WhatsApp has given rise to a lot of new opportunities and ways for small businesses to grow and stay connected with their customers.
Be it for support, marketing, or sales, WhatsApp has allowed growing businesses to seamlessly interact and engage with their audiences at a more personal level.
But to get the best out of this, businesses need a WhatsApp marketing messaging platform.
In this post, we will discuss some of how WhatsApp messaging platforms can benefit small businesses.
Benefits of using WhatsApp messaging platforms for small businesses
Here are the benefits of using WhatsApp messaging platforms for small businesses:
1. Streamlined communication
With a WhatsApp messaging platform, you can manage all of your customer conversations and get a more comprehensive view of your customer interactions from a single centralized dashboard. Features like shared team inbox can allow your team to better handle these queries without missing a beat.
2. Real-time engagement
WhatsApp’s engagement rate of 83% means that it is a highly effective channel when it comes to involving and effectively communicating with customers. With a WhatsApp messaging platform, businesses can be swifter with their real-time responses and thus make the customer feel valued and connected to the brand.
3. Automation capabilities
Automation tools like chatbots can save time by simplifying repetitive tasks, including handling frequent queries, sending booking confirmations, or updating customers on their order status. This not only minimizes manual intervention but also ensures consistent and prompt communication. By automating workflows on WhatsApp, growing businesses can focus on higher-value activities while maintaining good service quality.
4. Personalized messaging
71% of customers feel frustration when a shopping experience is impersonal as customers are more prone to respond better towards content that speaks to them. Businesses can send highly customized messages on WhatsApp messaging platforms, based on customer data like preferences, purchase history, or location. This can be the foundation for building stronger long-term customer relationships, especially for a small and growing business.
5. Broadcast messaging
With WhatsApp broadcast messaging, businesses can share promotional offers, announcements, and product updates or even run flash sales, seamlessly and at scale, without having to compromise on personalization.
6. Integration with CRM
By integrating the WhatsApp messaging platform with a CRM system, businesses can track conversations, maintain detailed histories of customers, and generate actionable insights.
7. Secure conversations
As customer data privacy is paramount, WhatsApp ensures security with its end-to-end encryption. This means that sensitive customer information is always protected, fostering trust and compliance with global data protection regulations.
8. Scalable solution
By allowing businesses to manage thousands of messages daily and accommodate complex workflows, these platforms can ensure scalability, consistency, and smooth operations regardless of the size of the business, its WhatsApp Business growth strategies, or its growth rate.
9. Rich media support
WhatsApp for small businesses offers the benefit of using rich media such as images, videos, product catalogs, documents, and more to engage customers effectively. This enables businesses to not only grab attention but also provide clarity and convey information to customers in the best way possible.
10. Analytics and insights
You can gain valuable insight into customer behavior and campaign success by tracking metrics like click-through rates, conversions, response times, etc., and use these insights to refine your strategies.
11. 24/7 availability
Around 51% of customers are of the opinion that businesses need to provide support 24/7 if they are to meet modern-day customer expectations. With automated replies and self-service options, providing round-the-clock support and meeting these expectations can be made possible. With a good WhatsApp messaging platform in place, customers can access information, resolve issues, or make inquiries at their convenience, without waiting for business hours.
12. Global reach
As of 2024, WhatsApp’s active user count across the globe has reached close to 3 billion. By using the right WhatsApp messaging tool small businesses can reach a wider audience, catering to both local and international markets while maintaining consistent communication across borders and barriers.
Success stories of small businesses that use WhatsApp messaging platforms
For a better perspective on how these benefits play out in the real world here are a few success stories from small businesses that use WhatsApp messaging platforms:
Shumee
Known for its sustainable, artisanal, and handcrafted toys, activity boxes, and games, Shumee is a unique and popular DTC brand. The brand’s primary concern was to provide the constant and hands-on communication that the consumers demanded at different stages of their journeys, irrespective of how small the customer concern was.
By leveraging automation through Interakt, Shumee was able to address 70% of its communication needs during the buying cycle and was able to provide easy and accessible support to its customers. By making the best of WhatsApp with a competent WhatsApp messaging platform, Shumee saw its average delivery rate increase up to 99% through proactive customer communication.
House of Mangalam
House of Mangalam, a popular brand that sells camphor-based products, launched its DTC website in 2021. The brand, besides a steady increase in sales, noticed that it needed to provide an easy way for customers to track orders and access instant assistance. As most customers like to know more about the brand before making any decisions, providing seamless communication was key here.
By incorporating WhatsApp messaging, the brand saw its open rate increase to 88%. Using Interakt, the brand was able to share automated WhatsApp business notifications for easier order tracking, while improving other aspects such as its promotional campaigns and abandoned cart recovery. In this manner, the brand was able to meet the rising customer expectations and run impactful promotional campaigns that were converting prospects efficiently.
All Things Baby
All Things Baby is a baby care eCommerce platform that offers an array of essential high-quality baby care products from international brands such as Baby Bjorn, Ubbi, Abena, Brainsmith, Bambo Nature etc. The company’s greatest challenge came during Covid-19 when customer queries sky-rocketed and thus they realized the need to personalize these interactions.
With the Interakt WhatsApp messaging platform and its features such as shared team inbox and automated personalized messaging, the company was able to manage its customer conversations much more effectively. With the Shopify integration, customers were able to even shop for their favorite product, while conversing with All Things Baby’s team over WhatsApp, making for seamless purchase experiences.
Conclusion
WhatsApp messaging platforms offer a lot of ways to get the most out of WhatsApp Business while overcoming some of its biggest limitations.
By using WhatsApp messaging platforms such as Interakt to leverage automation and advanced personalization capabilities, small businesses can improve their business communication and see growth even in highly competitive market environments.
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