WhatsApp, with its massive user base of over 2.7 billion, has become an indispensable communication tool for businesses that helps them connect better with their customers. But manually managing conversations can be overwhelming & time-consuming. This is where WhatsApp automation features come in, offering a powerful solution to drastically improve your customer experiences & drive business growth.
In this article, we are going to explore the fundamentals of automation on WhatsApp, its benefits, and its importance for sales, support, and engagement. We’ll also share everything about how to automate messages on the WhatsApp business app & the WhatsApp business platform.
What is WhatsApp Automation?
WhatsApp automation refers to relying on software to handle repetitive tasks and manage customer interactions on the WhatsApp platform without constant human intervention. Businesses can choose between the WhatsApp Business App and API for automation:
- WhatsApp Business App: Suitable for businesses with low messaging volume, offering basic automation features.
- WhatsApp Business API: Designed for medium to large enterprises with higher messaging volume and large scale of operations, providing advanced automation capabilities. If you’re new to the term, check out this WhatsApp Business API Guide.
While the WhatsApp Business App offers some automation functionality, its capabilities are limited. As operations grow, companies often need to transition to the WhatsApp Business API for more robust automation features.
Automating messages on WhatsApp can help your sales team save a significant amount of time. Key areas where your sales team needs to leverage these technologies are:
Sales Automation
Automating your sales on WhatsApp streamlines business processes by handling lead generation, follow-ups, and conversions. This automation ensures potential customers receive timely responses and relevant information, ultimately leading to higher sales conversions.
Customer Service Automation
Automating customer support on WhatsApp can significantly reduce the load on support agents by handling common queries, providing instant responses & ensuring 24/7 availability. This leads to faster resolution times and higher customer satisfaction.
How Can WhatsApp Automation Benefit Your Businesses?
There is no doubt that WhatsApp automation is extremely important for your business & it has lots of benefits that will positively impact your business. Here are some key benefits just to name a few:
- Faster response times: Automated responses ensure that customer queries are addressed instantly, even outside business hours.
- Lower support agent load: By handling routine inquiries automatically, human agents can focus on more complex issues.
- Better sales conversions: Timely follow-ups & personalized interactions can improve conversion rates.
- Higher customer satisfaction: Quick responses & consistent communication lead to improved customer experiences.
At its core, WhatsApp automation works by integrating APIs with your existing business systems. This integration allows for seamless automation of various WhatsApp interactions and messages.
How to Automate Messages on WhatsApp Business App
For small businesses with low messaging volume, the WhatsApp Business App offers basic automation features:
- Greeting messages: Automatically welcome new customers or respond to initial inquiries.
- Away messages: Set up automatic replies when you’re unavailable or outside business hours.
Setting up automated messages is a subtle change, but its impact is going to be huge! Keeping customers engaged and satisfied is key in customer support today. If you don’t do it effectively yourself, your competitor will. Setting up WhatsApp automated messages is easier than ever and their benefits are manifold.
Limitations of Automation on WhatsApp Business App
- Limited customization options
- No chatbot functionality
- Restricted to 5 devices only
- No integrations
- Manual contact management
- Broadcasts limited to 256 contacts
How to Automate Messages on WhatsApp Business API?
The WhatsApp Business App has made it easier for businesses to communicate with customers. However, the app has many limitations, like having no chatbot functionality, limited customization options & manual content management. With that, the WhatsApp Business API emerged as the solution to all of these issues. It fixed all the problems businesses had with the business app and became a replaceable way to scale operations and automate tasks over WhatsApp.
To automate messages on the WhatsApp Business Platform, chatbots are the way to go. All you need is a WhatsApp tool that helps you build a chatbot with zero lines of code, like Rasayel