Here’s all you need to know about WhatsApp Business integration. From its scope to the actual benefits, which will variate depending on your business size and needs. There are two options (basic and advanced), which we’ll look closely into: WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business Application Programming Interface (API). But before we do that, let’s take a few steps back to go through some useful statistics about this instant messaging app.

Why you can’t ignore the worldwide success of WhatsApp

Being available in 180 countries (out of 195) worldwide, WhatsApp can count 2 bn active users with 100 bn daily exchanged messages. Not only people contact their loved ones through WhatsApp, but they also get in touch with businesses of their interest.

Not everyone may realize how common it is to WhatsApp message businesses in many countries. In fact, about 175 million people message a business account each day on WhatsApp and more want to do so. Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp at Meta

You may prefer to ignore the WhatsApp craze, but the stone-cold truth is that you can be the one to end up being ignored by your customers. This is why it is smart to follow the trends and quickly respond to the current need to “meet your customers where they already are”. And you can say for a fact that, for almost 40 minutes per day, you will find an average user (aka potential customer) on WhatsApp. One last thing. WhatsApp is widely used across all age groups (particularly popular among 26-35 year-olds, followed by 36-45 year-olds). Simply put, you’ll be able to reach a jaw-dropping range of the worldwide population.

WhatsApp Business v WhatsApp Business API

Once you’ve come to terms with integrating WhatsApp Business, there’s another decision to make. Will you simply use WhatsApp Business or need something a tad bit sophisticated like WhatsApp Business API? What counts is that, whenever a customer gets in touch, you can reply in real-time or at your convenience, with 0 risks of losing history of the conversation. This is the beauty of asynchronous chats – as opposed to live chats – which makes a great difference for customer care. The main differences between the two choices lies in your company size. Let’s see how.

WhatsApp Business Integration for a basic level of customer service

If you have a small business, or you’ve just started, a simple WhatsApp Business account will do the job. Your demand won’t be as high as to require employing a whole team in charge of customer service. Therefore, you’ll either manage to deal with customer’s requests yourself or delegate to a small team of operators.

You will be able to do the following:

• connect to up to 4 devices on a desktop via browser
• engage up to 4 agents
• automate OOO messages

However, you can get more out of your WhatsApp account, for example:

• have a team of more than 4 agents/operators, which may significantly slow down a growing business
• automatically integrate any chatbots, both built-in as well as external
• have centralised and unlimited access to all digital channels (WA, Messenger, live chat), which may lead to losing bits and pieces of important customers-related info

Read further to learn how to unlock the next level of customer support, FOR FREE.

Next level of advanced customer service

If your business is large to medium, your needs are understandably greater. You probably will have a team or teams of multiple agents. You will also probably be using different digital communications channels such as Telegram, FB Messenger etc. For starters, here’s a guide on how to configure your account. Once configured, you’ll need an API Connector provider. With a WhatsApp Business API provider such as Tiledesk, you’ll instantly have a range of different services addressing your needs.

You will be able to – AT NO ADDITIONAL COST:

• enable seamless chatbot integration (both external like RASA, Dialogflow and Tiledesk native built-in chatbots)
• reply with buttons that stimulate interactive conversations and increase respond rates, according to WhatsApp
• centralise all customer comms channels in one dashboard
• enable unlimited number of operators
• use Tiledesk Analytics tools…

…and much more. Tiledesk is the only open source & free live chat provider that offers a quick and easy WhatsApp integration. Don’t quite believe it? Sign up if you want to try it out for free (no credit card required) or have a look at Tiledesk WhatsApp API Connector in more detail.

Regardless, you can always feel free to pop in on our Discord channel and chat with the Team and our friendly Community!