Your Guide to Using WhatsApp for Customer Support in 2023
People don't want help. They want a friend, a relationship, a business they can trust.
“Customer Support is a liability of eCommerce”
Well, if you look at it like that…
It will be.
Change the paradigm. See it as an asset. Find opportunity in the chaos. Customers having questions means they are looking for solutions.
Solutions that you can provide.
That your business can solve.
That your product can fix.
These days, customers expect fast and efficient support from the businesses they deal with. WhatsApp offers a convenient and cost-effective way to communicate with your customers in real time.
In this newsletter, we'll explore how to use WhatsApp for customer support and how it can benefit your business.
How to turn customers into loyal fans.
Why WhatsApp for customer support?
There are 2.24 billion active WhatsApp users every month, and growing.
That is a quarter of the world.
Yes, 1 out of 4 people in the world uses WhatsApp.
Those are pretty good odds that your customers use WhatsApp too.
Also, for free with WhatsApp Business you can:
Reply directly from mobile & desktop
Easily send images, videos, documents, and even voice notes
All data is end-to-end encrypted with consumer privacy & GDPR
If you need more, move to the WhatsApp API and:
Automate customer support flows
Have infinite agents managing 1 number
Enrich your customer profiles with data from the chat
Send auto-replies, use message formats, and have real conversations
Connect it to your shop or CRM and turn support into sales with 0 friction
From there you can expand, scale, and grow like crazy. Like my favorite quote on Customer Experience says…
"We're not competitor obsessed, we're customer obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards."
-Jeff Bezos
Anyway - how do you set this up?
The Actual WhatsApp CX Guide
The ACTUAL guide. Let’s go.
If you are just starting, you can set it up in 1 day.
It won’t be perfect, but it will give you insight into your customer support, your customers’ needs, and how your product really helps them.
Start below 500 contacts with WhatsApp Business
Completely fill out your Business profile in the app with logo & details
Customize your profile with your product catalog
Create your labels to categorize customer inqueries
Assign different team members to handle customer inquiries
Set up in-app templates to quickly reply to frequently asked questions (FAQs)
After that, let’s see how to step up your game.
When you go above 500 contacts…
This is when we move to the WhatsApp Business API.
There’s a good and a bad with this.
The bad: you will need a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider to operate it effectively. Basically, the software from another company that integrates with your WhatsApp.
The good: its functionalities are not even comparable, from automations to collaborating with your support team, to integrating with your other tech stack.
Source: https://www.hello-charles.com
How to get started? Do this.
Choose your most relevant use case: Marketing, Sales or Support
Find a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider that can serve you best on this
Connect your business number to their software
Create automated flows on recurring situations
Sales: automate your product recommendations, upsells, cross-sells and resells
Support: automate order management, FAQs, assigning agents & delivery tracking
Marketing: send hyper-personalized campaigns to audience segments
Brace yourself and start living in the future.
Best practices for using WhatsApp for customer support
Being available for your customers where their friends are is already 80% of the game.
But you can go the extra mile, and stand out from the crowd.
Optimizing for your own business processes:
Use chat templates to save time and ensure consistency in your responses
Use WhatsApp's broadcast feature to send mass messages to your customers
Use WhatsApp's label feature to organize and prioritize customer conversations
Train your team on how to use WhatsApp effectively for customer support
Your customers will love you.
Your team will love you.
Benefits of using WhatsApp for customer support
Offering support in WhatsApp is the first key step to uncovering the full potential of WhatsApp and its efficacy for marketing.
Soon enough you will see it reflected in your numbers:
Increase ROAS by increasing Customer Lifetime Value
Long-lasting customer relationships for increased CLV
Reduce CACs through reconverting existing customers
Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty
Reduced response time and improved efficiency
Reach people right where their friends are on their main messenger app
WhatsApp is a powerful tool for customer support that can help you provide fast, efficient, and personalized service to your customers.
Once you move to marketing, follow this guide and check out last week’s 7 creative campaign ideas:
Start with WhatsApp for its massive reach. Stay for its massive potential.
Build stronger relationships with your customers.
They WILL remember you.
They WILL come back.
And you WILL make money.
Let us know how it goes! (or if you need help)
Cheers,
Your Team 🙏🏼
Whenever you're ready to grow your DTC brand:
→ Book your 1:1 Strategy Call: We’ll explore your brand needs, and I’ll help you come up with a plan to generate 20-30% of your revenue via Direct Marketing.