The Importance of Customer Experience Over WhatsApp
Customer experience is important for several reasons. First and foremost, a positive customer experience can result in customer loyalty and repeat business. When customers have a good experience with a brand, they are more likely to return and make additional purchases. In addition, they may recommend the brand to their friends and family, which can lead to new customers and increased revenue.
On the other hand, a negative customer experience can have serious consequences for a business. Customers who have a bad experience are unlikely to return and may share their negative experiences with others. Not only can this lead to lost sales, but it can damage a brand’s reputation.
Furthermore, customer experience can be a key differentiator in a crowded marketplace. When products and services are similar, the quality of the customer experience can set a brand apart. Providing exceptional customer service, easy-to-use products, and personalized interactions can help a brand stand out and attract new customers.
Overall, customer experience is important because it can significantly impact a business’s bottom line. Businesses can improve customer loyalty, attract new customers, and ultimately increase revenue by investing in customer experience and ensuring that customers have positive interactions with a brand.
How to use WhatsApp to improve customer experience?
In today’s world, customers expect instant solutions to their problems. With the widespread use of messaging apps, businesses need to incorporate them into their marketing and customer service strategies. The most popular messaging app used by customers today is WhatsApp. Therefore, exploring how you can use WhatsApp to improve customer experience is essential.
Handle common customer queries
One of the best ways to use the WhatsApp Business app to improve customer experience is by handling common customer queries. In today’s world of technology and connectivity, customers expect you to be always there for them. No one is eager to report an issue, ask a question, give feedback over email, and wait for days to get a response. Messaging is the preferable form of communication, and WhatsApp stands out as the messaging app with the highest reach rates - two billion people use it daily.
If you are using WhatsApp Business Platform/API, you can create a chatbot that can answer frequently asked questions (FAQs) or provide basic information about your products or services. By doing this, you can reduce the waiting time for customers and provide them with quick and accurate responses. If you want to learn more about the WhatsApp Business Platform/API, keep reading; I will go into more detail further in this article.
Collect customer feedback
Customer feedback is essential for any business. With WhatsApp, you can easily collect customer feedback by sending a survey or poll through the app. This will help you gather valuable insights into customers’ thoughts about your products or services and what improvements they would like to see.
If you want to ask for feedback, you don’t have to ask one customer at a time. The WhatsApp Broadcast feature is ideal for one-to-many communication. It’s similar to WhatsApp groups, with one significant difference. When the customer replies to a broadcast message, the conversation is visible only to you and the customer, which is different from conversations in WhatsApp groups, where everyone in the group can see what everyone is writing.
Send status updates
Another way to improve customer experience using WhatsApp is by sending status updates. This is especially useful if you provide services like home delivery, where customers are waiting for updates on their order status. With WhatsApp, you can inform customers about the status of their orders and provide them with a better experience.
Share notifications instantly
WhatsApp is an excellent tool for sharing notifications instantly. For example, if there is a delay in delivering an order, you can use WhatsApp to inform customers immediately. This will help you manage customer expectations and avoid any misunderstandings.
Highlight products and services
WhatsApp can serve as a platform to highlight your products and services. You can create a Business profile and integrate a product catalog with images, descriptions, and prices. Customers can access information about your brand, working hours, address and browse your products or services directly through WhatsApp. This can increase brand visibility, attract more customers, and improve customer engagement.
The limitations of the WhatsApp Business app
The WhatsApp Business app offers a wide range of possibilities that can help you communicate with your customers more effectively. Along with its simple interface and easy-to-use features, the app allows you to send automated messages, create customized labels for chats, and organize your chats more efficiently. Moreover, the app’s end-to-end encryption feature ensures that all communications are secure and private.
Despite its many advantages, the WhatsApp Business app has its limitations. For example:
- Only five devices can access the WhatsApp Business app, and only one of them can be a mobile phone. It will be challenging to operate smoothly if you have a larger team for customer success and support.
- While the app offers some basic automation features, such as quick replies and automated greeting messages, it lacks advanced automation features allowing you to send targeted and personalized messages at scale.
- The WhatsApp Business app does not integrate with third-party tools, making it difficult for businesses to manage their customer communications across different channels.
- The app does not offer detailed analytics to help you understand how your messages are performing, making it challenging to measure the effectiveness of your messaging strategies.
- Broadcast lists are limited to only 256 contacts, making it difficult to send bulk messages to a larger audience.
- The app is best suited for micro businesses with a limited customer base. Managing customer communications through the app can become time-consuming and difficult for larger businesses to scale.
Considering these limitations, the WhatsApp Business app may not be ideal for you. If you want to grow your business at scale with WhatsApp and leverage the advanced communication tools your business needs, upgrading to the WhatsApp Business Platform/API is smart.
How to improve customer experience with the WhatsApp Business Platform/API?
Managing customer relationships with the WhatsApp Business app is a great start, but as your business grows, you may find that you need to scale your communications to serve your customers better. This is where the WhatsApp Business Platform/API comes in.
By utilizing the platform’s advanced features, you can optimize your communications to meet the needs of your expanding customer base. With the platform, you can create personalized messaging campaigns, integrate with other business tools, and gain valuable insights into customer behavior. All of these features work together to help you build stronger, more meaningful relationships with your customers and drive continued growth for your business.
Here’s how you can improve customer experience with WhatsApp Business Platform/API:
Collaborate in a team inbox
The WhatsApp Business Platform/API doesn’t have a user interface, so to use it, you either need to code it yourself (if you are a technical person or have a tech team) or use third-party software, such as CRM or a customer communication platform like Rasayel.
With Rasayel, your agents can collaborate in a centralized team inbox. There is no limit on how many team members can access and respond to customer inquiries. This means you can streamline your communication process and promptly address every customer inquiry.
Team members can assign conversations and tag each other, communicate with private notes to discus customer inquiries, label conversations according to customer data, and more.
Scale your communications with advanced broadcasts
You can send advanced broadcasts to reach multiple customers simultaneously. These bulk messages can be personalized, so you can create multiple lists of contacts to send targeted messages. Targeted and personalized messages can improve customer engagement and also helps to reduce the possibility of spamming customers.
If you want to learn how to use advanced WhatsApp Broadcasts, read our recent post, “WhatsApp Broadcast Message for Business.”
Personalize communications with message templates
One of the most important factors for improving customer experience is personalization. No one is eager to receive generic and irrelevant messages. One of the most effective features of WhatsApp Business Platform/API is the possibility to personalize your messages with templates.
A WhatsApp template is a customizable message that you can create to initiate a conversation with your customers. These templates include placeholders and variables that your customer communication platform will automatically replace with customer data. For example, a shipping status message might look like the following:
Hello {{1}}, your order number {{2}} has been prepared for shipment. You will receive your item within the next {{3}} days.
You may track your order status here: {{4}}
Thank you for your purchase! 😊
The processed message that a customer named Jennifer will receive will look like this:
Message templates allow you to provide consistent messaging to customers while also ensuring a personalized touch.
Message templates are an excellent tool for maintaining consistent communication with your customers. By using pre-written messages, you can save time and effort while still providing a personalized touch. This allows you to focus on your core activities while ensuring that your customers receive timely and accurate information.
Additionally, message templates provide a level of professionalism that can be difficult to achieve when communicating on an ad-hoc basis. Using templates ensures that your messaging is clear and concise, enhancing your reputation and building customer trust.
Automate conversations with WhatsApp chatbots
WhatsApp chatbots enable you to provide 24/7 customer support. This is a potent tool for providing great customer experience. Chatbots can handle common customer queries without human intervention, reducing wait times, increasing efficiency, and allowing customers to get the support they need anytime.
The best part is that you don’t have to be an engineer to create your own chatbot. With Rasayel’s bot builder, you can easily create a bot flow from scratch.
If you want to learn how to create your WhatsApp chatbot, read our article “A simple strategy for creating a user-friendly WhatsApp chatbot.”
Monitor the analytics and make data-based decisions
If you want to improve the customer experience, there’s no better way than reviewing the results of your previous interactions with customers and making data-based decisions. Your customer communication platform should provide detailed insights into the number of messages you received, the average resolution time, the average customer waiting time, and other relevant metrics.
Here’s how analytics look in Rasayel:
Conclusion
In conclusion, using WhatsApp to improve customer experience can benefit your business in many ways. By handling common customer queries, collecting customer feedback, sending status updates, sharing notifications instantly, highlighting products and services, making seamless bookings, etc.
Scaling customer communication with WhatsApp Business API will help you improve customer experience and customer engagement. Incorporating WhatsApp into your customer service strategy is a cost-effective and efficient way to keep your customers happy and satisfied.
Learn more
If you’d like to learn more about how WhatsApp can help you grow your business, please reach out to us on WhatsApp at +13024070488.
We also offer a free consultation session where we review your use case, answer any questions about WhatsApp, and help you build a strategy to make the best out of the platform. Book a call with us here. We’d love to speak with you:
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Miodrag brings over 15 years of hands-on experience in content writing and marketing, with a talent for making even the trickiest topics clear and interesting. His passion lies in guiding businesses to effectively utilize WhatsApp to build stronger customer relationships and drive results. With an eye for detail and a heart for storytelling, he’s here to show how effective WhatsApp communication can boost sales and enhance customer engagement.
