Benefits of WhatsApp Business：Start Now to Enlarge Your Business

What do you do first? When you wake up in the morning, most probably pick up the phone and check messages, updates, and news feed.

The stats talk about the bigger picture, which says, 61% of people check updates & messages before and after getting in and out of the bed respectively. And do you know? Whatsapp the texting application stands at the top with more than 450 million daily active users.

However, for a long time, Whatsapp has only served as a texting app, which lets you connect with people through the mobile number. But after plenty of speculations, Whatsapp introduced a separate business application that went official in late 2017 to give advantage to the millions of small business owners all around the world. The idea behind Whatsapp business is to connect businesses and customers and manage their orders.

After Whatsapp business app arrival, more than 3 million companies have already registered themselves and have numerous advantages from it.

Since the concept of Whatsapp business is new and unknown to most of the people, we’ve come up with this piece, where we have discussed all facts that you need to know about it. It covers how Whatsapp Business benefits as an entrepreneur and businessman.

Here you go,

• What is WhatsApp Business?
• Difference Between Standard Whatsapp & Whatsapp Business?
• What are the Advantages of WhatsApp Business?
• What are the Disadvantages of WhatsApp Business?

What is WhatsApp Business?

After being purchased in February 2014, Whatsapp was in the hands of the extremely creative and genius mind, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook’s Founder). It was already speculated by experts that WhatsApp is going to hit the business soon. And due to its huge user base, Whatsapp's business account came into existence.

If you talk about what is Whatsapp business? Then well, simply talking, Whatsapp business app is a serious platform that only belongs to people that own or are willing to do business. It was specially designed to give a valuable business platform to small-scale businessmen. Through it, you can create an impressive business profile, where important information regarding your business-like email, website, and contact no can be shared. Also, you can create your catalog to show your products.

Illustration: To understand this let’s take a practical example. Suppose you own a grocery shop, you can create an online shop where you can give your shop a name, add contact no for home deliveries, inquiries, message your customer, and send updates about new articles that you’re open to offering them. Moreover, your customers can also enjoy the two-way communication model by asking queries straight by sending direct messages to the business owner.

This way the feedback process and replying process have also got enhanced where both customers and business owners are just one message away from each other.

Difference Between Standard Whatsapp & Whatsapp Business?

As we know that still not all of the small businesses (Retail, Vendors, and all small-scale businesses, etc) have accessed the Whatsapp business. And it’s been 2 years of its launch. Some of them might know about it, but most of them have confused it with the texting app of WhatsApp.

If you’ve found the same problem then you should go through the following section where we’ve talked about the basic difference between Whatsapp and Whatsapp Business account advantages. We’ve listed many features that are only accessible on Whatsapp business, not on standard Whatsapp.

Here you go,

DIFFERENT LOGO: To create an understanding visual difference Whatsapp has created a different logo, which uses capital letter ‘B’ instead of standard Whatsapp Logo.

IDENTIFY CHATS

Whatsapp always notifies you when you get any message from any business account inside your chat. It will pop-up a message on your chat screen which says “This chat is with a Business account.

Moreover, in the future, every business will have its badge after getting verified from Whatsapp.

QUICK REPLIES

A quick reply response tool is something that you won’t find on standard WhatsApp because it is meant for business purposes. It allows you to send predefined replies for frequently asked questions.

GREETING MESSAGE

Greeting message function is another essential function only included on WhatsApp business, which lets you send greeting messages to your new customers and old ones in every 14 days when not getting any response from them.

Moreover, you can select the recipients to send the custom messages on the Whatsapp business.

LABELS

To categorize the conversations with types like new customers, new orders, pending payment, paid, order completed, etc. Whatsapp for business gives you labels to segregate your conversations. This feature helps you to track your clients accordingly.

SEARCH FILTER

With the help of filters, you can easily figure out and find your broadcast list, unread chats, and groups with labels which helps you to find the right conversation just from one place.

SHORT LINKS

On the standard app, you’ve to save the phone number to do conversation with anyone. But Whatsapp business app reduces your contact list and let you connect with clients and customers through a unique link.

This short link is a built-in function in the WhatsApp business. It automatically creates links for your conversation.

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What are the Advantages of WhatsApp Business?

Now, after figuring out the various features of WhatsApp business and its concept which also creates a difference between standard WhatsApp and WhatsApp business let’s talk about the benefits of WhatsApp Business. And being a small businessman, how it is going to help you to grow your business.

It's Completely Free

We know you’re now more than happy by hearing about its free nature. And yes, it’s true that Whatsapp business indeed lets you list your business and keep in touch with your clients/customers at zero cost. You can try it now and give it a shot, don’t worry we’ will wait for you. It’s free nature and this is one of the biggest benefits of Whatsapp Business account.

It doesn’t end here, a messaging app with push notification services is a super combination, which also shows us a future where some mediator agencies are going out of the business.

Moreover, the end of very decent but yet too costly SMS services is also too close. A business service without telecom services shows an indication of a big revolution across the global market.

Also, Whatsapp Business account advantages save you plenty of money which businesses use to run or make an application because it removes almost all complexities of operating it.

Be more professional with authentic Business Profile

As a businessman, you need to stand apart from the normal crowd. Hence, Whatsapp has let you have the benefit of a Whatsapp Business account as a standard feature, which eventually helps to create a more professional image. It lets you add information like store address, website, email, and description of your business. This way you can talk to your client about the nature of your business.

Also, a verified business simply adds authenticity and lets the WhatsApp users know that you’re not a thief or online fraud. It is because WhatsApp takes verification very seriously. It’s not like setting up any other social media account.

Tools to grow your business

Tools that we’ve discussed above in the differentiation section such as greeting message, Quick replies, search filters are only available on Whatsapp business. These tools together help you to connect with your customers with a more engaging and personalized approach.

Deep analysis with Statistics

The messages sent by the users are more than any alert. They are considered as precious data, which can be used efficiently to better understand your clients or customers and come up with new refined and better service. After all, a growing business is all about taking care of customer satisfaction.

Hence, WhatsApp business offers messaging statistics covering some basic metrics such as a number of messages sent, read, and delivered. So that they can be used to optimize or strategize the content of replies to contact the customer with a better approach.

WhatsApp Web a precious gift

Whatsapp knows that in business everything cannot be managed from the small screen view. You need a better view of the service and tools to manage them effectively. Hence, by shaking hands with the Internet facility it provides end-to-end service. It also increases the personal view without mobile app use.

However, this feature is not as intricate as the mobile app, but in the future, it is about to come up with a full-proof version.

Secure GDPR-Compliant Technology

The motive of letting the businesses use Whatsapp Business as a primary channel is an engagement promise to connect all communication channels into one flow. And it is not possible without a secure framework. Once you get approved, you’ll have access to Whatsapp API. Your business profile will get backed up by a fully GDPR-compliant technology, which keeps your personal and client’s personal data in secure hands.

4. Your business on the World's biggest messaging Platform

If the whole world is your customer then there is nothing better than the world's biggest undisputable messaging platform with 104 countries as its user base. If you ever wanted to tap the global market then your dream is always in front of your eyes in the form of Whatsapp Business app.

Having penetration levels of Saudi Arabia (73%) Brazil (60%), and Germany (65%) Whatsapp proves its legacy in providing a prepared customer base for the businesses.

Therefore, using the Whatsapp business app for customer messaging will be a smart move.

5. The Most Efficient Conversational Commerce

The conversational behavior of Whatsapp business helps itself to stand apart from the traditional eCommerce platforms. It also represents the most personalized approach to represent the company by chatting and giving customer support through it. Getting close to the customers and talking about your product in the chat section and convincing them to buy it is now more engaging or humanized.

With the advent of Whatsapp Web, the bots got very old fashioned. It has turned the theory of connecting with every customer across the world into a practical and real one.

What are the Disadvantages of WhatsApp Business?

Although, Whatsapp Business is all set to replace most eCommerce service providers business. But it also got some drawbacks which still need to be configured.

Following is the list of some observed cons which you should look after,

• The first but the biggest drawback is that you can only have one Whatsapp business account per device, which is a problem for those businesses where more than one employee coordinates and requires access to the account. Although, we can hope that Whatsapp will look forward to fixing this fundamental flaw.
• The other one is a lack of business payment options, which is yet not added to Whatsapp business. However, it offers peer-to-peer payments but there is a lot of difference between transferring money to friends than paying for a service or products. It requires more advance and secure payment gateways.
• On the other hand, you can’t use Whatsapp Web without connecting your phone to the internet and PC. If somehow your battery dies Whatsapp Web becomes a useless thing.
• Moreover, the features provided by Whatsapp business are not that much ground-breaking, which makes a businessman feel there should be a little more added to it.
• Whatsapp business also lets businesses send a lot of messages to their customer base, which can be annoying to the customers.
• Last but not the least, the security and privacy of data is the biggest concern while using social media sites as a business platform. And as you know WhatsApp is in the hands of Facebook, which is actually like an elephant in the room.

Conclusion

Comparing both advantages and disadvantages of Whatsapp business it is clear that at no cost Whatsapp is delivering its best for small-scale businesses and start-ups. There are a few cons that we’ve discussed above but it can be fixed. If your startup/business has VoIP then you don’t even think twice to get started with Whatsapp business.

Moreover, as mentioned above, it is going to revolutionize the customer in the upcoming 5 to 6 years. Because WhatsApp Business says that don't wait for your customer to order something from you, anticipate them by downloading the Whatsapp business app.