With the development of technologies, people can make more efficient use of all current applications and web programmes, improving business-customer relations.
Within this world, WhatsApp Business brings a large number of advantages with which you can get the most out of the business, maintaining direct contact with our customers and thus improving this relationship.
What is WhatsApp business?
WhatsApp Business is a free app found on both Android and Apple that helps small and medium-sized businesses to instantly contact their customers.
It was launched in 2017, and the aim of all this was to rid WhatsApp of SPAM messages coming from businesses. Since then, it is a service that is constantly evolving, adding new features to improve its usefulness.
These are the characteristics of WhatsApp business.
As expected, within this type of WhatsApp we can find some features that make it very different:
Company profile.
It is possible to have a company profile where useful information is shown to customers, adding a description, the email address, the website where they can go or the physical address, among many other data.
Quick responses
Another of the functions of WhatsApp Business is that it is possible to use quick and personalised replies depending on the message.
Messages that are constantly repeated, such as the opening hours of the establishment, for example, can be recorded to save us the time of writing them. This way, when a new customer or user asks about it, we don’t have to repeat it.
You can also create a quick response where you indicate the new products or the stock that comes in on a certain day of the week.
Tags
It offers us the possibility to organise our customers and contacts with labels, giving us more control over them. You can create labels for new orders, for orders pending payment or for orders that have already been paid.
Automated messages
We can highlight another of the functionalities that is the automation of messages, so that WhatsApp will take care of sending a specific message instead of doing it manually.
You can create welcome messages or indicate if the shop is not open at that moment, so that the message is sent automatically when customers write.
Statistics
Thanks to the statistics section we can know the number of messages that have been received, which ones have been read, etc. This allows us to know if the communication strategy carried out is the right one or if there is any improvement to be made.
Direct link
We can also send our customers a link to contact us directly via WhatsApp, without the need to give them our number.
Catalogue
Another of the features that can be highlighted within WhatsApp Business is the possibility of creating a catalogue of the products or services offered, showing them directly without having to resort to any other app.
How to configure WhatsApp business?
Below you will find all the steps to follow to configure WhatsApp Business:
Download and install
First, we must access Google Play or App Store to download the application, completely free. We can also find a desktop version for Windows 8 and later or for Mac OS 10.10 and later.
Verification
Then you must select the phone number you will use for this function, and you will receive an SMS with a verification code to continue with the process.
It should be noted that you cannot use WhatsApp personal and business with the same phone number, unless you use a trick to have two WhatsApp accounts on the same mobile.
If you have two cards on your phone, you can combine them perfectly, using one application for personal and the other for work.
Company profile
Once the telephone number has been chosen, the following information must be filled in: company name, address, category, description, business hours, e-mail and web address.
When creating the company name, the following should be considered:
- A person’s full name is not the name of the company.
- A generic term is not the name of the company.
- A generic geographic location does not serve as a company name.
- It cannot be less than three characters in total.
Absence messages
In case you are not available at a certain time to answer, you can send messages stating your working hours or when you will be operational again. It can be personalised according to a specific timetable and on specific days.
To do this:
Menu > Settings > Company settings > Absence message > Activate > Write the message > Ok.
Then you can choose the schedule, sending the message always, at a customised time or outside the business hours that you have determined. You can also choose the list of recipients, which can be everyone, everyone except…, those who are not in your contact list…
Once you have done all this, click on Save.
Welcome messages
These messages are sent to people who write to you for the first time, or also when there is a period of 14 days of inactivity.
Menu > Settings > Company settings > Welcome message > activate button > edit message > choose recipient list > Save.
Quick replies
Another option for sending messages more quickly is with quick replies, which can include a total of 50 replies. These can include text or multimedia files.
Menu > Settings & company settings > Quick replies > Add (+) > type the message > set the shortcut on the keyboard > type the keyword for the quick reply > Save.
Why should you use WhatsApp business?
Using WhatsApp Business in our day to day business activity is a great opportunity with which you can manage your business more comfortably. From the profile you can control and determine:
- The opening hours.
- Offer quick answers.
- Upload product catalogues.
- Publish stories.
- Tag chats.
- Indicate the address of the business.
- Link to the website.
- Etc.
All this means an improvement in the relationship between the company and its customers because it favours communication as well as being an application that everyone uses daily.
Businesses can now find thousands of opportunities with which to improve their tasks, offering customers a much more personalised and direct service.
The WhatsApp Business function is very interesting for all this, as it is an opportunity for the brand to communicate with its audience in a more convenient way and making available to the customer all the key information of the business.
Forget about having to pay large amounts of money to implement a chat system on your website and take advantage of the world’s leading messaging platform. Its configuration is very simple and will help you to increase the number of contacts from your customers.
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