The Core Features of WhatsApp Business

When founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton launched WhatsApp as an iOS app in 2009, it had a simple premise: To share a status with your contacts to show whether you were available for calls. 

But when Apple rolled out push notifications for the iPhone for the first time, WhatsApp’s founders noticed their users’ behavior changing. Suddenly, users were pinging their friends with silly custom statuses like “I woke up late”—and the line between status updates and messaging began to blur. From those humble beginnings, WhatsApp has grown to be the most popular messaging app in the world. 

A decade later, WhatsApp again reinvented itself with the addition of WhatsApp Business, a tool that makes messaging a business as easy as messaging a friend. Why use WhatsApp for business? Well, it’s already seeing huge successes in the platform’s biggest markets. But to fully benefit from the features of WhatsApp Business, you need a customer engagement tool with a WhatsApp Business integration. A customer engagement platform will help you leverage the efficiency of automation while maintaining human connections with your customers on WhatsApp. That’s where Verint Messaging comes in. 

With WhatsApp Business, customers can chat with brands just like with friends and family. Because messaging is asynchronous, customers can quickly get in touch and go about their day while they wait for a response—no getting stuck sitting on hold. With new features of WhatsApp Business like QR codes, customers can even start a chat by scanning an image—making it easy for businesses to provide no-contact services in a post-COVID-19 world. 

A Secure & Trustworthy Messaging Channel 

Thanks to its pioneering use of end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp has long been one of the most secure messaging apps. Since WhatsApp Business requires companies to pass a rigorous approval process before creating a branded business profile, customers can rest assured that business accounts on the platform are verified and trustworthy. WhatsApp is continuously adding new security features, such as expiring messages that users can only read for a limited time. 

Automation to Deliver Customer Engagement at Scale

With native features like automated messages and quick replies, WhatsApp Business empowers brands to provide faster, more efficient support. While small businesses can access these tools in individual conversations through the WhatsApp Business app, medium and large companies can use all these features and more—such as purpose-built bots—at scale, by using the WhatsApp Business API through Verint. 

Notifications for Proactive Customer Engagement

One of the most powerful features of WhatsApp Business is its ability to proactively send notifications based on personalized criteria. For instance, companies can send time-sensitive messages about account updates, payment requests, appointment reminders, and much more. Because these messages are pushed to a customer’s phone, they are much more likely to engage with them compared to a message that’s sent to an overcrowded email inbox. 

Built-in Sales & Marketing Tools

WhatsApp Business isn’t just a customer experience tool—it’s also a powerful addition to your sales and marketing tech stack. For instance, WhatsApp Business gives brands the ability to create mobile storefronts for their businesses with catalogs and securely process payments using Facebook Pay. These built-in sales and marketing capabilities make it easy for prospective customers to browse products or services, ask questions, and make a purchase—all without leaving the app. 

Designed with Agents in Mind 

Using WhatsApp Business through Verint Messaging provides customer experience agents with a host of tools to automate routine tasks. Chief among these tools is an integration that gives agents access to purpose-driven bots that can collect personal information, process transactions, and more. Using these bots frees agents from unfulfilling grunt work and allows them to focus on the work only they can do, such as providing emotional support and solving complex problems.   

Why Use WhatsApp for Business? 

1. WhatsApp is where your customers already are 

With more than two billion users across 180 countries, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world. It’s the communication platform of choice in EMEA, Latin America, and parts of Asia—and especially huge in emerging markets like India and Brazil. Collectively, WhatsApp users send 100 billion messages per day. So why use WhatsApp for Business? It’s simple: You facilitate conversations with the world’s largest—and chattiest—customer base. 

2. Boost CSAT while increasing profits 

WhatsApp Business provides a simple, frictionless way for customers to contact your brand. This is great for customers, who can chat asynchronously (rather than waiting on hold) and can pause and resume chats without having to dial back in every time. It’s also great for brands, who can leverage the power of automation without sacrificing human connections with their customers. By using WhatsApp through Verint Messaging, brands can set up automated messages—such as a welcome message or responses to frequently asked questions. Even better, support reps can activate bots to handle routine tasks within a conversation, like capturing an address or processing a payment, freeing them up to focus on the work only they can do. 

3. Use a customer experience tool that scales with you 

Whether you’re a mom and pop shop, a growing company, or an internationally recognized brand, WhatsApp Business has something for everyone. For small businesses, there’s the WhatsApp Business app. It’s free to download and allows small business owners to create a business profile, display their products in a mobile-friendly catalog, and manage messages using tools to automate responses, sort incoming messages, and quickly reply. 

For medium and large businesses with dedicated customer experience agents, there’s the WhatsApp Business API. It’s a more powerful version of the functionalities in the WhatsApp Business App, which you access through your messaging service provider, like Verint. You can create a business profile and mobile-friendly catalogs on the front end, while benefiting from the ease and efficiency of an agent workspace on the back end. This includes advanced features like message prioritization, purpose-built bots, and more.

4. Messaging is the new frontier for marketing 

WhatsApp Business changes the game not just for customer experience, but also for marketing. Communicating with customers over WhatsApp creates an end-to-end funnel that allows marketers to drive traffic, increase sales, and nurture ongoing relationships on a 1:1 basis. We can’t overstate how significant this is: WhatsApp Business enables marketers to build, own, and control the entire customer experience—all in the same channel. The marketers who take advantage now will reap big rewards in the long run.