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Originally Posted On: https://sleekflow.io/blog/whatsapp-manager

 

The global outbreak of the Covid-19 has dramatically reshaped the usual practices of many businesses. While many retailers are considering shutting their physical stores and moving their operations online, instant messaging is becoming increasingly popular as a must-have communication tool.

With the most active users worldwide, almost every business has WhatsApp installed. It can be incorporated into the business core in various ways, from offering immediate help guides to personalizing customer experiences, supplementing product information and announcing limited discounts. However, accomplishing these tasks can be quite demanding as not all businesses can unleash their full potential due to limited resources. If you find yourself burdened with excessive workload, the WhatsApp Manager that Sleekflow provides will definitely soothe your nerves.

WhatsApp VS WhatsApp Business

It is very common for some e-commerce businesses to use their own WhatsApp account for both personal and business purposes, even though it is not recommended. Apart from the messy chat management, there are actually many exclusive features in the WhatsApp Business app provides:

1. Business Profile

In the regular WhatsApp, the personal profile only includes the user’s name, profile picture, status and phone number. On the other hand, you will be able to include more information on the WhatsApp Business app’s company profile as it shows more than just your company name, profile picture and phone number. It also shows your business description, business category, opening hours, email and website.

 

2. Automatic Welcome/ Away Message

Unlike the standard WhatsApp, where you have to manually send messages, the WhatsApp Business app allows you to automatically trigger simple messages. For example, if a customer reaches out to you during out-of-office hours, WhatsApp will automatically send an “Away Message” in accordance to your unavailability. If a customer sends you a message for the first time or in a long while, they will receive a pre-defined onboarding message to help them move forward.

 

3. Search Filters

In WhatsApp, users can only search for chats using words or phrases. However, in WhatsApp Business you can go a step further and narrow down the search criteria by filtering the messages according to keywords, unread messages, broadcast lists, labels and more.

 

4. WhatsApp Link

The fact that you cannot send messages to an unsaved contact is particularly annoying. Fortunately, there is a short link feature available in WhatsApp Business. The short link is a “click-to-chat” URL that allows customers to begin a chat with you without adding your number to their contacts. You can even customize a pre-filled message to be sent when customers click on your link.

Check out our blog about WhatsApp Link.

Want to generate a customized WhatsApp Link? SleekFlow’s WhatsApp link generator is soon to be published!

5. Quick Replies

The customers are always looking for more details, as a result, they might ask the same questions over and over again. To help you speed up your reply process,, WhatsApp Business offers a Quick Reply feature. You can create keyboard shortcuts for the most frequently sent messages. After setting up your quick replies, simply type in “/” and all the preset quick replies will pop up for your selection.

6. Chat Labels

This convenient feature can only be found on WhatsApp Business. Labeling comes in handy when you want to quickly track information such as orders and leads within a tap, not only can you organize your entire chats or a specific message with labels, but you can also add colors for easier identification.

 

Reasons to Use WhatsApp Business

Simply put, WhatsApp Business is a powerful tool to streamline your business process.

1. Sales

Long queues scare away customers, so do waiting time. Fortunately, with WhatsApp Business, you only have to spend little time and effort to make your customers happy. Using Quick Replies, you can answer customers’ queries within a shorter period of time. In addition, you can use labels to effectively categorize your customers for better follow-up, once their status has changed in your business, you can swiftly change their tags so the sales representatives won’t get confused.

2. Marketing

The “click-to-chat” link is a great tactic to initiate conversation across platforms. You can embed the link into your CTA button, email signature, banner ads and social media pages, converting visitors into valuable leads. Apart from attracting new users, you can also use WhatsApp to foster stronger bonds with the existing customers. For example, you can send them birthday greetings and festive wishes, which is conducive to keeping your place in customers’ hearts and minds.

To further study WhatsApp marketing, see The best WhatsApp marketing software you should know in 2022!

3. Support

WhatsApp is now dominating the messenger landscape, in other words, it might be many of your customers’ most preferable instant messaging channel. You can provide customer support and deliver important notifications including appointment confirmations and payment reminders to customers. Since WhatsApp is capable of functioning smoothly even on low data devices, it creates reachability for literally anyone with a smartphone, offering direct access to quality support.

In fact, big brands like Singtel in Singapore, STACCATO in Hong Kong are well leveraging WhatsApp for their customer service!

Why should You Consider Using WhatsApp Manager

WhatsApp Manager refers to a centralized messaging platform, instead of handling the enquiries on the original app, you can manage the conversations with an all-in-one platform and deliver better customer experiences from your sales, support and marketing teams.

1. Integrate all messaging channels into one

Although WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging app, it is not the only one. Other apps such as WeChat, Facebook Messenger and Line also have their unique audience and significant strengths, you should therefore be well prepared across every touchpoint. With WhatsApp Manager, you can merge multiple social channels into one single place, eliminating the need of switching between apps.

2. Maximize your team’s performance

As WhatsApp Business does not support more than 2 devices at the same time, this might affect the efficiency of your communication with customers. If having multiple logins to WhatsApp Business is important to your operations, a WhatsApp Manager can be your solution. It often includes a shared inbox function and each team member will have their own login ID as well as password to access the same WhatsApp Business account so as to ensure high security. Apart from the multi-staff logins, the admin can also tag and assign roles to the team members within the WhatsApp inbox, avoiding duplicate and conflicting responses. If you wish to review the performance index, there will be a set of metrics on the message frequency, response rates and individual performance, which allows you to conduct a detailed analysis.

3. Run a better WhatsApp campaign

When it comes to sending customized messages such as birthday wishes with the recipients’ names attached, you might have experienced the need to copy and paste the same message again and again. However, with a WhatsApp Manager, you can deliver a highly personalized experience almost effortlessly – segment, filter and label customers to schedule tailor-made messages, delivery updates and season’s greetings in one click, saving your team’s time and effort.

For Shopify merchants, some WhatsApp managers can even integrate with Shopify seamlessly to make your post-purchase follow-up easy. For example, SleekFlow can automatically trigger an abandon cart message. A reminder can be sent automatically after 24 hours with a promo code.

4. Build your own bot

One special feature of the WhatsApp Manager is that you can achieve automation without coding. In the past, you might have to assign the chats to the representatives manually, but with a WhatsApp Manager, you can quickly route the conversations to the right teammate using keywords, time and language to streamline the entire workflow as well as the customer engagement journey.