What is WhatsApp for Customer Service?

How to Use WhatsApp for Customer Service

WhatsApp Business gives you direct access to consumers in order to enhance the overall quality of your company's customer service operations. The goal is to provide users with clear and understandable information in a one-to-one conversation on the app. Business owners can send out short, sharp questions that the customer can respond to easily.

WhatsApp can be used for customer service operations such as tracking and order updates, refund and replacement, and gathering customer feedback. We'll go into more detail about how this is done shortly.

What Are the Benefits of Customer Service via WhatsApp?

Offering a proactive service to customers early on in their journey bears long-term benefits, with evidence showing that businesses can increase revenues between 4% and 8% above their market when they choose to prioritize better customer service experiences.

The popularity of WhatsApp is in itself a selling point when it comes to its use as a communications channel for customer service operations. The app’s message open rate is an incredible 98%, meaning that out of every 100 messages sent, 98 messages are read. You're also more likely to get an answer, with research showing that 90% of people respond within 30 minutes of receiving a message on their phones. Given that the priority with customer service is the ability to have dialogue with the customer quickly and efficiently in real time, the figures speak for themselves.

WhatsApp also offers a whole host of benefits when it comes to your company's customer service team. You can boost team productivity by allowing the WhatsApp chatbot to handle a high volume of customer service conversations on every channel. As we’ll see shortly, live agents will have to deal with a comparatively small amount of customer queries and therefore have more time to carry out more productive tasks.

WhatsApp Customer Service Use Case Examples

Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a vital part of any business as an essential point of contact between the buyer and the seller. Through the use of automated WhatsApp templates, business owners can send out short, sharp questions that the customer can respond to easily; thereby enhancing the quantity and quality of the feedback that is sent to you.

As previously mentioned, companies can benefit from WhatsApp's high engagement rate; while customers can choose when to reply or fill out the questionnaires that are sent to them. On top of this, the simple, instant messaging style that WhatsApp provides is ideal when it comes to getting straight to the point of whatever issue the customer is dealing with.

Tracking & Order Updates

Customers of brands that use WhatsApp to provide tracking and order updates can be kept in the loop regarding the status of the delivery from the moment an order is placed right up to the point of delivery. Customers will receive a WhatsApp message to confirm when a payment has been made, as well as regular delivery updates throughout the entire shipping process.

FAQ and Service Automation

With the use of technology such as chatbots and virtual assistants on WhatsApp Business, eCommerce brands can greatly improve refund and replacement and customer service operations, turning both into a simple automated process that drives customer satisfaction and reduces workload.

It does so by allowing businesses to program completely automated responses to the most common questions, seamlessly integrating these interactions into your customer relationship management system. Of course, the platform will always provide customers with the option of asking to be handed over to live members of staff should they wish to do so; but the idea is to use the technology available on WhatsApp Business to bring down live agents' workload while automating and optimizing responses to the most frequently asked questions.

What Are the Different Types of Messages for Customer Service on WhatsApp?

The types of messages allowed to start a conversation on WhatsApp Business Platform fall into two distinct groups: Messages initiated by the customer (also known as User-Initiated conversations) and Template Messages initiated by the company (also known as Business-Initiated conversations).

WhatsApp takes steps to ensure the right customer experience for users at all times, regardless of whether they're involved in a Business or User-Initiated conversation. Messaging limitations known as Conversation Sessions are one such measure. When a user sends a message to your business, a conversation session starts; allowing brands to reply to their messages within a 24-hour window. The idea behind this time limit is to make sure that businesses respect privacy and respond quickly to incoming messages.

WhatsApp sets a specific fee for both User-Initiated conversations as well as Business-Initiated conversations depending on the country.

How to Start with WhatsApp for Customer Service

By condensing all the information that your consumers are looking for into short, clear messages and sending it to one familiar place, you'll be streamlining your customer services operations and making your customers' lives that little bit easier. People will feel a sense of reassurance and transparency when dealing with your company, as they'll see that you're making a conscious effort to let them know what's happening with their order throughout the ordering process. Here at CM.com, we can help you get started using WhatsApp as a communication channel for your eCommerce customer service operations.

Looking to get going as soon as possible? You can talk to one of our experts to request a demo and find out everything you need to know about pricing, implementation, or anything else you might need.