The SME's Guide to WhatsApp Business

Whatever your size of business, providing helpful and efficient customer support should be near the top of operational priorities. It used to be the case that small business owners would need to invest substantial amounts of their yearly budgets into providing such a service, but thanks to introduction of new technology, this is no longer the case. By embracing tech, and apps in particular, small business owners could make things easier on themselves, their employees and their customers.

In this article, we'll look at one such platform all SMEs could be utilising as part of their approach to customer support: WhatsApp Business.

What is WhatsApp Business?

WhatsApp Business is a tool that small business owners can use to communicate with their customers.

It makes it easier for customers to get in touch with businesses by providing them with a WhatsApp Business number to contact, while the business itself can create automated messages to be sent in response to customer queries — like a chatbot would online — or choose to offer a personal, tailored response where required.

If you're fortunate enough to have a team of customer service representatives on hand, they can all access and respond to customer contacts from the same account, keeping things streamlined and providing every member of the team with the same up-to-date status on customer communication.

What are the benefits of WhatsApp Business?

There are several benefits of WhatsApp Business that could make it an essential tool for small business owners:

• WhatsApp Business is free to download
• It's easy to set up and use, with a user-friendly interface
• Facebook and email integration provides additional ways for customers to reach you
• Provides an efficient way to communicate with customers, helping you to provide better customer support
• Allows messages to be sent to customers individually or in groups
• Can be used on both mobile devices and desktop computers, making it accessible to everyone in your business
• WhatsApp Business provides valuable insights into customer behaviour, such as how often they contact you and what kind of queries they tend to have
• Provides statistics, so that you can see how many messages have been sent and received, and how quickly customers are responding to your messages
• Enables you to automate messages, so that customers receive timely responses even when you're not available
• Small businesses could save time and money by automating customer support for the most common queries
• Allows you to see whether messages have been read or seen by customers
• Provides the ability to create a business profile, including information such as your business name, address, and website

Why should small businesses take advantage of WhatsApp Business?

As you can see, WhatsApp Business could be an extremely valuable asset for small businesses, particularly when it comes to customer support. By taking advantage of the platform, small business owners could provide efficient and cost-effective customer service that helps them compete with larger competitors.

It also allows you to meet your customers where they're at, with WhatsApp being the most widely used messaging platform in the UK, thanks to support for iOS, Android and the Linux-based KaiOS operating systems. Customers may be reluctant to download yet another app just to be able to get in touch with a business, but if they're already using it, that simply removes the barrier and frustration.

Using WhatsApp Business for Cross-Team Communication

Aside from being a great tool for customer support, WhatsApp Business is also regularly adopted by small teams to communicate with one another. Unlike many other apps, it is completely free of charge, with no additional paid tiers to worry about. Yes, the other options may offer extra features, especially when paid for, but for small teams who are looking for — or can only afford — the essentials, WhatsApp Business is a decent, reliable communication platform.

In Conclusion

Handily, WhatsApp Business is a free app that works across numerous operating systems and provides small business owners with a number of features that could be used to improve customer support.

For small business owners looking for a tool to effectively and efficiently communicate with their customers, WhatsApp Business is an option. From a company's perspective, the platform simplifies the act of keeping track of customer interactions, providing individual support and group messages based on labels, and even facilitating automated responses to FAQs and other regular comments.

If you've found this guide helpful, feel free to check out more online and tech advice from the takepayments blog.

John Ford

Copywriter