How does WhatsApp API improve Interaction with Customers?

The rich, interactive app has taken the world by storm. By adding enhanced and new features regularly, WhatsApp has made sure it is one of the most loved apps. With more than 1.5 billion users throughout the globe, people are connected with each other at all times.

Enter WhatsApp for Business

Businesses can use the app to stay connected with customers and also attract a new audience. WhatsApp Business is an app that has been developed exclusively for business enterprises. An enterprise can use a web application to connect with users instead of a mobile phone. This can be done by integrating the WhatsApp API with their system and database.

WhatsApp API

Many companies in the industry provide reliable and secure API integration services. A single API can be used to integrate with more than 30 communication channels and interact with users anywhere in the world.

WhatsApp API enables enterprises to send and receive messages in the form of text, images, audio and video files, and documents. Pre-approved templates and freeform messages can be sent to users to send promotional, informational, and transactional messages.

How can you improve customer interaction through WhatsApp API?

You can communicate with your customers using WhatsApp API through the following mechanisms.

Promotional Messages

Messages that promote the business by sending messages about the products and services offered are called promotional messages. WhatsApp API provides the following capabilities for promotional messages:

• Plan and schedule campaigns to market a particular product or service.
• Schedule messages to be sent periodically to users, reminding them about the brand.
• Help users discover products by sending details about the items they are interested in.
• Use cross-promotion techniques to send messages to users who use similar products from other brands.
• Allow users to make purchases from within the conversation. Take orders in the chatbox or provide a direct link for purchase.
• Use labels to categorize users into groups based on product preferences.
• Send personalized messages to groups in bulk.

Informational Messages

Informing users in detail about the brand, helping them choose and finalize a product, etc. can be termed as informational messages. WhatsApp API provides the following capabilities for informational messages:

• Notifications such as order booked, approved, packaged, shipped, delivered, rejected, canceled, payment approved, payment declined, etc. also come under informational messages as these messages inform users about the status of their bookings.
• Payment reminders, service reminders, fixing appointments, can be done by sending pre-approved template messages to users.
• Send high-quality images or videos to help users understand a product better. Visuals attract the attention of users and can result in increased sales.
• Business enterprises can ask the developers to create exclusive templates for their business if the existing ones are not sufficient.
• Inform users about any deals and discounts being offered by the business, exclusively for them or in general.

Transactional Messages

Messages that inform users about a transaction or that are part of a transaction (e.g. OTP confirmation) are called as transactional messages. WhatsApp API provides the following capabilities for transactional messages:

• Send messages to alert users about transactions initiated, successfully completed or terminated.
• The end to end encryption allows data security in individual chatboxes. This enables enterprises to share confidential information about the users’ accounts, rewards, payments, etc.
• Use two-factor authentication to send OTP and other passwords to users via WhatsApp.
• Finalize orders and allow payments using the app.

 Chatbots

Chatbots are built to send automated messages to users. These bots are immensely helpful in responding instantly to customer messages. Even though WhatsApp allows enterprises to set welcome messages and Quick Replies, the bots can to an extent take over the initial conversation with customers.

Support staff can handle the troubleshooting process while bots the customer ask a sequence of questions to pinpoint the exact cause for the problem. Standard replies to FAQs can be answered by bots, thus saving time for the support staff. Set a series of messages to guide newly registered users in understanding the business better.

The support staff can take over the conversation at any time and switch to live chat mode. They can fix meetings with sales representatives based on user requests. With the help of bots, they will not miss a single message sent by users when the staff was off-duty.

This guest post is from Gupshup who is a global market leader and has enabled various top brands to gain early access to the app. They have an ISO 27001:2013 certification.

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