Best practices for a stellar WhatsApp Business account

Basics make you capable. Going over and beyond makes you stand out, remembered. And the ones who are remembered are the ones who are recalled, revisited and overall get better traction. Also known as Customer Experience 101.

We have covered the aspects that would get your business’ official communication up and running on WhatsApp Business, but the features that really add value and delight to the customer’s experience should be leveraged, to keep your customers coming back for more.

Some of the features that WhatsApp Business has that help you bring that oomph factor to your customer experience are:

1. Link Instagram
2. Create short links or QR Code to connect with WhatsApp chat
3. Label chats
4. Away messages and greeting messages quick replies
5. Chatlist filters
6. Catalog and collections
7. Cart

Creating Greetings, Quick Replies and Away Messages

One of the most important common features that run true for all good businesses is that, whenever possible, automate things.

Processes that technically do not need a human touch or is a redundant task can and should be automated. This not only frees a resource for doing other activities but also leaves no gap in terms of customer experience. What may have taken you probably 2 - 3 mins (or more) to reply to a new customer reaching out, can be responded to within a matter of seconds.

What's more, you can also add content that would interest the customer like redirecting them to have a look at o your catalogues for the services provided or prompt them to leave a message detailing their requirement etc.

Quick replies are what make you a master at handling multiple chats and queries like a pro.

With the assumption that you would be aware of some of the basic queries that a typical customer would ask about your business and services, having a few quick replies created and ready to go helps you reply quickly, with consistency and clarity.

1. Having quick replies with short links for meetings, in case you have a use case for having a conversation with your clients
2. In case you are running your customer support aspect using WAB, having quick replies ready for this, like asking about the condition of the parcel during the time of delivery, or even more data in the form of pictures, quick replies can be leveraged for this
3. Screenshots for errors , FAQs

Away messages are not used by many, but can be leveraged so beautifully to ensure your customers are informed and feel like they are seen and heard.

We recommend you set up away messages for :

1. When it is outside your business hours (Mon - Fri as well as a weekend if it applies to you)
2. If you are on holiday or are not available. It’s always better to keep your clients informed rather than have them wait a few hours to reply to them. Setting the expectation is important.

Find out how to create Greetings, Quick Replies and Away messages now.

Labels and Chatlist Filters

Labels help you stay organized.

Applying a label in WhatsApp to identify or tag your chats takes less than a minute and is one of the most convenient ways to quickly identify your chats.

WhatsApp has a few default labels, to begin with, but feel free to create your own filters that suit your needs. Some tips to keep in mind when creating labels are:

1. Keep it simple! Decide what you are trying to achieve with tags and stick to the same. Do not dilute the plan by adding more tags in the hopes of being able to cover more topics. This never works, does not add value and the plot is lost as quickly as it its started.
2. Figure out a defining metric that will able you to differentiate or categorize contacts.
3. Understand what these labels will further allow you to use them for. For example, if I create 3 labels as Interested, New and Old I would be able to send curated offers with joining offers to the ones marked as Interested while not targeting the rest. I will also understand what content to talk to that potential customerwith, since the label prompts me as to what stage of the customer journey that person is on.
4. Labels can also act as a metric to track conversions and other such parameters to understand your small business growth.

And just when you think that Labels have changed the game for you, Chatlist Filters come in and just make it better! I know when I say filter, the activity itself seems very simple. But what if I use Chatlist Filters to search labels as well? Yes, this is possible and such an amazing feature. You can just start typing any label name in your search field and all the conversations with that label will populate. Simple.

Find out how to create Labels and how to use Filters

Catalogues and Collections

A catalogue is essentially like a montage of the products or services that one offers via their business.

WhatsApp Business has thought of the entire journey when it comes to a small business and one of the key aspects is being able to put up your products for display so that any interested person can peruse at their convenience.

This also works out well for you as a small business since,

1. This shows professionalism and structure in your business
2. You have 1 place where there is a standard catalogue for all your products or services, which can be easily accessed.
3. Standardization of pricing and no need to have repeated conversations with different customers to explain what a product or a service entails. All this can be included in a description.

All you will need to do is redirect your clients towards the catalogues and sit back and relax while they browse, choose and add items to the cart.

To up the game on the catalogue feature, WhatsApp for Business came up with an additional feature called Collections.

A collection is nothing but a grouping of a select few items from the catalogue that you would want to display or showcase as a bundle.

For example, if I run a business of all bath products, I would make a collection of Shampoo, Condition and Post shower hair are products as 1 collection.

The possibilities are endless here. Again, based on the trends that your customers show regarding interests as well as the buying history that you would already have, you can make collections like this that can help upsell and cross-sell your products.

Find out more about creating Catalogues and Collections

Cart Feature

The Cart feature allows you to have a graceful exit to the entire customer experience, by closing the loop on the story.

The catalogue and collections have a feature that allow your customers to not only browse but also add items to the cart. This in turn can be treated like any other E-commerce platform to sell your products including completion of the payment for the items in the cart via WhatsApp Payments.

Enable Cart feature now for your WhatsApp Business.

Improve your online presence

We live in a “creator age”, which essentially means that your online presence is imperative in order for your business and products to have visibility and traction in the market.

One of the best ways to do this is to have an Instagram page for your business firstly. Once you have set up an Instagram account, creating an interconnection with WhatsApp is very simple.

It's worthwhile to mention that using your Instagram bio space strategically in order to guide potential clients on when to reach out on WhatsApp is a smart move. Instagram on its own has a Shop feature, which can be leveraged as well, but having the same Shop on multiple platforms makes tracking and consolidation of data and information.

Find out how to link your Instagram to your WhatsApp Business account.

Knowing what features are there in an application is great, but understanding how to leverage the features provided to the best possible capabilities is a skill that will help you propel your business as well as brand forward.