With over 1.6 billion users in 180 countries, WhatsApp is now the no.1 chat app in the world. The launch of WhatsApp Business in 2018 signalled a new era in the messaging app’s history, bringing in a definite push towards brand and customer service communication. Today, research suggests that the average user will check WhatsApp more than 20 times a day and see 80% of your communications within five minutes.
These numbers indicate that organisations need to incorporate WhatsApp in their contact centre capabilities at the earliest if they haven’t done so already.
How to Take WhatsApp Calls in Your Contact Centre
Integrating WhatsApp with your contact centre software is easy using the WhatsApp Business API. Leading platform providers like Twilio offer native integrations with WhatsApp, similar to how their platforms connect with social media or Facebook Messenger. And calls are only the tip of the iceberg – using WhatsApp Business, companies can send reminders, order notifications, promo codes, shipping alerts, post-call surveys, and much more.
Also, WhatsApp is an end-to-end encrypted platform, ensuring that all your customer communication remains confidential and protected.
3 Signs That You Need WhatsApp Capabilities in Your Contact Centre
WhatsApp is a new channel that you would be adding to your contact centre, so it is advisable to first assess if the investment is worth it. Channel blending is always a complex process, and as you expand from telephony-only to email, social media, instant messaging, web live chat, and WhatsApp, you will need a system and skillset overhaul. Here are five signs to look for before you consider making the investment:
- Your team has substantial idle time– If your team has productive hours to spare after attending to phone calls and answering emails, it might be a good idea to route them towards WhatsApp calls and WhatsApp messaging
- You are ready to offer personal support at a quick TAT– WhatsApp is an extremely personal channel, where users expect a response within an hour, if not in minutes. If you are in an industry that merits this level of engagement (e.g., luxury retail), investing in WhatsApp is a no-brainer
- A large portion of your customer base are WhatsApp users– Contact centre software can be used to call an API that determines if a customer has an active WhatsApp connection. If several of your customers are registered on WhatsApp, it makes sense to add-on the channel
What Are Your Options with a WhatsApp Contact Centre?
WhatsApp calls in a contact centre are rare, as the platform is primarily used for instant messaging. However, it helps to have a call capability in place so that you do not miss out on a prospect or a high lifetime value customer. In these cases, your WhatsApp number should auto-route to your primary telephony lines so the caller can join the general queue.
Apart from this, you can use service capabilities on WhatsApp for sending promotional messages, collecting feedback, and following up on payments (outbound) and solving product status queries, reducing your call queue, and having secure conversations (inbound).
