Consumers rely on messaging apps for e-commerce and prefer the convenience of completing their entire purchase journey through chat. WhatsApp commerce is a great model for businesses to connect with users and automate order-taking and proving support.
It allows businesses to sell their products and services directly via WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp business API platforms The blog will guide you through WhatsApp e-commerce, how it works, how you can create a WhatsApp e-commerce store, and its benefits.
WhatsApp Commerce is a conversational commerce model where online e-commerce brands can connect with customers, sell their products and services, and lead their entire marketing and sales funnel with the help of AI like chatbot or voicebot.
WhatsApp e-commerce creates professional interaction and enhances the conversational experience. It allows customers to ask for support from a live agent or a chatbot regarding product information, catalogs, personalised recommendations, etc., everything under one conversation. However, there are two ways of doing WhatsApp business.
WhatsApp commerce provides better connectivity to customers through two key features:
Instant messaging: – With instant messaging, businesses can engage with their customers in real-time, providing them with instant support and assistance throughout the purchase journey.
Broad reach: -WhatsApp has a massive user base, with over 2 billion active users worldwide. This provides businesses with a significant opportunity to reach a vast audience and connect with customers on a global scale.
Suggested Reading – Learn more about Conversational Commerce
Incorporating WhatsApp commerce into a business strategy can lead to several benefits. With the ability to engage instantly with customers and streamline the sales process, businesses can provide an enhanced customer experience. Additionally, WhatsApp’s broad reach provides a significant opportunity to expand a business’s customer base and reach new markets. By utilizing WhatsApp commerce, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors and stay ahead of the curve in an increasingly digital world.
Suggested Reading – Learn more about Conversational Commerce
WhatsApp’s massive user base (2 Billion) and convenient features make it an ideal tool for businesses to connect with potential customers globally. It enables easy sharing of product information and even allows payment acceptance, while also providing businesses with the ability to run targeted marketing campaigns and personalized promotional messages.
WhatsApp commerce helps you set up automated messages and chatbots, which can quickly direct complex customer inquiries to representatives. As a result, the queries get timely resolution, improving customer satisfaction. Also, the platform allows third-party tool integration like CRM, that optimises ticket routing at a more advanced level.
WhatsApp commerce allows businesses to offer customer support around the clock. Customers can get timely support outside of regular business hours. So even if the user is from a different region or time zone, WhatsApp commerce enables businesses to communicate with them in real-time.
Since WhatsApp commerce is a messaging platform, it doesn’t require you to spend more on staffing, training, or infrastructure. Likewise, marketing and promoting your products and services are much cheaper than traditional mediums like print, television, and radio. Moreover, customers can directly make the payment via an app, which saves cost on payment processing fees.
To enable WhatsApp commerce, businesses can integrate it with an existing conversational AI solution via API or create a new one. The chatbot then assists customers with queries and guides them through the purchase journey.
Suggested Reading – WhatsApp Business New Interactive Template – Location Sharing
The commerce NLU (natural language understanding) refers to the ability of AI chatbots to understand customer behaviour and language. It enables the AI to recognise and categorise product names, understand customer queries and intentions, and offer product recommendations. It enables features like domain knowledge, information extraction, sentiment analysis, and a recommendations engine.
The care NLU analyses the emotion of customers. It studies their pain point, the intent behind the conversation, and more. And the key aspects of care NLU include language detection, automatic speech recognition (ASR), context management, conversational Engine, and spell correction.
It operates on a graphical model that designs, builds conversational flow, and tests the conversational interface. You can analyse the conversational flow of your chatbot and check if there are any bugs or other issues. It helps you evaluate your bot’s performance and improves the solution based on actual data.
The live agent chat solution monitors the conversation between the chatbot and customers to facilitate smooth transfer to human agents, in case the chat is complex.
If you wonder how to create a WhatsApp e-commerce store, then let me tell you, it isn’t an uphill task. The first thing you need to do is to create your WhatsApp business account. Just like Facebook, the WhatsApp feature allows you to have a business page where you can exhibit your products inside a shop tab of your business page. Once ready, you can start selling your products in the WhatsApp marketplace. But all this can be simplified with the help of WhatsApp BSP like Verloop.io. So let us see how to set up a WhatsApp commerce store.
Small businesses with less volume of messages and fewer users can take more advantage of WhatsApp profiles.
WhatsApp Business API offers you upgraded features with limitless messaging capabilities. Unlike the WhatsApp business app, it’s not a free tool. And To integrate WhatsApp API, you’ll have to submit your business details to WhatsApp solutions like Verloop.io. Here’s how you can set up the store.
Businesses can offer one-on-one personalised support to customers via WhatsApp commerce. They can respond in real-time with relevant replies, or share various offers and discounts on the platform with the help of features like catalog, automated messages, and quick replies. It helps build relationships with customers, leading to a boost in engagement.
WhatsApp e-commerce is a platform where businesses can reach out and connect to wider audiences and expand their customer base. Since WhatsApp is a common platform in many countries around the world, connecting with customers in multiple markets becomes easier. Its familiar user interface helps businesses connect better
Setting up WhatsApp commerce will cost you a lot less as compared to other traditional platforms like websites. You’ll have to pay for every step, starting from designing, hosting, and marketing. Whereas, WhatsApp commerce does not require setting up a separate website or mobile app, which reduces cost. The customers are already there, you just need to connect. In addition to that, the automation streamlines customer interaction, which eliminates the need for additional staff. Hence saving operational costs.
The one-on-one interaction helps businesses understand their customers better. They can promote their product once trust and loyalty are built. With the help of catalog features, they can flaunt their products most appealingly and generate more interest and sales.
It’s easy to access customer data with WhatsApp commerce. The conversation history proves as a gold mine for businesses to study customers’ purchase history and preferences. And that can be used to improve customer engagement and marketing strategy.
Verloop.io is powered by machine language (ML) /natural language understanding (MLU), which unifies multiple channel conversations with customers, making their reach quicker. It engages them with a personalised experience and provides your live chat agents useful insights that come in handy while resolving customers’ concerns in real-time. Other than that, here’s how Verloop.io’s ai chatbot helps your e-commerce.
Messages and queries usually flood WhatsApp e-commerce stores. Verloop.io’s live chat helps you get in touch with each message the second they are received. And assign the urgent ticket to your live agent in real time without missing out on being available to your customers. Along with that, it detects chat statuses that require quick attention.
Verloop.io’s bot creates a flawless customer experience by initiating a conversation with a greeting and closing the conversation. It helps collect details like email IDs from your customer and offers helpful information regarding the product and makes product recommendations. Not just that, but it even helps you get quick feedback. Verloop.io sought a powerful cloud infrastructure that stores customers’ responses as a variable for future reference. It helps agents keep updated with relevant context.
Verloop.io’s bot makes your customer feel included by conversing in multiple languages. It helps maintain a smooth flow of conversation by taking in the language that your customers understand. Verloop.io supports about 20+ languages. So, reach out to a diverse customer base and remove the geographical boundaries and improve your ROI.
Customers can easily speak about their queries and concerns with the record button on WhatsApp, to seek support from the support team. The bot receives the voice note as transcribed text that can be further used to understand the intent and concern. So Verloop.io helps maintain a smooth flow of communication.
Verloop.io provides convenient and efficient chatbot integration that allows users to access information, complete tasks, and receive support without needing to interact with humans. It integrates chatbots into various platforms, like CRM, chats, marketing, and payments.
Verloop.io connects your marketing tools to automate actions and improve the performance of your services. It eliminates the need to go back and forth between systems as it syncs data in an instant. Some of the best marketing integration it offers are Clever Tap , bombora, WebEngage, Leedfeeder, ipdata, and capillary.
Verloop.io has integrated with some of the most trusted payment brands like Razorpay, CC Avenue, and Xendit. The integration helps customers make Swift payments via a secure payment gateway. The chatbot will handle customers’ transactions automatically, minimising the payment process time. Hence,improving customer experience.
Integrating chatbot CRM helps businesses offer seamless and personalised customer experience. Chatbots can access and update customers’ data in real-time, to improve data management. It makes full use of data stored in the CRM, which helps the chatbot offer relevant answers, making the interaction more reliable. And also promotes quick resolutions.
Verloop.io integrates with about 10+ CRM platforms and provides a flawless customer experience. Some of the famous CRM platforms are Hubspot, Leadsquared, Freshdesk, Zendesk, Oracle, and more
Customers are found scattered on different channels. You can reach out to your customers wherever they are, and offer the best solution. Verloop.io’s unified console helps you connect with your customers on different channels like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
The Verloop.io platform is designed to provide a unified solution for both customer engagement and agent assistance, offering features that not only engage customers but also assist agents in delivering personalized and informative responses, as well as creating summaries of conversations. With Verloop.io you can handle 10X conversations with much less support resources.
No, WhatsApp commerce services are not free. It’s less costly than other traditional platforms, but you’ll have to pay a certain price to avail of benefits from WhatsApp API. It also depends on the number of customers you are engaging via WhatsApp business API. Also, there are data and SMS fees for sending and receiving messages.
Setting up a WhatsApp commerce can be done at the click of a finger. You’ll have to register your WhatsApp business account with a verified phone number. Then you will have to integrate WhatsApp API to manage customers’ orders and payments.
WhatsApp commerce is safe for both customers and businesses. The platform secures the conversation between the user and the business. Be it calls, messages, or files, everything is secured with end-to-end encryption. However, one should be wary of online fraud. Sensitive credentials should not be shared with anyone.
Currently, WhatsApp commerce is limited to only a few countries like India, Brazil, and Mexico.
