Send WhatsApp messages in bulk
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Broadcast messages in bulk
Automate your WhatsApp marketing
Connect your chat apps in a shared inbox
Multiple chat apps on one website widget
Drive sales to your Shopify store
Drive sales to your EasyStore site
Content Marketer
Are you still using your personal WhatsApp account for business communications? 😯
It’s about time to move over to and use the WhatsApp Business app instead!
Never heard about it? Was never convinced to adopt its use?
Fret not! We’re here to give a simple introduction to what makes WhatsApp Business so good and show you how simple it is to transition from WhatsApp to WhatsApp Business!
WhatsApp Business is WhatsApp’s official mobile application made to support smaller businesses in their business communications and sales. It is largely similar to regular WhatsApp, but has additional features to support business communication needs.
The WhatsApp Business app has everything that you’ll find on the regular WhatsApp app and more. Simply put, think of it as a duplicate WhatsApp app and account that’s dedicated for your business.
It has its own dedicated mobile app and has all the familiar features like text messaging, WhatsApp Groups, WhatsApp Broadcast, voice and video calling, and is accessible through WhatsApp Web.
However, the WhatsApp Business app has other features to boost business communications on the WhatsApp platform. Let’s take a look at some of these advanced business features! 👇
WhatsApp Businesses’ business profile is similar to how a regular WhatsApp profile works — it shows your phone number, profile picture, and information about yourself. It’s like an ‘about us’ page, but on WhatsApp!
As seen below, you’ll be able to include information such as your brand logo, business name, and your business catalog.
A special notification in-chat notifies your customers that they are chatting with a dedicated business account.
Up to 2 devices can be connected to the same WhatsApp Business account.
Under the same ‘Business Tools’ tab, you will be able to set-up 3 kinds of semi-automated messaging to support your business communication.
1. Greeting Message: Set up this generic welcome message to auto-respond to new incoming chats or to conversations that have no activity after 14 days.
2. Away Message: Set a schedule, such as your working hours, to inform your leads or customers that you are currently unavailable but have received their message, and will respond to them as soon as possible.
3. Quick reply template: Customize several message templates to be easily inserted into your chat box by using the assigned keyword after ‘/’.
For example, you can set up the quick reply keyword ‘/thanks’ with the message template ‘Thank you for shopping with us! We hope to see you again soon!’, and use it at the end of every successful sale over a WhatsApp chat.
Quick replies are useful for such commonly used phrases, and for answering frequently asked questions.
Tag different conversations with different chat labels to easily identify the type of conversation and customer.
For example, you can set up labels according to which stage of the sales cycle the contact is, or according to which industry the customer is from.
We think that businesses of all sizes should set up their dedicated WhatsApp Business account.
However, here’s a few questions you can ask yourself to make a convincing choice to make the move over to WhatsApp Business.
Are you receiving business-related messages on WhatsApp after office hours? Is it affecting your work-life balance?
WhatsApp Business is meant to help businesses have a dedicated account for business communication.
If you find yourself wondering if every new WhatsApp notification is personal or business, then it’s time to make the switch.
You can’t live with your regular WhatsApp account indefinitely if you see your sales volume increasing.
If you foresee your business growing and you need to scale up its operations, then make the switch to WhatsApp Business in advance so that you can support that.
As your business grows, you’ll need semi-automation or completely automated solutions to boost your customer service. Notifying your customers when their shipment is on the way, informing them of successful transactions, or dropping them a thank you message once delivery is complete are all parts of a growing business’ essentials for messaging.
Unless your business remains as a small side hobby; you should transition from WhatsApp to WhatsApp Business.
Before we run through the steps to transit from regular WhatsApp Messaging to WhatsApp Business, we must note this important point.
You can’t use the same phone number for both WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business accounts. Each phone number must be registered with a unique WhatsApp account.
As such, you can have the choice of either creating a new account with a new phone number, or convert your existing WhatsApp account that’s tied to your existing phone number into a WhatsApp Business account.
But don’t worry — Regardless of which choice you make, the regular WhatsApp messaging app and the WhatsApp Business app will still be two distinct apps that are accessible from the same device. This is especially helpful for dual-SIM phone users.
If you’re using your existing WhatsApp phone number for WhatsApp Business, you’ll want to back up your chat history and settings so that it can be easily ported over to the WhatsApp Business App.
If you’re not using your existing phone number, skip over this step to step 1.
To back up your account, simply head over to your settings tab on WhatsApp and click on “Chats”.
Then, head over to “Chat backup”.
And click on “Back up” and wait for the upload to complete! Then you’re all set with your WhatsApp chat history backed up.
After you’ve downloaded WhatsApp Business, open up the app and agree to WhatsApp’s Business Terms of Service. Once you’ve read the document, click on “Agree and Continue”.
You will then be prompted to set up your WhatsApp Business business profile.
All relevant information that best represents your business and the description of your business must be included during setup.
Under the same ‘Business tools’ tab, you’ll be able to add your products and services to your WhatsApp business catalog.
For every item listed, input an image, name, and description of your product or service. You can also choose to add in additional details like its price, the product URL link to your business website, and its item code.
The WhatsApp Business app offers 3 semi-automated messaging features, all found under the ‘Business tools’ tab.
Set up automated WhatsApp welcome messages when leads and customers reach out to you for the first time on a WhatsApp conversation.
The Away message is another automated reply sent to incoming messages from leads and customers when it’s after business working hours.
Quick replies can be customized with your preferred keyword, and some descriptive words can also be added to each template message for easy reference. Quick replies can be used directly within WhatsApp Business chat conversations, and are easily set up on the page seen below.
WhatsApp Business will also come with some default chat labels for you to label each conversation. Freely customize chat labels to identify leads and customers according to your unique business communications needs.
With that, you have now completed your transition over to WhatsApp Business! Hooray! 🥳
We hope that you’ll be most delighted with the switch over to WhatsApp Business. But maybe you’re thinking how you can do even more with your WhatsApp Business account?
Use NovoChat to seamlessly integrate your WhatsApp Business account and access even more powerful business communication features!
NovoChat is a chat marketing platform built for e-commerce businesses.
Its broadcast feature bypasses all strict WhatsApp guidelines and restrictions, such as the 24-hour session window, 256 recipient limit, and template rules. You can even send personalized bulk WhatsApp messages to every recipient!
Also, NovoChat has a centralized inbox that enables businesses to conduct multi-agent customer support across WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, and LINE — accessible straight from your web browser.
Its website chat widget is an excellent tool to convert website visitors into potential leads and customers by directing them to a conversation with you at their preferred messaging platform!
So wait no longer — move your business communications from regular WhatsApp to WhatsApp Business today, and click the button below to give NovoChat a go with its 7-day free trial!
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