WhatsApp Banking: How to implement an End-to-End conversational journey

‍WhatsApp Banking is revolutionizing the way customers interact with their financial institutions. WhatsApp’s platform allows banks to quickly and securely communicate with their customers, offering them an automated yet natural banking experience. 

In this sense, WhatsApp Banking offers the possibility to implement end-to-end automated conversational journeys, allowing banks to provide personalized services like never before through one of their customers’ preferred channels. In this article we are going to talk about how WhatsApp Banking works, its advantages for both customers and financial institutions, as well as examples of what kind of integrations can be carried out on this platform.

Everything you need to know about WhatsApp Banking

Using WhatsApp as a business tool for banking has become increasingly popular in recent years. Nowadays, it is the third most used social platform in the world, making it possible to reach larger audiences. 

Also, WhatsApp provides a secure, easy-to-use platform that allows banks to quickly and securely communicate with their customers. 

Advantages of Automated WhatsApp Banking

Using Whatsapp business for banking is beneficial to customers because it offers them instant, 24/7, and personalized solutions. But what about the business? By integrating this tool into your strategy you will also be able to take advantage of its multiple benefits:  

• Improved Customer Experience: WhatsApp Banking allows banks to offer personalized services such as tailored notifications, tips, and recommendations. In addition, it also allows banks to create campaigns, promotions, surveys, and more. These actions help customers get the most out of their banking experience and, as a result, increase their engagement with their bank. 
• Reduced Costs: the automation of WhatsApp allows the majority of customer inquiries to be handled through the app. If necessary, only the most complex queries are passed on to an agent, thus significantly reducing the costs incurred by the call center. Additionally, automation tools provided by WhatsApp can help banks automate routine tasks and reduce manual labor costs. 
• Improved Security: All data sent through WhatsApp is secure and private. Every WhatsApp message is protected by Signal protocol encryption from before they’re sent until they’re delivered to the intended recipient. This makes WhatsApp Banking a safe and secure option for banks and their customers. 
• Enhanced Compliance: WhatsApp enables banks to stay compliant with relevant regulations in regard to data storage and privacy requirements. 
• Increased Efficiency: Automation tools enable banks to quickly process customer inquiries and transactions without requiring manual intervention from staff members. This helps to improve workflow efficiency across the entire organization while allowing your human agents to focus on more complex tasks that require human attention. As a result, call center costs can be reduced by 35%.
• Your customers already love it: WhatsApp allows them to communicate with their friends and family quickly, easily, and affordably. With support for phones of all price points, this platform is intuitive enough for anyone regardless of age or technical proficiency.
• It’s a one-on-one conversation: People enjoy a tailored customer experience with one-on-one conversations free from the mundane music of call centers. The customers feel assured knowing that you can have meaningful two-way interactions with them due to its simple yet effective setup.
• It’s asynchronous: Messaging provides instantaneous, interactive dialogues as well as the flexibility to reply when it's most suitable for the customer.

WhatsApp Banking Implementation Process

In order to start using WhatsApp Banking, besides creating an account, you need to go through the next phases: 

Phase 1: Think of a strategy 

Crafting a strategy is the first step to success. Ask yourself who your target audience is and what you aim to accomplish with this endeavor before taking any further steps. Do your customers use WhatsApp? Do they feel comfortable using this channel? Is it easier for them to use WhatsApp instead of other apps or platforms? The answer is usually yes, because as we mentioned before, WhatsApp is one of the most popular social platforms in the world, making it a user-friendly app for customers to interact with their banks and financial institutions.

You should also think about goals and KPIs. Keep in mind that, by implementing WhatsApp Banking, banks can improve their customer service offerings while also reducing costs, increasing efficiency, increasing customer retention, and improving their NPS. 

This is why WhatsApp Banking is an essential part of any bank’s digital strategy. When it comes to WhatsApp Banking, banks have a lot to gain.

Phase 2: Integrate WhatsApp Business with a conversational solution

Once you have your strategy in place, it’s time to start the implementation process. In order to implement WhatsApp for customer service, you must first request a verified business account and choose a conversational platform that connects WhatsApp with other existing banking systems. 

Creating a WhatsApp Business Account is simple and can be done in just a few steps, but Enterprise companies should opt for WhatsApp Business Platform. This allows companies to connect with an automated conversational platform, integrate with their tech stack, send proactive notifications, authenticate users, and much more, all of which we will cover in this article.

To do this, you can get started with the WhatsApp Business Cloud API here. 

Related article: WhatsApp vs. WhatsApp Business: What's the Difference?

Phase 3: Analyze customer data 

Analyzing customer data from WhatsApp is an essential step for banks to understand their customers’ behavior and create tailored experiences. Thanks to external tools, such as Aivo's, you can access metrics that give you insight into customer preferences, behaviors, and trends.

With these tools, banks can build a comprehensive view of their customers' needs and use this information to engage and interact with them. 

Start by creating answers to the most frequently asked questions, and then continue evolving your strategy based on what you learn from your customers. With the right data analysis strategy in place, WhatsApp Banking can become an effective tool for driving customer engagement, retention, and loyalty.

Phase 4: Solve in the first interaction

A conversational platform is of no use without the right integrations. Through WhatsApp Banking, financial institutions can answer transactional questions about a customer’s account, credit cards, loans, insurance, and more. 

How? By integrating your WhatsApp Banking account with your tech stack through your conversational platform. Whichever vendor you choose, they should be able to implement low-code integrations to provide all sorts of transactional and personalized answers to your customers, pulling the information from their banking accounts.

Phase 5: Measure performance 

In order to ensure that WhatsApp Banking is successful, financial institutions need to measure its performance with metrics such as resolution rate, average support time, percentage of questions transferred to an agent, conversion rate, satisfaction rate, and many more. By tracking this data, banks can see what actions are driving the most value so they can adjust their strategies accordingly. 

Additionally, banks should track the number of active users and transactions being conducted on WhatsApp to get a better understanding of how their strategy is performing. 

Related Article: How to Automate your Communication Strategy on WhatsApp Business 

WhatsApp Business for banking: the complete conversational journey

WhatsApp Banking can be used throughout the entire customer journey, from acquisition to retention.

The old traditional way required customers to go through different touchpoints and channels to solve each inquiry or question. Businesses had to have multiple strategies to interact with customers based on each stage of the funnel.

For instance, to acquire new customers, expand current accounts or deliver customer support, banks had to implement cold-calling strategies, offer in-branch support, perform outbound calls with salespeople, automate emails, offer self-management through home banking, deliver assistance through the call centers, among other strategies and touchpoints. 

With conversational banking, the entire customer journey can be implemented on WhatsApp with no channel transfers or human agents needed. Businesses can implement proactive notifications, automate transactions, cross-sell and up-sell products and services, and deliver 24/7 support. All through the same channel!

Now let’s dive deeper into these different stages of a conversational journey through WhatsApp Banking.

Awareness: send proactive notifications 

No more cold calling! WhatsApp banking can be used to increase brand awareness by sending notifications and providing timely updates on new products and services. This can help banks reach potential customers who may not have been aware of their offerings before. WhatsApp can also be used to create campaigns and promotions in order to attract customers.

Acquisition: generate new deals through WhatsApp

WhatsApp can be used to acquire new customers by leveraging targeted advertising campaigns and offering customized discounts and promotions. WhatsApp also allows banks to track customer interactions in order to better understand their customer profiles and adjust their acquisition strategies accordingly. In fact, WhatsApp gets 30% more new accounts than other channels used in financial services.

For example, banks can leverage customer interactions to offer an account upgrade or new insurance. Let’s see this in action:

Banco Bolivariano was the first bank in Ecuador to launch its WhatsApp Banking Strategy. Today, thanks to Aivo, they automate 98% of inquiries through WhatsApp, reducing call center call volumes by 46%. In fact, 70% of their customers turn to this channel to do banking transactions and request automated support 24/7.

But that’s not all! They not only handle inquiries and transactions in a natural way, but also offer additional bank services via Whatsapp. After a customer issue is solved through this channel, the conversational offer the customer to acquire a new insurance service. Thanks to this strategy, Banco Bolivariano achieved a 56% conversion rate on WhatsApp and this channel has become a good source of revenue and lead generation.

Related article: Banco Bolivariano automates 98% of inquiries through WhatsApp thanks to Aivo

Engagement: personalized experiences

WhatsApp Banking enables banks to create personalized experiences for each customer, as well as send reminders or notifications regarding upcoming transactions or services. This allows banks to easily keep customers engaged and informed about their banking activities. WhatsApp can also be used to conduct surveys in order to collect customer feedback and improve the overall customer experience.

Expansion: increase customer retention 

WhatsApp Banking helps banks retain customers by providing a convenient and easy-to-use platform for customers to conduct their banking activities. Additionally, WhatsApp can be used to offer them a cross sell or an up sell, or any other information that customers may find useful. WhatsApp can also be used to create loyalty programs, which will help banks reward customers for their loyalty and encourage repeat business.

Let’s see how this translates to a real success story: Banco Comafi is leading a digitalization process in the Argentine banking industry, using artificial intelligence to improve the customer experience.

Sofía, Banco Comafi's conversational bot powered by Aivo's artificial intelligence, has multiple integrations that allow it to resolve all types of queries and requests from customers. Sofia can provide personalized information on account balances, account movements, load public transport cards, make bank transfers, etc. All from WhatsApp, without the need to transfer to other channels. 

By the last quarter of 2021, the performance of this channel allowed them to serve more than 27,000 customers in 40,000 sessions that generated more than 150,000 interactions on average per month, with an effectiveness rate of 95% and an average time of less than 1 minute.

Related article: Banco Comafi increased the number of automated queries by more than 500% with 95% effectiveness

Support: 24/7, immediate attention 

WhatsApp Banking can be used to provide customers with round-the-clock customer support. Banks can use WhatsApp to offer quick and efficient support by providing automated responses to frequently asked questions or offering timely updates on current events. WhatsApp also enables banks to connect customers with live agents who can provide personalized assistance and guidance. WhatsApp conversations can easily identify customer needs in order to improve the overall support experience. 

Privacy and security in every interaction

The most important thing when it comes to conversational banking and digital transactions is privacy and security. As we mentioned above, WhatsApp guarantees end-to-end encryption as well as sensitive data isolation, protecting customer data.

But that’s not it. Through WhatsApp, banks can make sure to reach out to their customers at any time with alerts, just like customers can get 24/7 and immediate assistance whenever they have security concerns about their bank accounts or credit cards.

For example, banks can send proactive notifications whenever they identify unusual movements and customers can block their cards at any time through the conversational bot on WhatsApp. This way, protecting their customers is just one interaction away.

In addition, through WhatsApp banks can authenticate a customer’s identity through an OTP (one-time password), soft tokens, or biometrics (such as a voice note), making sure the user is who they state they are.

Implement WhatsApp Banking Today 

Are you and your business staying on top of the latest trends? WhatsApp customer service makes it so easy to take part in cutting-edge communication with customers.  With WhatsApp chatbot technology, you are able to automate customer service and make sure that customers get the help they need in a timely manner. Nowadays WhatsApp Business is an essential part of any bank’s digital strategy.

Aivo's WhatsApp Banking solution helps businesses take full advantage of WhatsApp's features and capabilities, enabling them to automate multiple messaging processes, as well as evaluate customer conversations in order to better understand their needs. As a Meta Business Partner, Aivo can provide you with the tools you need to develop a solid communication strategy through WhatsApp. 

If you want to scale your business and start automating outstanding customer experiences, book a demo so you can take your WhatsApp Banking strategy to the next level today.