10 Ways To Use WhatsApp For ECommerce

Communication in the last decade has undergone a very rapid and visible change. With the introduction of instant messaging social networks like WhatsApp, peer-to-peer and customer-business communication has never been more streamlined, faster, or reliable.

Needless to say that WhatsApp is the most used messaging platform with over 2 billion active users worldwide as of February 2020 with an incredible active rate of over 65 billion messages daily. That is a statement of fact!

WhatsApp and Business

In 2018, Facebook launched the WhatsApp Business application so that businesses can leverage its potential. Its many impressive features included automated reply, business profile, and catalogue creation. The rationale has been that a large number of potential business customers are probably already using the platform and they would love to use this platform to engage with businesses.

It’s no surprise then that more consumer-related businesses are adopting the instant messaging app to engage with their customers on a user-friendly channel. They have figured out that tapping into the immense advantage of this new trend is the most effective and cost-efficient way to connect with their customers.

But that’s not all. WhatsApp also created a business tool known as the WhatsApp Business API. The major difference between these platforms is that while the WhatsApp Business app is free and suitable for small-scale local businesses, the API is built for a larger business whose focus is on growth and expansion.

Another difference to note is that the WhatsApp Business app is free for download on the open market, on the other hand, the API is a paid service that can only be acquired through a business solution provider such as a rich panel or wati which is mandated to conduct verification and legitimacy of your business. Talk about separating the wheat from the chaff!

Should I?

Considering all that has been said in the introductory part of this article, you might still have doubts about using WhatsApp for your business. My answer to you would be a resounding Yes!!!!

If you factor in the pace at which all facets of the business are rapidly evolving to better cater for an increasing population of impatient customers globally, and the need for businesses to maintain a certain competitive edge over one another. You will agree with me that you cannot afford to make light the need to create a meaningful and engaging means of communicating effortlessly with your clients.

Integrating WhatsApp API to your Ecommerce: 10 effective ways

Regardless of whichever WhatsApp platform you choose, you would still want to optimize your choice effectively for maximum application.

There are numerous benefits of introducing any of the WhatsApp business platforms to enable conversations with your customers. Especially if your business is eCommerce oriented. Let’s start:

Gain customers

Your first point of call with WhatsApp integration to your business is to gain customers. The official WhatsApp API offers a great opportunity to capture prospects online more than ever before. It enables you to follow them from the web to the “real world.”

Note: To be able to send proactive automated messages with WhatsApp API you need users to actively opt-in

There are several different ways you can go about it.

• Chat Bubble: Instead of an on-site assistance bot waiting in the corner of the site, you can create a WhatsApp chat bubble or button to invite website visitors to solve their queries using WhatsApp.
• Product/Category Page Button: This way you allow potential customers to receive notifications, news, and updates via a channel they check and use frequently. E.g., your lead can sign up to receive a notification when a product is back in stock!
• Campaign Ads CTA: a great way to drive acquisition is to use the click-to-WhatsApp approach in your paid campaigns. That is, when prospects click on your Facebook or Google ad, instead of a landing page, they will be invited to a WhatsApp conversation that engages the right of the bait, in a familiar environment.

Customer Support and FAQ

You certainly want your customers to have a seamless journey right from the time they visit the website to the final payment for the purchase made. But during this process, customers ask questions frequently to help them make the most informed purchase decision.

• FAQs generally range from product and company information, refund policy, warranty to the payment options offered. The chances of customers dropping off at this stage are high if their questions aren’t answered to their satisfaction.
• This is why integrating WhatsApp into your eCommerce business makes it easier for you to handle FAQs as it allows you to answer all of the customers’ purchase decision queries fast. The benefit of this is that you get to increase your conversion rate and reduce the issuance of support tickets to customers who are offered immediate solutions rather than waiting for a response after a day or scanning the entire website for the answers.
• The FAQ can serve as a screening phase to determine whether the query is basic or serious as well as provide you with key information. The bot can then not only initiate a human takeover but do so by forwarding the query to the right person or department.
• Hence, don’t set your human employees aside. Where your FAQ bot falls short, your live agents can swoop in and save the day.

Personalized Experiences

When a user agrees to be contacted on WhatsApp, you will automatically receive the following data:

• Phone Number
• Country (with regards to the country code on the phone number)
• WhatsApp User Name; although not always.

Notwithstanding, should you require extra data, simply make that information part of your opt-in. For instance, you can use the opt-in to ask for the city of residence or an actual name instead of relying on the user name.

Hence, based on those variables, you can start personalizing the conversations instantly, either by customer-specific remarks or by sending customers to different dialogue flows.

In practice, this translates into greeting users by name; showing them a menu in a different language or different options adjusted to their region or initial messaging before even asking them for any information.

As your WhatsApp group grows with time, you can start a one-on-one interaction with your customers. This is important for small businesses because for them the best marketing is mouth-to-mouth marketing and this will only happen if you give your customers an experience they can’t forget. While for larger eCommerce businesses, one-on-one interaction can be better tailored to suit individual shopping experience and behaviour

Loyalty Programs    

Creating successful loyalty programs is a tedious task for an e-commerce business as convincing customers to sign up for their brands’ new loyalty program is easier said than done. This is more reinforced by Capgemini who observed that 54% of loyalty programs are completely inactive and is mainly because almost one-third of signed members quit the loyalty programs without knowing the points or advantages they have earned. They quit without ever redeeming any of those advantages.

Fussing WhatsApp with your eCommerce business can help turn around your loyalty programs by automating point balance notifications, sending reward reminders, and messages to encourage redemption.

User-Generated Content and Feedbacks

Getting users to generate content is no easy task. It requires subtle appeals and sometimes incentives to get users to perform such tasks. If done rightly, User-generated content can be a powerful tool for positive effects.

And since WhatsApp can access built-in cameras, it makes it much easier to persuade customers to take a photograph or record a video of them using the purchased product and send it to you. The whole process is familiar and simple.

Additionally, using WhatsApp means it is easier to approach your customers at the perfect moment because they are likely to check the messages almost instantly.

When your WhatsApp chatbot receives a photo, you can send it to your database for review or directly share it on the product page or your social media.

Feedbacks help you sell but collecting them is no easy quest. While some customers are more likely to write reviews than others, many are deterred by the amount of effort needed, especially if they don’t consider leaving a review important.

A simple review request template message which clarifies what users have to do to leave a review is appropriate. What’s even more important is that the review is submitted as part of an automated conversation.

This allows for an instant reaction to negative feedback.

Unboxing Experiences

Still on user-generated content and just how influential they can get… we can’t forget about unboxing experiences. According to thinkwithgoogle.com, shoppers looking for a particular product account for an incredible 62% of views of unboxing videos. They help them not only visualize the product but also manage expectations.

Wondering why you should bother with unboxing videos? Consider the fact that they:

• Drive anticipation
• Offer useful product information
• Minimize buyer’s remorse as they know what they are getting into
• Increase sales

Using WhatsApp integration you can share such videos and encourage customers to submit them as well. you can as well structure your video as part of a product help guide or part of a marketing campaign. The major take is appropriate timing.

• As part of the abandoned cart sequence
• To create buzz around for a seasonal event
• After the purchase but before delivery – to build excitement
• Immediately after delivery to encourage customers to submit their own unboxing experiences.

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Shopping cart abandonment is a major prevalent issue online commerce businesses face almost every day. It’s so prevalent that in 2018, the overall cart abandonment rate across sectors averaged at 75.6% after being measured by blog.salecycle.com.

The conventional way to deal with this setback is by sending reminders and remarketing emails. However, the response and engagement rates of such campaigns are ultimately unimpressive.

But with instant messaging marketing, you get the chance to perform much better. In 2018, the global average SMS open rate was 94% computed by esendex.co.uk despite most people using messaging apps. On the other hand, campaigns ran on Facebook Messenger noted a 98% open rate.

WhatsApp, with its 1.6 billion monthly active users is likely to follow, if not surpass this tendency. If 98% of customers who abandoned their cart open and read your message almost instantly upon receiving it, the chances that they come back to complete the purchase grow significantly.

Incentivized Sales

Infusing WhatsApp into your eCommerce business can help you engage new and existing customers by incentivizing sales. There are two ways to go about it:

• Engage users conversationally by offering discounts inside a bot.
• Direct customers from a coupon pop-up or landing page to the bot that will ask prospects a few key questions to activate the voucher in question.

Leads will avoid having to pass through awkward processes such as verifying an email address and will be able to obtain instant gratifications with just a few message exchanges.

On the backend, WhatsApp allows your business to keep the vouchers under control by:

• Communicating with the shopping cart and so, tracking if and when a prospective/existing customer uses the voucher.
• Follow up with the customer when the voucher remains unused, asking why they haven’t redeemed it and if it can do anything to assist them.

Effective Promotion using Groups, Broadcasts and Status Features

Another advantage of using WhatsApp with your business is that you can create various groups and broadcasts based on the interests, age, or gender of your customers. These groups and broadcasts will help you effectively promote your products and boost your conversions. Using this time-saving method, your customer will have the comfort to shop from your store. Also, you can tease them with new and upcoming product releases.

You might want to be careful with this one so as not to overdo it. The optimal pace is to send personalized messages once or twice in a couple of weeks. Otherwise, it may irritate customers and force them to leave your group.

You can also use the status feature to your advantage by creating special promotion codes and offers. Customers can then redeem that code and share the code with their associates. That way, you will be able to get more business.

Special offers

This ensures that you as a business owner maximize the use of the WhatsApp business platforms. Special offers vary from business to business but all have one goal in common; to improve customer experience seamlessly. They include but are not limited to:

• Product Life-Cycle offers: As with the abandoned cart issue, email has been a powerful helper with life-cycle offers. But, as we mentioned WhatsApp messages are opened with much greater frequency as well as speed. Thanks to your WhatsApp API for eCommerce integrations, you can remind your client of the need to purchase a product with a highly predictable consumption cycle by simply asking. You can as well combine replenishment notifications with subscription programs as conversion rates for subscriptions are much higher when customers are already making recurring purchases.
• Shipping Updates: Let your customers know the instant you ship a purchased product by sending a brief WhatsApp notification! The process of opening an email, clicking on a tracking number, and being redirected to an unfamiliar website can be stressful and unpleasant for customers. But by using WhatsApp shipping updates, you eliminate the stress.
• Multilingual Service: WhatsApp is a perfect way to deal with international customers since its present in 180 countries in which it’s the leading messaging app in 133. And, while WhatsApp helps you reach the location, the WhatsApp bot takes care of the language; giving you one less issue to worry about.
• Quizzes: customers love a good brain teaser and would rarely pass on an opportunity to test their knowledge. Why not indulge them. You can even reward them with store credits or points. It also serves as a pleasant way of creating accurate customer profiling, increasing engagement, and also collecting useful data.

Conclusion

The eCommerce sector is changing about customer servicing and relations. And with WhatsApp leading the way in instant messaging, it’s quickly becoming a highly veritable tool to those in business. If you’re looking to service your client base most effectively, WhatsApp Business Platforms can be an incredible asset to your eCommerce business.

Apart from personalizing their experiences and offering round-the-clock support, it can also reduce the immense pressure on your customer support team. With the WhatsApp platforms, you can create a flow of information for your clients, solve any issues that may arise, and forever gain their trust and business.