WhatsApp Business Automation Ultimate Guide

WhatsApp Business Automation Ultimate Guide

Businesses are going in hard with their investments into the digital customer experience to level
up from the competition and become customer experience-centric. WhatsApp Business
automation offers robust capabilities that help businesses drive customer service beyond the
norm and accelerate resolutions. Losing customers over poor customer service is an expensive
loss; acquiring new customers is approximately 6 times more expensive than retaining an
existing customer.

According to research by HubSpot, 90% of customers rate an “immediate” response as
important or very important when they have a customer service question. 60% of customers
define “immediate” as 10 minutes or less.

WhatsApp, released in 2009, revolutionized the mobile messaging app market and redefined
messaging experience. With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp has tremendous potential to help
businesses grow. But simply existing on the channel is not enough, businesses are going above

and beyond with the opportunities provided with WhatsApp API and WhatsApp for businesses.
Some companies have even gone to the extent of completely automating the entire
conversation flow or deploying conversational AI to handle a major chunk of inbound
communications.

In this guide, we will walk you through everything you need to know about WhatsApp
automation, right from what it is to how you can leverage it to deliver seamless, personalized
digital experiences.

What is WhatsApp Business API?

WhatsApp Business API helps large businesses scale their WhatsApp messaging abilities and
connect with customers globally.

With WhatsApp Business API, businesses can respond to customers’ messages for free for up
to 24 hours and pay a fee for outgoing messages for conversations that customers did not
initiate.

WhatsApp Business API offers companies the opportunity to connect their systems to send
automated messages through WhatsApp. They can also gain control over messaging and
track the performance of their WhatsApp campaigns.

What is automation on WhatsApp Business?

WhatsApp Business is a free mobile application for businesses, typically small businesses. It’s
available to download app stores for Android and iOS and entails basic features such as a
verified business profile and fast replies.

Some disadvantages of WhatsApp Business are that companies can only access one account
from a single mobile device, meaning all customers must be responded to that device. Due to
these drawbacks, WhatsApp Business is impossible to scale for medium to large businesses.

Photo by Anton from Pexels

What are the differences between WhatsApp Business API and
WhatsApp Business App?

WhatsApp Business App

● Best suited for small businesses
● Free to use
● Easily available
● Accessible only through a single mobile device.

WhatsApp Business API

● Best suited for medium and large businesses
● Free responses to customers within 24 hours.
● Fee for templated messages
● Available through a solutions provider

Accessible through multiple devices and integrates with customer service platforms.

The list below highlights the essential automation capabilities on
WhatsApp:

Automation for WhatsApp Business API

With the support of a solution provider like Simplify360, a business can automate its customer
service on WhatsApp entirely. WhatsApp API is loaded with state-of-the-art automation
capabilities.

Automate message flows from start to finish

You can organize customized messaging flows for the length of a standard conversation and
address different conversation stages. This is ideal for frequently asked questions, low
complexity issues, and recurring tasks, with WhatsApp automation, you not only reduce first
response time, but you also enable your agent to be more productive and target complex
issues.

There is a common misconception that automation leads to sacrificing personalization and the
human touch, but with platforms like Simplify360, you can customize your messages to be
consistent with your brand voice across platforms. With automated WhatsApp messages, you
can remove room for any human error.

Automate your entire sales journey with a WhatsApp Business bot
WhatsApp bots are a fantastic tool for businesses to automate the complete selling flow without
any human intervention. The bot can be customized to ask customers what they need, display
product catalogs, and even enable instant payments. With a WhatsApp bot, you can be
available 24×7 to help your customers, and for any complex issues, you can seamlessly transfer
cases from the bot to a human agent.

Automate proactive support messages
With WhatsApp API, you can enable proactive message templates, this feature works once your
customers opt-in to receive these messages from you. Once customers agree to receive these
messages, you can use this feature to automatically share transactional updates related to
orders, schedule appointments, and enable payments.
This feature reduces the need for customers to reach out for information about order status,
delivery status and reduces repetitive cases on agents.

Automated WhatsApp Business Messages

Automate Welcome Messages
The automated welcome message feature enables you to trigger a response to your customer’s
message as soon as their query comes in. This ensures customers know they are heard, and
quick responses show customers you care. You can set their welcome message from the
business tool section in the WhatsApp Business App.

Automated away message for non-business hours

Automate away messages for customers who reach out after business hours to inform them
when you’ll get back to them. With this feature, you can ensure your customers know their
question has been received. This helps prevent customers from walking away feeling ignored
and unhappy.

Quick replies to FAQs

You can save and reuse messages for FAQs with the quick replies feature. You can also assign
a ‘tag” to saved messages and find them by typing the keyword. By sending saved messages,
you respond to a customer faster and reduce the amount of effort your agents have to put in.

Conclusion

WhatsApp is a powerful platform to integrate as a primary customer touchpoint, and with the
added benefits of WhatsApp API, you can deliver the support your customer deserves. With a
platform like Simplify360, you can manage all your customer touchpoints from a centralized
platform to maintain consistency in the support you provide and respond to customers from one
place regardless of the channel they used.

With the help of Simplify360, India’s leading DTH platform saw a 40% reduction in cost per
resolution after integrating WhatsApp Business automation.

Their focus was to reduce the number of calls their customer care centers received about
standard requests or FAQs. By integrating automated messages on WhatsApp Business they
were able to deflect over 20% of subscription package-related queries.