WhatsApp for whom?
Businesses, institutions and governments strive for personal contact.
Do you want to get the maximum out of your professional work environment? Do you want to keep work and private WhatsApp separate? Do you want to show a professional-looking WhatsApp to your target group? Then WhatsApp Business is the solution for you! In this complete guide, you will learn how to make optimal use of WhatsApp Business to grow your business and get in touch with your customers.
WhatsApp Business offers a range of functions specially designed for organisations, including a professional business profile, quick replies, and automated messages. With these tools, you can effortlessly answer customer questions, handle orders, and share your business information.
In addition, you will also discover how you can integrate WhatsApp Business with other tools and systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software. This allows you to work more efficiently and improve the satisfaction of your customers. Whether you have a small business or run a large enterprise, this complete guide will help you get the most out of WhatsApp Business. Read on and discover how you can take your business to the next level with this powerful communication tool.
In the modern professional world, good communication and customer service are of great importance. As an organisation, you want to be reachable for your target group. That applies to government, healthcare, and commercial and service organisations. Preferably, you want to respond quickly to questions and ensure that everyone is satisfied. With so many different communication channels, that is a major challenge. The question is whether you MUST be present everywhere. WhatsApp Business offers a professional solution for free to communicate with your customers from your organisation in a way that they find familiar and easy.
WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging services in the world, with over 2.8 billion users worldwide in 2023. By using WhatsApp Business, you can benefit from this large user base and reach your customers via a channel they use daily. With WhatsApp Business, you can create a professional business profile, easily send replies, and set up one-time automated messages to respond when you are unavailable.
WhatsApp Business is more than just a way to send messages. It also offers handy tools to streamline your customer service and improve your business processes. All these functions make WhatsApp Business a powerful tool for any enterprise planning to grow and serve its customers optimally.
WhatsApp Business is different from personal WhatsApp and has the possibility to set away messages outside office hours. With this, you inform the target group specifically and in a timely manner that you are not available to respond at that moment. This way, they experience smooth communication, even if you cannot answer messages. It prevents the necessary uncertainty or irritation with the customer. These messages can be sent one-time so the customer at least has an answer.
Business users can also create an official WhatsApp Business profile with company details such as name, address, website, and opening hours. This business profile provides an online image of a more professional appearance and cannot be done on a regular WhatsApp account. It is an extra channel as a showcase.
As you can see, WhatsApp Business helps organisations to handle customer conversations in a streamlined and efficient way via a popular and intuitive communication channel that everyone is familiar with.
One of the greatest benefits of WhatsApp Business is the ability to reach customers in a low-threshold way. WhatsApp, after all, is already what 99% of the population in Europe uses. Worldwide, WhatsApp has billions of users and has become an essential part of many people’s daily communication. By also being present as a company on WhatsApp as your organisation, you ensure that you are easily accessible for questions, remarks, and (customer) service requests.
Many consumers but also B2B customers prefer WhatsApp. It gives your customers a more direct and personal feeling. They can also send a message so they have asked the question and can ‘carry on’ because the answer will come soon. The customer does not have to fill in lengthy forms or end up in a queue. Just by sending a WhatsApp message like to a friend or family member. This low-threshold way of communicating often ensures more positive customer experiences.
Organisations can use WhatsApp Business not only for customer service but also for proactive communication towards their target group. Think of announcements about new products or services, information about planned maintenance work, or updates about an order. By communicating personally about this on WhatsApp, you increase the involvement of your customers.
Whether you are a small enterprise or a large company, WhatsApp Business makes it possible to take your customer communication to a higher level. By being present on the most popular chat channel in the world, you create low-threshold access and personal contact.
To get the maximum out of WhatsApp Business, it is important to follow some tips. By deploying WhatsApp Business correctly, you ensure an optimal customer experience and efficient workflows within your organisation.
Firstly, it is important that you want to be reachable but not 24/7 available on WhatsApp. Set realistic expectations with customers by communicating clear opening hours and reaction times. You put that in your business profile. Make use of away messages outside office hours to inform customers in a timely manner.
Also ensure that incoming questions or requests are picked up and handled in time. Nothing is more frustrating for customers than unanswered messages. Have WhatsApp Business Web open for your employees. Then you can work on conversations with up to four people simultaneously. Make good working arrangements with your team about who is responsible for keeping track of the WhatsApp inbox at different times.
Furthermore, it is wise to draw up a clear policy around the type of conversations that can and cannot be conducted via WhatsApp. Although the channel is low-threshold, there are limits to what you can communicate securely and professionally.
Also always carefully monitor the tone and style of your messages. The customer communicates with your organisation. The informal atmosphere of WhatsApp can cause the boundaries between business and personal to blur. Keep your position professional but friendly.
Continue to comply with all applicable privacy legislation such as the GDPR, especially if you send direct marketing messages via WhatsApp. Ensure that customers have explicitly consented and inform them about their data protection rights.
By applying the above best practices, you can fully benefit from the advantages of WhatsApp Business, without losing sight of the professional appearance and data security. This way you take your customer communication to a higher level.
WhatsApp Business already seems to offer many handy functions for organisations. In the professional world where you work with more than one person in a department or within a company, there is a powerful supplementary solution for organisations that want to take their WhatsApp communication to an even more professional level: RippleCom.
RippleCom is an advanced team inbox specially developed on WhatsApp for companies with more than one employee. It enables an unlimited number of employees—WhatsApp Business is a maximum of four—to collaborate on conversations within one central environment. All incoming WhatsApp messages from your target group are neatly streamlined and can easily be picked up, assigned, or forwarded to the correct contact persons or departments. Provide conversations with intelligent labels. Follow conversations as they go through the organisation. Get notifications when action is needed or must be taken on conversations.
Instead of fragmented WhatsApp conversations on individual phones, RippleCom offers one clear collaboration from an intuitive Inbox. New conversations are received centrally and can be picked up immediately by available team members. Open conversations can be tagged and internal notes can be added to provide context to colleagues.
In addition, RippleCom guarantees a professional and consistent service experience for customers and citizens or residents. All employees have the same information at their disposal and adhere to the same scripts or reply templates. And thanks to the common inbox, there is always visibility into who has recently communicated with a customer.
Another strength of RippleCom is monitoring and managing work and reaction times. Managers can use real-time statistics to monitor productivity and responsiveness towards customers and adjust if necessary. Furthermore, priorities can easily be set for certain types of customer questions.
Finally, RippleCom offers various settings to organise the workflows as efficiently as possible. Think of automatic assignment of conversations based on themes, language preferences, or specific team members. But also time-bound routing rules when extra manpower is required at certain times. By means of AI integrations, you can remain personal and still provide all information to customers.
With forward-looking functions like these, RippleCom facilitates a much more professional WhatsApp approach for customer contact and collaboration between teams. While the WhatsApp experience for the customer remains familiar and low-threshold, RippleCom optimises all processes behind the scenes for maximum efficiency.
One of the greatest strengths of RippleCom is the ability to seamlessly integrate with other business tools and systems within your organisation. By connecting WhatsApp communication with existing software, you increase efficiency and offer a fully integrated customer experience. RippleCom can be easily integrated with more than 1000 applications. Download your transcripts or link the communication to your customer files.
RippleCom can, for example, be linked to your CRM system. Incoming customer conversations are then directly enriched with all relevant contact details from your CRM. Notes made and conversation history are also updated in real-time in the CRM file.
Integrations with tools for project management, ticketing, or field service are also among the possibilities. Incoming service requests via WhatsApp can be converted directly into new tasks or tickets with pre-set triage rules.
Finally, RippleCom can connect to your existing back-end systems for seamless data exchange. Product information, availabilities, shipping statuses, and more can be requested in real-time to inform customers accurately without manual work.
WhatsApp has grown into one of the most popular communication channels in the world, with billions of active users worldwide. It offers organisations a great opportunity to reach their customers via a channel that is familiar, personal, and low-threshold. By deploying WhatsApp as an official contact point, you create a more positive and direct customer experience.
With WhatsApp Business, companies have tools for professional appearance, short automated replies, and basic statistics. For up to four people, WhatsApp Business is sufficient. But for teams that really want to benefit maximally, RippleCom is the powerful solution that takes WhatsApp to a professional service level.
RippleCom adds extensive functionality as a central team inbox, advanced conversation assignment, prioritisation, and workflow optimisation. Real-time insights provide managers with full control over all communication and conversations, to measure and adjust productivity towards customers. Because RippleCom also integrates seamlessly with other systems, one central WhatsApp platform for all customer interactions is created. The power of WhatsApp with the simplicity of email.
Whether you are a small enterprise or a large organisation, RippleCom in combination with WhatsApp Business optimises your service and communication. While your target group benefits from the low-threshold accessibility of WhatsApp, you strengthen the internal efficiency, control, and professionalism with RippleCom.
Discover the benefits of RippleCom today and take your WhatsApp usage to a higher service level. By combining these two forces, you strengthen not only the customer experience but also the operational impact of your entire organisation.
Read more? Here you find all articles.
