WhatsApp Business For Customer Support: Best Practices For Delivering Effective And Personalized Support

Customer support is the range of services offered by a business to its customers before, during, and after a purchase. It involves addressing customer inquiries, resolving issues, providing guidance, and offering solutions to ensure a positive customer experience.

Customer support can be provided through different communication channels. It is, however, crucial that businesses maintain a presence on channels that are actively being used by their audience. With 2.44 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp has established itself as the go-to platform for businesses to engage with their audience. 

Benefits of WhatsApp Business

WhatsApp Business is a platform designed specifically for businesses to interact with their customers. It facilitates customer communication, support, and engagement. Here are some of the key benefits that make it the right choice for customer support operations:

i) Enhanced Customer Communication

WhatsApp Business provides several messaging tools to enhance customer communication. These include automated greetings to welcome customers, quick replies to frequently asked questions, and alert messages to inform customers when you’re unavailable.

ii) Efficient Management of Chats

Businesses can organize and categorize customer conversations using labels. Labels allow you to identify easily and sort chats based on various criteria, such as new orders, open issues, high-priority, or specific customer segments.

iii) Continuous Monitoring

Businesses can get insights into your messaging performance with WhatsApp Business’s built-in statistics. You can also track metrics such as the number of messages sent, delivered, and read, helping you analyze the effectiveness of your customer interactions.

iv) Improved Trust

With WhatsApp Business, you can easily apply for a verified badge to add authenticity and credibility to your WhatsApp Business profile. The verification process involves confirming that the account belongs to a genuine business.

v) Secure Payments

In some countries, WhatsApp Business supports in-app payments, allowing customers to make purchases and complete transactions directly within the WhatsApp conversation. This helps maintain the security of the payment transactions.

Applications of WhatsApp Business for Customer Support

39% of customers prefer WhatsApp Business for customer support and service. Let’s explore the use cases of WhatsApp Business:

• Instant Query Resolution: Customers can reach out to businesses via WhatsApp, and support agents can respond promptly to their inquiries, ensuring swift problem-solving. The chat format allows for a conversational approach, making it easy for agents to engage with customers, address their concerns, and offer personalized assistance.
  
• Feedback Collection: Using WhatsApp Business, companies can collect valuable feedback from customers in a more informal and convenient manner. Surveys or feedback forms can be sent through WhatsApp, enabling customers to share their opinions, suggestions, and overall experience with the brand.
• Order Tracking and Notifications: After placing an order, customers can receive updates on their delivery status, shipping information, and expected delivery time directly through WhatsApp. This proactive approach keeps customers informed and reduces the need for them to reach out for updates, enhancing the overall customer experience.
• Personalized Offers: Through WhatsApp Business, businesses can deliver customized offers, discounts, and promotions to their users. This personalized approach makes customers feel valued, improving brand loyalty and repeat business.
• Multimedia Support: WhatsApp Business supports various multimedia formats, including images, videos, and voice messages. This feature helps enhance customer support, as it allows agents to send visual aids, instructional videos, or step-by-step guides to assist customers in a better way. The ability to share multimedia content adds depth to customer interactions, making it easier to convey complex information.
• Broadcast Messages: WhatsApp Business’s broadcast feature allows businesses to send messages to multiple recipients simultaneously. This feature is ideal for sending out announcements, updates, or promotions to a targeted group of customers. Broadcast messages help businesses efficiently disseminate information and keep customers engaged without overwhelming individual inboxes.

Best Practices for the WhatsApp Business Platform

By following these best practices, you can leverage WhatsApp Business for customer support and build strong relationships with your customers:

1. Set Clear Expectations

Clearly communicate to your customers how and when they can reach out to you on WhatsApp. Set expectations regarding response times and availability, so customers know when a reply can be expected.

2. Optimize Business Profile

Create a comprehensive business profile with accurate and up-to-date information. Include your business name, address, contact details, website links, and product catalog. This helps customers find relevant information easily.

3. Maintain an Active Presence

Regularly respond to customer inquiries and messages in a timely manner. An active presence shows your commitment to customer service, builds trust and ensures that customers feel heard and valued. While being active is crucial, it’s equally important to avoid spamming your customers with unnecessary messages.

4. Create WhatsApp Message Templates

WhatsApp Business allows you to create message templates for common customer interactions. These templates can be used for order confirmations, shipping updates, appointment reminders, and more. Templates save time, maintain consistency, and help streamline your customer support processes.

5. Use Automated Greetings and Quick Replies

Set up automated greetings to welcome customers when they initiate a conversation. Create quick replies for common queries to save time and provide instant responses.

6. Use of Data Analytics to Send Personalized Messages

Utilize data analytics to gather insights into customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history. This information enables you to send personalized messages and offers that are tailored to each customer’s interests and helps in increasing engagement and conversion rates.

7. Run Direct to WhatsApp Ads

Incorporate WhatsApp Business into your advertising strategy by running direct-to-WhatsApp ads. These ads allow customers to engage with your business directly from the ad, initiating conversations with just one click. It reduces the barriers to communication and encourages more interactions.

8. Add Clickable Predefined Button to Messages

Enhance the interactivity of your messages by including clickable predefined buttons. These buttons can be used to confirm appointments, select preferences, or access specific information. They simplify the customer journey and improve the overall user experience.

9. Form a Community on WhatsApp Groups

Consider creating WhatsApp groups to form a community of engaged customers. These groups can be used to share exclusive offers, conduct polls, host Q&A sessions, or provide early access to new products or services. Building a community fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty among customers.

10. Maintain Professional Tone

Maintain a professional tone in your conversations with customers. Use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation to convey professionalism and attention to detail.

11. Train and Empower your Support Team

Provide adequate training to your customer support team on effectively using WhatsApp Business features and handling customer queries. Empower them to resolve issues independently and provide exceptional support.

12. Ensure Compliance

Familiarize yourself with the WhatsApp Business API‘s terms of service, privacy policy, and any applicable local regulations. Adhere to the guidelines to ensure compliance and maintain the trust of your customers.

Enhance Your Customer Support Efforts With Exotel

Exotel’s WhatsApp product suite allows you to build customized WhatsApp solutions for your business. Trusted by 7000+ clients around the globe, our scalable solutions can help you provide efficient customer support, engage with customers, and streamline communication to enhance the overall customer experience.

Finding applications in marketing, sales, and customer care, Exotel’s one-stop WhatsApp Business Platform offers the following benefits:

√ Better Marketing Campaigns: The no-code campaign module is easy to set up. Moreover, it is powered by robust analytics, facilitating automated marketing promotions.

√ Convenient Shopping Experience: Customers don’t have to move between apps to get verified and can receive OTPs faster within WhatsApp itself.

√ Increased Conversions: As customers can complete the entire purchase journey on the same platform, they are more likely to close the sales. 

√ Instant Support: AI chatbots will help you to automate support and engage customers across the funnel. 

√ Human Touch: With live agent chat, customers can present queries and get help in real-time from a human agent.

√ Increased Contact Center Efficiency: By diverting customer calls to WhatsApp as a self-service channel, the load on contact centers can be substantially reduced. 

In essence, WhatsApp Business is more than a mere platform; it’s a conduit for crafting memorable customer experiences. By implementing the insights shared in this article, and availing Exotel’s assistance, businesses can confidently deliver effective, personalized, and enriching customer support in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.