Days are gone when organizations mostly relied on manpower to uplift their business. Back then It was easier to meet customers’ demands as customers just had basic expectations like quality service and fair pricing.
Unlike those days, Today, there’s a world of difference in customer expectations. They demand proactive service, personalized interaction, and instant solutions across various channels. And WhatsApp business has been one of the most reliable platforms for businesses to stay connected with their customers and offer the best customer experience.
However, once the business starts scaling, WhatsApp business no longer suffices to meet the growing expectations. Offering personalized service to hundreds and thousands of users at once with extended WhatsApp Chatbot features becomes possible only when WhatsApp automation comes into play.
Therefore, to adjust and grow along with the current needs, leveraging digital technology to automate activities becomes critical. The blog will guide you through the depth of WhatsApp automation.
What is WhatsApp automation?
Whatsapp automation refers to setting up pre-programmed replies and interaction with customers using WhatsApp business or WhatsApp business API that run automatically without any human intervention.
The automation helps you engage, interact, add new contacts, respond to customer inquiries, and broadcast messages to multiple contacts at once without the assistance of human agents. It increases efficiency, boosts revenue, and helps businesses deliver outstanding customer service.
How do you create WhatsApp automation?
WhatsApp business offers some basic automation features like WhatsApp greeting messages, away messages, etc, that you can use for free. However, if you’re looking to implement a more advanced WhatsApp API automation workflow, here’s how you can do it.
WhatsApp business automation: greeting messages
Set automated greeting messages for first-time visitors and engage with them.
You can create template messages, define keywords or scenarios, and form a pre-set message which can be triggered automatically. Here you can request customers’ email and save them for future reference.
You can customize the greeting messages maintaining a personal touch and warm tone to create a friendly first impression.
WhatsApp business automation: away messages
Set up an away message that will be delivered automatically to all or some of your contacts when you are busy, away from your phone, or out of the office.
You can mention politely when you’ll get back with the message, by providing your business website link to keep the customers engaged.
You can as well set auto-replies for customers that have not been in touch with you over the past two weeks, auto replies can reheat the leads.
WhatsApp automation in Android and iOS
The use of chatbots today is not just limited to larger screens or computers. The conversation AI technologies have made their way through mobile apps as well.
More businesses are making the most out of mobile app bots to get wide visibility in the market and offer flawless customer experience throughout.
So it won’t be surprising to see chatbots integrated into mobile devices or AI inside a native app.
The best part is chatbots can be integrated into both Android and iOS mobiles. It has appeased customers’ demand for reliable conversation and controls timely contextual interaction.
There are many benefits to it, some of which are:
- Deploying NLP mobile app bot can fathom the tone and manner of the conversation and offer a real-time resolution.
- The mobile app bots can easily be used in multiple channels. Its omnichannel presence offers a clickable cloud dashboard that allows you to monitor conversations and performances.
- Leveraging chatbots in mobile can start relevant conversations with customers utilizing the right keywords. And provide relevant information related to the product. Hence the chatbot helps boost sales and turn visitors into potential clients.
WhatsApp Automation Bot
Now let us see some of the roles of WhatsApp automation bot.
Lead generation
The entire sales process is futile without lead generation. WhatsApp chatbot allows you to automate the process and encourage customers to provide you with their details via a simple click-to-chat link. You automatically receive customer details like name and phone number right after the customer starts a conversation. And this is when you get to crack the deal by making the most out of those details. You can share powerful CTAs like this.
- Campaign ads- it is a great way to earn new customers. The click-to-WhatsApp approach allows your prospective customers to click on your Facebook or Google ad which will direct them to a WhatsApp chat invitation. It allows better engagement right from the start.
- Product/Category button
This button permits your prospective customers to receive notifications or updates via WhatsApp. The notification can inform the customers that the product they were looking to buy is back in stock.
Automating FAQs
Right from the start when customers visit the website till the final payment for the purchase is made, every business wants their customers to have a smooth journey.
However, during the process, customers ask repetitive questions to understand the product better before making any purchase.
The FAQs contain detailed information about refunds, size, payment options, offers, and more. It makes the purchasing process easier. Otherwise, most customers end up leaving the process and making any purchase if their confusion is not cleared.
WhatsApp chatbot handles the FAQ section and helps the customer make the right decision. It provides relevant and quick answers to the customers. This increases the conversion rate and minimizes support ticket volume.
Internal help desk support
The chatbot does not only assist your customer but your agents as well. With the help of NLP and ML chatbot uses human language analysis. The pre-programmed data helps the bot understand your industry-specific language and the ways users ask questions. It enhances your support agents’ productivity and efficiency.
The chatbot studies the conversation with the customer and assists the internal help desk with the required information. The conversation can be evaluated and important details and keywords can be extracted.
Hence answering the shopper’s queries becomes easier for them.
Collecting feedback
Collecting feedback from customers is critical. It helps you understand the flaws and work on the corrective measures. However collecting feedback is an uphill task, but the WhatsApp chatbot makes the process easier and quicker.
It allows customers to freely share their thoughts on the product. The built-in camera feature can be used for that matter to record any problem the product has or benefits it offers. The two-way conversation makes it more likely for customers to interact and exchange their reviews.
The videos with positive feedback can be shared on the product page or social media, which will help generate more leads. Whereas negative feedback can be used to implement corrective actions.
Suggested read: How to add WhatsApp bot to group?
WhatsApp Automation API
WhatsApp Business app and WhatsApp API, both offer significant features for businesses to operate. Business app comes with features like quick reply, auto-response, and more, very much suitable for small businesses. It is also a free tool to use.
However, once your business upgrades, the business app is no longer capable of handling the growth. Therefore, it becomes crucial to shift to WhatsApp automation API which is capable of supporting a large number of uses and devices. Given below are some of the advantages of WhatsApp automation API.
- The automation API helps you go further and pull off more than what a chatbot builder generally permits. With its help, you can extract data from other tools like CRM, databases, etc to enhance interaction with customers.
- The use of automation API enhances function and optimizes human resources. The API allows the chatbot to provide users data from various apps and sources to boost customer conversation.
- The human chatbot interaction is transformed with the help of API. The interaction happens more productively and smoothly as it allows data access from apps that are not part of the chatbot ecosystem.
- Integrating automation API helps you send customized messages based on the IP address or the data website visitors.
Explore: WhatsApp Cloud API
Wrap up
Due to its large user base, WhatsApp has been an attractive platform for automation among all automation platforms.
There’s hardly any business that doesn’t use WhatsApp to offer customer service and engage with customers. There are countless case studies and success stories that speak volumes about the boost in the messaging economy.
With 2 billion monthly active users, the future of business communication, and WhatsApp, growth is only multiplying.
Having so many positive sides to it, you should incorporate WhatsApp automation into your business and offer outstanding customer support.
Next read:
What is WhatsApp Shop and how to create?