Whatsapp AI chatbot power up your business and help you in gaining a competitive customer experience differentiation.

In this hyper-digitally connected world, automation has paid the way for individuals and organisations to make their day-to-day tasks easier. 

Whatsapp has 2 billion users globally with 500 million daily active users. With this, businesses are generating 3 million sales, and more than 5 million companies are using WhatsApp business. Along with this, AI-enabled chatbots are now more noticeable in the market prevalent to building a customer experience. 

With regard to this-

Let’s highlight some stats on customer service automation for businesses.

• Over 80% of customer relationships can be handled with little or no human intervention using WhatsApp and AI chatbots.
• More than 60% of US customers opt for an automated self-service, such as a mobile app, or website, to streamline customer service tasks. ( AE)
• 30% of US customers rate chatbot interactions as “highly effective” handling customer support. (Microsoft)
• Automation can also improve productivity up to 1.5 %annually at the global level.

With the popularity of WhatsApp AI chatbot, companies started deploying it in their overall business processes. It made their services more efficient, responsive and available to the customer. 

Before knowing further about Whatsapp AI chatbot, those who don’t know about Whatsapp chatbot, let’s first understand it.

What is a WhatsApp Chatbot/WhatsApp Bot?

Most of us know the term ‘chatbot’- it’s a program that communicates with users with predefined messages(either text or voice).

But when you talk about the Whatsapp chatbot, you can describe it from its application. A WhatsApp chatbot generally enables you to automate your sales and marketing support on your WhatsApp business account.

For instance, a WhatsApp AI chatbot for banks will respond to customers by providing details of their requests. It may be an account statement, credit card outstanding, available limit, and many more.

Let’s Focus on the ‘How to leverage whatsapp for your business?’

Automating Customer Services

Most of the time, customer executives won’t welcome the customers. An unwelcome customer may underrate your brand. 

An automated response will help them feel privileged. Not only welcome messages, but you can also automate some of the repetitive and FAQs to the customer. And notify the same to the respective department to attend to the customer. It will save your customer and support team time.

Improving Lead Generation

Whatsapp AI chatbot collects the user information, analyses, segments and uses it to answer the user queries. The collected data helps understand the preferences, interests, behaviour and other aspects of the customer. In turn, the support team will be ready with the appropriate solutions and offers to the customer to convert more leads.

Utilising A Large User-base of Whatsapp

With a huge number of active users of WhatsApp across the globe, you can easily target the users of your interest. And the response rate will also be a high and high possibility of opening the message. 

You can target a large audience and gain good business in a given period.

Improving Relationship with Customers

When you’re available to the customer with the right offers, services, answers to their doubts and provide valuable information on what the customer needs from the brand. 

Customers interact more with the brand and improve relationships with the customer. 

They are more willing to purchase from the same brand and thus improve customer loyalty, satisfaction, and retention. 

Reducing Workforce

As per the Business Insider Intelligent report, AI chatbots can save 11 billion $ annually for firms in the banking, retail, healthcare sectors by 2023. 

Chatbots can handle repetitive FAQs and other basic tasks and leave only the complex issues to the support team. 

Thus, it saves the support team’s time and focuses more on further improving the services. 

Sending Regular Reminders and Notifications

Chatbots encourage the customer to take the next actions by regularly notifying them of the offers, reminding them where they left (for ex: without being checked out), notifying them with the products they are looking for and many more ways.

It also helps customers sit relaxed as they get regular updates from the brand, and no need to put extra effort into checking. 

Improving Revenue with Whatsapp AI Chatbot

With a Whatsapp business account, you can easily market your product or services on WhatsApp, and you can cross-sell or up-sell your products. 

This type of service helps the customer to check out the product of their choice on the go. 

Reducing Cost to Company

As Whatsapp provides conversational solutions to the customer and brands. With this, customers can easily interact with the brand for their issues. 

You can answer multiple customers using WhatsApp AI chatbots in a single click, thereby saving time and cost to hire an additional support team. 

Furthermore, the WhatsApp AI chatbot works for your business round the clock, no need for human intervention. It automatically transfers the call to the respective team when the Whatsapp AI chatbot finds something complex to answer.

Improving Customer Experience

You can communicate with the customers in any format, such as images, videos, GIFs; you don’t have any restrictions on that. 

It also gives directions, along with addresses, with Google and iPhone maps. It saves your time attaching documents on emails; you can directly send them to your contacts in one click. 

Supporting Customers 24×7

Whatsapp is where people spend most of their time on social media platforms. 

You can easily interact with them by answering FAQs and using live chat to talk to agents about complex issues. 

Utilising WhatsApp Business API, you can set up quick replies. Use templates for auto-replies, and improve the agent’s performance with the WhatsApp chatbot.

Personalising Messages with Details

Whatsapp AI chatbot holds the ability to access the database of the company; based on that; they can create personalized messages to the customer. 

For example, welcoming customers by their names makes them feel privileged, and they are more willing to interact with you. 

Even Whatsapp AI chatbots can access the previous conversation history for replying appropriately to the customer. With this, any support team can access and reply. 

To summarise WhatsApp AI chatbots

Whatsapp AI chatbot will allow you to answer customer queries with automated conversations. It will collect, analyse, and segment leads to assist you in prioritising leads. 

Chatbots transfer the call to the human agents instantaneously on the messaging platform to convert leads faster. 

Other features of Whatsapp includes-personalised messaging, Drip marketing, engagement marketing, automated customer service and many more. 

But Whatsapp has some limitations that vary based on the type of WhatsApp business account you’re holding. 

Whatsapp business accounts are classified into two types-Whatsapp business app and Whatsapp business API. 

Let’s understand their differences first-

WhatsApp Business App Features Include:

• You can use this through a dedicated app
• It’s suitable for SME’s
• Quick replies
• You can add conversion labels
• Businesses can set an away message
• Specific business hours/profiles
• You don’t have the option to integrate with other systems like CRM, chatbot
• Whatsapp business apps can be used one person at a time.

You can use the WhatsApp business app through an app or on the WhatsApp web.

Whatsapp business API was launched in 2018; it’s very similar to the Whatsapp business app. An API(Application Programming Interface) is a code that activates apps to access data and interact with external elements. 

In short, an API sends a user response to a server and sends the server’s reply back to a user.

The API is deployed on a firm’s local server, which permits the companies to send and receive messages programmatically and integrates with Chatbot, CRM and other system tools.

Using Whatsapp API, firms can deploy chatbots on WhatsApp business accounts. Based on certain parameters, WhatsApp business API messages are classified into two types-

Session Messages– Businesses can contact customers within a 24-hour window for customer-initiated messages.

Message Templates– After a 24-hour window, only service reminders and notifications can be sent to customers that have opted in. Based on the pricing plans, BSPs charge a minimal fee for the messages. 

Whatsapp Business API Features Include:

• It’s suitable for large businesses
• Have the option to integrate with CRM and other analytical tools
• Access exclusively permitted through a BSP or ISV
• Verified business profile
• Have the chance to broadcast messages and notifications.
• Can use chatbot automation
• No app or interface, use through your CRM
• Multi-agent access for customer service

The main advantage of the Whatsapp business app is security; every message, a document sent on Whatsapp is end-to-end encrypted. The other one is its user interface and operations are so smooth and simple. 

The disadvantage of Whatsapp business apps is that you can be active on one device at a time, limiting the big organisation to reach large audiences. 

You can send promotional and spam messages directly to customers; WhatsApp doesn’t control that. 

In Whatsapp business apps, you can’t integrate with a chatbot, CRM and other analytical tools, and you can’t use template message broadcasts.

When it comes to WhatsApp business API, it’s particularly designed for large businesses; it has so many options to explore; some of its advantages are-

• A common dashboard with a chat inbox and CRM
• Allows third-party integrations like Shopify and chatbot.
• Multiple users log in to the dashboard simultaneously.
• Get an official business account through a green checkmark.
• KPIs tracking and analytics

With so much to explore in the WhatsApp business, API is popular across global companies to manage interactions with customers. 

Whatsapp Business API has Some Limitations. Let’s list out here:

You can’t send promotional messages to customers, and businesses can respond to customers’ replies for up to 24 hours of the window. After that, they need to pay a minimal fee. And messages need to be approved by WhatsApp.

There is no front-end interface provided, and no WhatsApp official app is available. Here, you need to take the WhatsApp business API endpoint and integrate it with your CRM or business software or third-party solutions. 

Now you might have got confused about which one suits you better for your business. 

Let’s clear this for you here-Whatsapp business app or WhatsApp business API?

If you have a small business with limited customers, you can go for the WhatsApp business app and for large companies you can’t handle at once, go for API.

Let’s discuss this in more detail for you-.

Go with WhatsApp Business App if:

• You have customers around 200-300
• If it’s a passive income channel where a few customers interact with you for some queries. 
• If only 2-3 customer support teams are enough to manage WhatsApp.
• The time spent on conversations is not an important part of your business.
• You don’t have to use any system or analytical tools for your business, and you don’t bother if you are not using customer data with your existing tools. 
• You don’t have enough budget to invest in social media channels. 

Go with Whatsapp Business API if:

• You have a large customer audience of over 1000, and you want them to engage on WhatsApp.
• You want to use WhatsApp to send timely notifications and reminders to your customer for better reach and achieve a high open-rate.
• Want to use WhatsApp as a channel to offer personalised shopping, gain new customers, or improve customer support.
• You need over two people to handle your expected large volume of conversations.
• You need third-party tools to assist the support team in handling large and complex issues easily and improve overall team efficiency.
• Budget is not a concern, and can afford at least $100/month into sales and marketing channels.
• Need more support team to manage backup 
• You have a developers team to develop intended things over APIs and often manage your internal tools for WhatsApp Business API.

Designing your Whatsapp Business Chatbot- Things to Keep in Mind. 

By knowing the advantages of Whatsapp business API to your business, you might be excited to deploy the same and benefit from your company. If you already have a WhatsApp business app account with you- you can migrate to the WhatsApp business API from the WhatsApp business app by following this procedure.

Here are a few things to consider:

• Determine your WhatsApp chatbot goal. For example- driving sales, answering queries or just increasing customer engagement.
• Decide which design of chatbot to use NLP platform or rule-based. You can select this based on the complexity of tasks and resources available.
• Select the language you want to communicate with your customers, or your target customers prefer the most.
• Know the limitations of the chatbot, such as carousels, buttons, etc. 
• Define the personality of the brand, as your chatbot represents your brand. 
• Be natural; ensure that you don’t sound like a robot. 
• Design the conversational flow by considering the UI limitations WhatsApp business API has. For example- you can start with a menu wherein you permit the user to choose one item by sending its serial no. 1, 2,3, etc., or you can use a Yes/No button or use suggestive type questions. It keeps the conversation in flow, and chatbots transfer it to human agents when they find it complex to answer. 
• Security issues must be considered 
• Define when to switch to human agents.

Conclusion for Whatsapp AI Chatbot

Driving customer-centric solutions is the power-up strategy for today’s businesses. With Whatsapp popularity and availability in 180 countries, your customer loves when you’re reaching them out on their most preferred and available channel. 

You can send instant responses, solve queries, advertise and do many more. Whatsapp business API is proved to be very beneficial for business. 

The choice is yours which one to choose: WhatsApp business app or WhatsApp business API based on your business requirements and limitations. 

If you need any additional information or assistance to make the right decision for your businesses, don’t hesitate in reaching us out at Smatbot contact. 

Our Smatbot team instantly provides you with a valuable solution and helps you deploy a WhatsApp chatbot business or WhatsApp business API for your business. 

You can even go for a 14-day free trial. We are glad to assist in either case.