How to sell on WhatsApp?

Let’s assume you have a product or service to sell!

Where would you go to find prospective customers? Where would you advertise, promote or sell your product or service?

It would reasonable to say that you would go where you could meet, make contact with and interact with new people, to whom you could introduce your product and service and stay in touch.

These days, social media platforms are places that would meet these requirements of places for meeting and interacting with people. And so, social media platforms are a great place to sell. So it’s no surprise that social media platforms are already replete with online stores showcasing products and services as well inundated with marketers and sellers, making offers.

WhatsApp, re-visited!

But did you know that the social media app, with the largest user base, is WhatsApp? It is true! WhatsApp has more than 1.6 billion active users. Nearly 60 billion messages are being sent on the platform daily! Studies show that youth in the age groups of 15 to 25 prefer and are most likely to respond to instant messaging than any other channel of communication. Most of them resort to online shopping for their purchase needs. One might say, we are in the Golden Era of E-Commerce. If there is one word that spells this situation for sellers, that word would be OPPORTUNITY.

This makes WhatsApp the perfect place for sellers and marketers, to reach out, contact, promote, and pitch their products and services.

Anticipating this, in January 2018, WhatsApp announced WhatsApp Business. WhatsApp Business allowed you to assign a business or corporate account to a telephone number. It has several features catering to businesses such

• Setting up a Business Account against telephone number
• Allowing showcasing product portfolio 
• Canned quick responses

WhatsApp ups the ante!

In August 2018, WhatsApp launched WhatsApp API, which is quite different from WhatsApp Business, though it’s easy to confuse the two.

WhatsApp API is an API by WhatsApp offered to select third parties (called Business Solution Providers or BSPs) to build a variety of applications that use WhatsApp for business promotion and selling of products and services. Whereas WhatsApp Business is intended to introduce small businesses to WhatsApp as a reach-out marketing/selling tool, with WhatsApp API, WhatsApp is creating an entire ecosystem of applications and products such as Chatbots, CRMs, and so on, that businesses can use to promote their products and services.

With WhatsApp API, WhatsApp is empowering businesses to leverage WhatsApp’s incredible user base and not only contact WhatsApp users but also connect with customers and drive sales or deliver great customer service.

What does WhatsApp API enable you to do?

Since it’s an API, the app and front-end interface is developed by BSPs such as BotSpace

Some of the distinctive and distinguishing features and benefits of WhatsApp API are:

A verified business profile

This enables businesses to assign a different telephone number, one that has been verified by WhatsApp as an authentic business. This allows businesses to separate themselves and identify themselves as professional business account. This improves the image and credibility of your business. WhatsApp API profile cannot be searched in-app. However, businesses can become make it easier to be found, by adding details of their address, email, and website.

Integrating with systems

Usually medium and large businesses will have some application or enterprise software already that they would be used to manage the different areas of their business, including production, materials, supply chain, sales, finance, and so on. WhatsApp API and applications built around it, allow businesses to integrate the WhatsApp selling platform with their enterprise software or with the different applications they may already be using for managing the sales cycle. This allows for seamless integration of the WhatsApp platform with enterprise-based applications or legacy systems in a single interface.

Don't simply communicate with customers, connect with them

WhatsApp API allows you to reach out to prospects and your customers with rich content such as pictures, videos, locations. Bulk messages and tasks can be entirely automated through chatbots and at the same time, there is the option of switching to manual agent mode to communicate persuasively, to provide that little bit extra for sale or customer support. WhatsApp also allows for alerts, updates, alerts, and bulk notifications such as reminders of deliveries, orders, and appointments. This allows sellers to engage in both contextually relevant and information-rich conversations with prospects and customers for driving sales or customer support and customer experience.

Team Inbox

Whilst, WhatsApp Business enables you to assign one individual to one telephone number with a business account, WhatsApp API takes it up a notch. Realizing that medium and large-sized businesses usually have marketing or sales teams with sales agents and sales managers or customer service executives and service managers, who are engaged in the task of promotion and sales of their products, WhatsApp API enables businesses to have a Team Inbox.

A WhatsApp Team Inbox is an inbox shared between a sales or support team like any individual email inbox. All team members can view, track, and send/receive messages to prospects or customers, through a single telephone number assigned to a business profile. It provides a single account, a single view of the communication between agents and the customer. This reduces the possibility of duplication of work as well as sales-related communication, which is in one place.

Team Inbox goes beyond being an inbox. It automates the allocation and distribution of sales staff to the task of responding to customer emails. It allows business owners or sales managers to allocate such tasks, assign priority to messages, track the communication of agents and work progress, keep their pulse on the communication from customers, and intervene at the right moment, to drive sales or improve customer service quality Thus, the Team Inbox mimics certain CRM functionalities and empowering sales and customer service departments to drive sales and customer service quality.

There is no limit on the number of many team members or support agents businesses can have a WhatsApp conversation with customers on WhatsApp simultaneously.

Through Official Solutions Provider Only

WhatsApp API and its power are available to businesses only through our list of WhatsApp Business Solution Providers (BSPs). These are a select group of third-party solution providers with experts who have been appointed by WhatsApp to build applications around WhatsApp API, for businesses to use, drive sales, or deliver quality customer service. BSPs can work alongside businesses to deliver a variety of applications such as CRMs, Chatbots, and so on. They can also help businesses to integrate WhatsApp API-based applications with the applications they may already be used for sales or customer service.

BotSpace is one such BSP, that businesses may contact, for leveraging the power of WhatsApp API for sales and customer service.

At BotSpace, we will provide you with a pre-approved WhatsApp Business API with a verified green checkmark at zero upfront payment. You need to give these three things:

• Business Display name

• A verified Facebook Business Manager id

• A phone number that doesn’t have any WhatsApp account installed (both personal and business)

Note: If you already have a WhatsApp Business Account, moving to WhatsApp API-based applications is the logical next step. However, once you sign up for a WhatsApp API account, you would need to give up your WhatsApp Business Account. WhatsApp doesn’t allow you to hold onto both. Any messages or chats you may have had associated with your WhatsApp Business Account would need to be relinquished. For more details, please contact our team today.

To sum up, WhatsApp API is the next level offering from WhatsApp to business owners, looking to drive sales or improve customer service quality.

It enables businesses to leverage WhatsApp’s user base, which up until now was only as a social media place and turns WhatsApp into a serious tool for businesses to drive sales.

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