you can scale your customer service to near-unlimited levels, leading to higher brand awareness and loyalty.
WhatsApp AI chatbots can also automate most of the repetitive work for marketers and customer service teams, allowing them to focus on more important tasks.
AI platforms can also help direct and navigate customers through the marketing funnel by answering questions for prospects and automatically sending qualified leads to your sales team.
Start Utilizing WhatsApp Chatbots Today
As the world continues to grow at breakneck speeds, businesses everywhere need to keep up with the latest trends. Luckily, WhatsApp customer service makes it easy for your business to join the next generation of business communication.
But if you really want to scale your business and start automating outstanding customer experiences, book a demo so you can take your business to the next level today.
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