WhatsApp is currently the most popular messaging app in the world. With its user base tipping over 1.5bn, organizations are looking for ways to incorporate WhatsApp into businesses. WhatsApp is widely used by people for their close interactions with friends, family, colleagues, etc. Whatsapp makes it convenient for users to stay connected with each other and share personal information with features like free voice and video calling, sharing live locations, contacts, sending images, videos, and documents. With added features such as emojis, interesting stickers, and GIFs, users can turn their messages into fun conversations.
Businesses are looking forward to using the platform to reach out to its large user base and improve on their customer experiences. Approaching them through a platform they are familiar with can give businesses a certain level of leverage to their marketing approaches.
What makes WhatsApp Ideal For Businesses?
WhatsApp is a free messaging service and can be used on pretty much every operating system. It is one of the main reasons it has such a large user base. However, these factors make WhatsApp ideal for businesses:
- Secure Channel: WhatsApp is one of the most secure channels as it provides end-to-end encryption for all user conversations. It also has a very strict anti-spamming policy which makes the platform completely secure.
- High message open rate: Apart from the fact that WhatsApp has the largest user base, it also happens to have the highest message open rate. This means that businesses approaching their customers through this medium can get maximum responses.
- Personal interaction: Businesses can use the platform to interact with their customers on a personal level and build a strong bond. Using this platform, businesses can understand their customers better and offer customer service more effectively.
- In-time response: Businesses can use WhatsApp for customer service or feedback to get an in-time response from their audience. Giving prompt responses and personalized care to customers approaching for help can help businesses build a positive brand image.
- Calls and multimedia sharing: With WhatsApp, businesses interact with their customers virtually through voice and video calls. Imagine a software company guiding its customer on how to troubleshoot over a video call. Businesses can also share important information in form of documents, videos, or images to their customers from any corner of the world.
5 Organizations that can use WhatsApp in their daily life?
Different organizations can make use of WhatsApp differently. Here are some of the way different organizations can make use of WhatsApp in their daily life:
1. Healthcare
People in healthcare can use WhatsApp to remind their patients of regular health check-ups and appointment updates. It can further be used to provide virtual consultation over a voice or video call and save time and effort for both doctors and patients. In case of emergencies, using WhatsApp to get a doctor’s advice instantly can help in saving multiple lives.
People in remote areas live in poor health conditions and are deprived of medical care. Incorporating WhatsApp in healthcare can help people in remote areas to consult doctors virtually. They can also learn about ways to improve their health conditions and provide basic first aid.
2. Retail
The retail industry can use WhatsApp extensively for its pre-sale, advertising, and post-sale services. By using the business version of WhatsApp, businesses can also share their product catalogs with their customers and receive direct orders. Sending out product offers, discount coupons, or new arrival updates through Whatsapp can get better responses from customers. Marketing through WhatsApp faster and effectively, it can also help businesses save some extra dollars.
WhatsApp can also be used for customer care services where customers can reach out to businesses through text messages and get instant responses.
3. Ticketing
Not everyone checks their mails frequently and many times miss out on travel-related updates against their bookings. Travel ticketing businesses can use WhatsApp to send timely notifications to their customers about their flight, railways, or bus booking. They can also share tickets and boarding passes using the platform.
WhatsApp can also find its use in other ticketing events like movies, games, or theaters. Reminding customers about an upcoming movie or sports event can be a great way for businesses to improve footfall.
4. Real-estates
It might be crazy to know how many people may be out there looking to buy a property and a similar number of people ready to sell their property. For a real estate agent, it requires an insane amount of work to match every buyer with a seller. WhatsApp can make their life easy peasy. All they have to do is create separate Whatsapp groups for buyers and sellers. Every time a new seller shares his/her property details, the agent can share them in the buyer’s group. Interested buyers can make an offer and the best offer gets the deal with minimum effort from the agent.
For more discreet clients, Agents can create broadcast lists to share the information with a large group of people without revealing any information about other recipients.
5. Corporate Industry
Corporate industries have a diverse clientele, each with its unique requirements and follow-up schedules. In many cases, feedback and rework suggestions are shared verbally and create a lot of confusion between team members. While other times, clients take a long time to respond to a mail, and when you are about to move on to your next work, they revert with more rework requests. These hassles of corporate work can become a lot easier with WhatsApp. Teams can create separate groups for each client and share their work at each stage of the progress to get their instant feedback.
This can make the entire process a lot smoother and bring more clarity for team members.
The application of WhatsApp is not just limited to these industries and can find its use in several other areas as well.
Tips and Tricks to use WhatsApp for Organizations
WhatsApp is a useful tool, and creates a significant impact on the industry. But it can only find its purpose if it is used thoughtfully. Here are a few tips and tricks to use WhatsApp as a part of your organization:
1 . Build a strong brand persona by establishing a strong bond with stakeholders and create a buzz.
2. Engage in one-to-one interactions to understand your customer requirements and work towards improving your customer experience.
3. Offer product or service suggestions to high-value customers
4. Be creative with your approach to new customers or clientele. Come up with engaging messages and offers when approaching them.
5. Respect your customer’s privacy. Make sure you do not spam them with messages or updates that they may not be interested in.
The role of social media in our everyday lives is growing each day and cannot be avoided. It’s only wise to put it to the best use and make the most of it in our daily lives. WhatsApp is one such social media tool that can find its utility in more ways than we know. Learn more about its use in WhatsApp Marketing and WhatsApp SCRM tools on our website.