Most people are familiar with WhatsApp as a widely used communication application for staying in touch with family and friends.
However, others would have recognized that it has applications beyond personal usage and have begun to use it to contact businesses for customer service-related inquiries. With the launch of WhatsApp Business API in 2018, the Facebook-owned messaging app decided to open up to the business sector.
The WhatsApp Business API enables small and large companies to communicate with their consumers all over the world. While gaining API access was always difficult, there are now several solution providers who make it simple for every organization and budget
How is WhatsApp Business API different from WhatsApp Business App?
The two options for doing business on Whatsapp are WhatsApp Business Business App and WhatsApp Business API. Despite having the same name, they are significantly distinct in terms of feature set, pricing, and use cases supported.
The WhatsApp Business App is perfect for small enterprises that provide services to customers in their locality. However, for large-scale enterprises, it still falls short in managing individual interactions and is problematic in terms of data protection.
WhatsApp Business API (Application Programming Interface) allows companies to receive and respond to limitless WhatsApp messages from their consumers, providing a safe, scalable option for bigger organizations.
How does WhatsApp Business API work?
WhatsApp Business API is a new avenue for companies wanting to broaden their market presence into the consumer experience. It allows advertisers to promote growth and interact with consumers in a more personal way, on a less loud channel with a better delivery rate than emails.
WhatsApp Business API, as a B2C messaging channel, shifts away from mass marketing communications and toward offering real-time, relevant, and high-value communication. Because of use case constraints, it works well for segmented users—blast marketing campaigns and advertising messaging are strictly prohibited on this platform.
Businesses who wish to connect to the WhatsApp API are advised to use third-party services known as Business Solution Providers (BSPs) or WhatsApp Partners. Applying via them makes it easier to obtain acceptance for a WhatsApp API account.
Whatsapp Business API Features
WhatsApp Business API provides a lot to offer for small and large organizations equally. Some of its features are as follows:
- Having a unified dashboard and a unified team inbox to facilitate conversation and customer management.
- Allowing many people to access the dashboard at the same time.
- Allowing for third-party software integration.
- Responding to client’s inquiries programmatically.
- Verifying an authentic business account with a green checkmark.
- Tracking performance and important metrics.
WhatsApp Business API for Marketing
Marketers who are looking forward are utilizing WhatsApp Business API to establish more customized consumer interactions on a less crowded channel.
The WhatsApp Business API is still in its initial stages, and both the platforms and advertisers are investigating its potential. For the time being, its primary focus is on providing user-initiated assistance messages and business-initiated transactional communications that are free of advertising material.
WhatsApp Business API Integration
As noted earlier, one of the benefits of WhatsApp Business API is that it allows for several connections with other systems like CRMs, contact center tools, ticketing platforms, and so on.
Without a doubt, the most desired connectivity is with renowned CRM software such as HubSpot, Salesforce, and many more.
If you currently use WhatsApp to communicate with your clients and want to integrate it with current business systems, the first step is to obtain WhatsApp’s permission to access and utilize its business API.
