Is WhatsApp killing SMS, e mail, IVRs, and different buyer communication channels?

Final yr, when the pandemic was at its peak, the Indian authorities sought an answer to eradicate misinformation and empower residents with the best steps to take precautionary measures and keep protected throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This 24/7 digital helpdesk needed to reply COVID-19 queries and deal with the size and variety of queries being directed from hundreds of thousands of customers throughout the nation in English and Hindi.

Inside simply 5 days, Jio Haptik constructed the MyGov Corona Helpdesk, a WhatsApp chatbot that helped customers test signs and get a prognosis and offered ideas and precautionary measures to remain protected. Furthermore, it additionally shared the most recent updates and advisories from the Ministry of Well being.

Main D2C model which not too long ago acquired a deal from Peyush Bansal, Co-Founder, Lenskart, at Shark Tank India, The State Plate was in search of a dependable resolution to streamline their buyer assist. Inside a couple of months of signing up with Interakt, a Jio Haptik product, it was in a position to resolve 1.5X extra buyer queries on WhatsApp. The model makes use of the automated ticket task function on WhatsApp Business API for routing the shopper queries to the involved group and getting them resolved, quicker.

There’s a motive why these authorities businesses and new-age companies are leveraging WhatsApp as their communication medium. The primary is its widespread use that cuts by courses to succeed in the plenty. In response to Statista, there are over 487 million WhatsApp customers in India alone, making it the main nation by way of the messaging platform’s viewers measurement. The second motive for the channel’s success is its assist for regional languages and providing companies like – buyer assist, commerce, automation & extra by way of WhatsApp Enterprise API.

Along with Enterprises, SMB firms, too, are realizing the deserves of embracing the world’s main messaging platform whereas participating with their prospects. Many have made severe inroads into making WhatsApp their de facto communication channel, selecting it over conventional ones like SMS, e mail, and voice calls.

In response to joint analysis by Morning Seek the advice of and the messaging platform, 70% of SMBs on WhatsApp in India mentioned they constructed their enterprise on the platform, whereas 78% say they’ve elevated gross sales due to WhatsApp and 80% consider the platform permits them to promote their services or products in different cities, states or international locations.

This doesn’t imply that the latter have grow to be redundant. Whereas they proceed to be a part of the shopper outreach combine, WhatsApp has emerged because the channel of alternative for participating with purchasers. They will leverage apps like Interakt, constructed on the WhatsApp Enterprise API, enabling them to handle their complete enterprise on WhatsApp. They will use it to speak with their prospects for product inquiries, buyer care, alerts, notifications, assisted gross sales, automate replies to steadily requested queries, and extra.

So, let’s have a look at how WhatsApp’s API-based choices rating over different conventional channels when participating prospects and the benefits it gives to SMBs.

TEXT MESSAGES

Most prospects now need to management their dialogue with an organization by having the choice to view and reply to a message. Whereas SMS and WhatsApp each supply nice open and response charges, bulk SMSes are principally unidirectional and are thought-about spam as of late, their open charges are dropping and response charges are just about negligible. Whereas, WhatsApp performance extends to buyer conversations which might be interactive, media-rich, and informative in the identical chat, leading to greater engagement charges.

One other main benefit of WhatsApp Business API for customer support is that SMBs can create an organization profile that helps show data together with your organization title, deal with, enterprise description, e mail deal with, web site, enterprise hours, and likewise catalogs at a pocket-friendly price.

SMB firms can customise WhatsApp communication by together with catchy graphics, pictures, pdfs, and movies with out worrying about phrase rely restrictions. They will additionally ship WhatsApp broadcasts to 1000s of opted-in prospects with a single click on, to have interaction in significant conversations. This massively simplifies the communication course of for SMBs, finally making it far less expensive and profitable.

EMAIL

Electronic mail does have a dominant presence in buyer communications and its adoption is restricted to a sure section of tech-savvy customers, and, it’s higher fitted to delivering one-sided data, like bulletins, affirmation, or documentation. The response time can be a stumbling block, which WhatsApp can effortlessly vault over.

Each WhatsApp messages and emails may be despatched in milliseconds, however usually e mail can find yourself within the spam or junk folder. Furthermore, the open charges of e mail messaging are a lot decrease than a WhatsApp ping {that a} buyer receives on their smartphone. WhatsApp’s open price is above 90% in most international locations, so if a model needs to get their buyer’s consideration, WhatsApp is the best way as a result of the open price immediately impacts gross sales conversions and conversations.

Furthermore, emails are topic to phishing and safety breaches, which is another excuse customers are cautious about opening them and pushing them straight to the junk folder. Nevertheless, WhatsApp has overcome these points by providing verified enterprise accounts and end-to-end encryption.

CALLS and IVR

Social media platforms are abuzz with complaints and memes about chilly calls prospects must subject all through the day. For this reason automated name identification apps are doing properly since customers can filter the calls they’ll take and people they’ll block.

Nevertheless, this places SMBs in a difficult scenario, as their calls may not be answered. Furthermore, at sure occasions, particularly the festive season, their contact facilities could be burdened with calls, resulting in lengthy wait occasions for callers, leading to annoyed prospects. And whereas IVRs may seem as the best various, the menu may usually not deal with particular buyer points, resulting in frustration once more.

Whereas firms like Jio Haptik present clever chatbots to enterprises, SMBs should not left too far behind. Interakt gives IVR-type automation options appropriate for SMBs, for example, OOO, Delayed Response, and Welcome messages for protecting prospects engaged whereas the human brokers are unavailable. The customized auto-replies function is one other nice option to assist prospects by way of WhatsApp automation.

Why ought to companies select WhatsApp Enterprise API?

There isn’t a denying that WhatsApp is a communication powerhouse for SMBs, given its glorious penetration charges and ease of use. To assist them get on this bandwagon, Jio Haptik launched Interakt. It helps retailers arrange their ‘Conversational Storefronts’ geared up to allow gross sales and reply buyer queries at scale on WhatsApp, and that too effortlessly.

By adopting a message-first enterprise method, SMBs now have the ability to remodel conversations and connections into income. They usually can construct one-on-one relationships – all this with the press of a button.