In September 2007, Founders of WhatsApp Brian Acton and Jan Koum left Yahoo! for a better job, they both wanted to work with Facebook, at the time they were not aware of the huge milestone they would end up creating in the messaging world. But unlucky for Facebook and lucky for us and them, they started working on the iPhone app WhatsApp, which later got released for android users as well.
In 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for an astounding US$ 19 billion!
After acquiring WhatsApp, Facebook monetized the personal messaging application and opened WhatsApp Business for small business holders and WhatsApp Business API For medium and large enterprises. WhatsApp Business API, gave the enterprises the to experiment with chatbots on the biggest messaging platform.
A growing number of Enterprises started integrating Chatbots with WhatsApp Business API to leverage the full potential of the platform. And the results were astounding:
- The use of Chatbots helped reduce customer service costs by 30% – IBM
- When it comes to filling out web forms as opposed to using a chatbot, the percentage of chatbot enthusiasts is higher at 86% – Drift
- 69% of the customers prefer to use a chatbot instead of a company’s official app- Drift
- It takes an average of 40 seconds to solve a problem using the chatbot – Acquire
Well, these are a few of the results that were observed on leveraging a chatbot on WhatsApp. WhatsApp Chatbots not just aid Companies by guiding customers through the sales funnel but also send out an alert – notification and provide real-time support to the customers, along with other customer-centric benefits. Let us look into how does it do this:
1. FAQ Answering
FAQ answering is essential for brands to get correct when customers/prospects visit your website/social properties. With on-demand FAQ answering, automated on WhatsApp, prospects, and customers can get the answers they are seeking in one place, saving you and your customers precious time while ensuring an excellent customer experience.
2. LIVE (Human) Chatting Experience
Well, now you and your customers are on WhatsApp, thanks to WhatsApp Business API. Customers can engage with their trusted brands via Chatbot the same way they would chat with their family or friends. And a LIVE agent transfer is also integrated, for all the queries the Chatbot is not programmed for.
3. 24/7 Customer Engagement
You can sleep and so can your agents. Your WhatsApp Chatbot is awake for all your customer engagements. Your prospects/customers may always not try to contact you in business hours. But an automated conversation with WhatsApp API will help answer all their questions. And no missing out on leads.
4. Digital Ads to WhatsApp as a Landing Page
Isn’t it marvellous how much technology has evolved! Using WhatsApp the daily messaging app customers can now order anything. You can now have digital ads with CTA to your WhatsApp Landing page. And Voila the road to continuous lead capturing and nurturing begins.
A lot of enterprises have been seen displaying their ads on social platforms as well as Television, to help capture prospects and help them start the conversation on WhatsApp. A perfect way to capture leads. Xiaomi can be seen here leveraging WhatsApp Chatbot after the launch of Redmi’s Note 8 pro.
Your prospects may check out your ads outside business hours or when the agents are not available. A very potent situation in these times of lockdown.
5. Personalized Conversation through Analytics
Conversational AI is designed to understand human conversation with the help of structured data it regularly receives while chatting with humans and Natural Language Processing(NLP). Chatbots analyse data like location, previous history, the device used, etc to help personalize the conversation. Strong analytical data like the total number of sessions, average session time, total messages, Users, et; is provided by the WhatsApp Chatbot to help funnel your sales.
Yellow Messenger’s Dashboard For Chatbot’s Analytics for COVID-19 Chatbot
6. WhatsApp Templates for Entire Customer Journey
WhatsApp recently rolled out the interactive message template, keeping in mind how much we love simplicity and automation. These Whatsapp templates are designed by keeping the customer’s buyer’s journey in mind. And also how much we love simplicity. There are templates rolled out by WhatsApp for raising awareness, nurturing leads, sales, and customer service. You can read more about the latest template here.
Brand Loyalty
Being where your customers are such a cliche but true!
There are over 2 billion WhatsApp users. Your presence in their Chatting history helps, for any query or new order they can just ping you. But maintaining so many agents is not the solution. Automated conversation on their trusted messaging app.
Click here to personalizing all your customer engagements.
