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Since its launch in 2009, WhatsApp has come a long way and has become one of the most popular messaging and calling apps in the world. Its ease of use and efficiency has led more than 2 billion users to entrust the platform with their daily communication and multimedia sharing. Since WhatsApp’s user base includes private and business users, the messaging company has developed practical solutions for both categories.
WhatsApp Solutions for Businesses of all Shapes and Sizes
The WhatsApp Business app was introduced with small and local businesses in mind, as a way to help them reach out and communicate more efficiently with their customers, allowing business owners to automate, sort, and swiftly respond to messages and common queries.
It also allows you to organize contacts or chats with labels so you can find them again in an instant. Moreover, the app provides access to important metrics about your messages, such as their successful delivery to the recipients.
Since the app had one shortcoming that made it inadequate for larger teams – i.e. allowing only one device to be signed in to one account at a time, the WhatsApp Business API was developed as a solution for large businesses, corporations, and conglomerates.
By signing up for it through a business solution provider (BSP) like WATI, teams with multiple agents have the opportunity to take advantage of this popular messaging platform and provide customer support, deliver important notifications to their customers, and much more, depending on the provider.
WhatsApp Business Account Shows You Mean Business
Setting up a WhatsApp Business account provides WhatsApp users with useful information about your business, such as your business name, description, email address, website URL, and physical address of your office or brick-and-mortar store. This way, you’re informing your users they’re talking to a real business.
Furthermore, since a BSP like WATI has the means to verify your business, signing up for the WhatsApp Business API also helps your business become recognized as genuine, legitimate, and trusted, with the familiar green checkmark in its profile and chat thread headers.
The green checkmark or badge shows that WhatsApp has verified that an authentic, notable brand stands behind the account. At this point, not many businesses have this advantage.
How to Get WhatsApp Business Account
If you’re interested in learning how to create a business account in WhatsApp and take advantage of all the benefits this platform offers, then read on.
There are two ways to get it done:
a) Using WhatsApp Business App
If your team is small, you probably only need the WhatsApp Business app, where you’ll create your business profile. The process of getting started is fairly simple:
- Download, install, and launch the WhatsApp Business app.
- Review and agree to the Terms of Service
- Register with a phone number.
- You will then receive a verification code via SMS or phone call. Enter it.
- Create an account with your business name, category, and a profile picture.
- Build your business profile with important information like address, description, open hours, etc.
- Start chatting.
Important: When entering a phone number, it is better to not use your personal one because you can only use one of the two – WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business. Using a separate phone number will help you verify your business more easily.
Keep in mind that this process will create a regular WhatsApp business account. If you want to have an official business account, check the “WhatsApp Business API” section below.
b) Getting Access to WhatsApp Business API
Larger teams and those that wish to have an official business account will necessarily have to take a tad different approach, which includes a BSP like WATI and WhatsApp Business API.
BSPs have the power to activate a WhatsApp phone number and send messages from your WhatsApp Business account on behalf of your business. Their role is to:
- Create and manage your official WhatsApp Business account
- Link the WhatsApp Business account with the WhatsApp Business API
- Manage customer messages through a unified inbox
- Provide a collaboration platform for your team
- Gather and deliver important data-driven insights.
The process of signing up for the WhatsApp Business API differs a bit from the process entailed in the WhatsApp Business app. To create a WhatsApp Business account for the WhatsApp Business API, you’ll need to:
- Sign up for the services of a BSP like WATI
- Create a Business Manager account for your business and sign in (business.facebook.com/overview)
- Send your Business Manager ID via email to WATI (or another BSP)
- Approve WATI’s “messaging on behalf of” request in your Business Manager
- Verify your business, policy, and display name in the Business Manager
- After all the checks have been done, your BSP can download the name certificate, register the phone number, and send the first message on your behalf.
Important: To create a Business Manager account, you’ll need to have a Facebook profile so you can use your Facebook username and password to sign into Business Manager.
You can only have up to two Business Manager accounts at the same time. Should you need more, you’ll have to ask another person from your business to create additional accounts.
You can find your Business Manager ID in Business Manager > Business Settings > Business Info, under the Business Manager Account Name.
Get Ahead of the Competition
Hopefully, this post has helped you understand how to make WhatsApp Business Account and get an upper hand in the competitive business environment. Not a lot is required to create a WhatsApp Business account – only a portion of your time and perhaps money, but the returns are manifold – you’re getting your business approved and connected with one of the most popular messaging platforms in the world.
On top of that, if you choose WATI as the official WhatsApp partner to help you with onboarding to the WhatsApp Business API, you’ll be getting that and so much more.
WATI will not only connect you and your entire team with WhatsApp but will also provide an ideal environment for your team’s collaboration, communication with the customers, messaging management and automatization, as well as analyzing the efficiency of your communication strategies.
This is all (and more) possible through one, unified team inbox and dashboard. All of your customer support agents can use it at the same time, via PC or a mobile app.
If you’d like to find out more, don’t hesitate to contact us or sign up for early access here.
WATI is the product of Clare.AI, the AI tool merging machine learning with proprietary natural language processing technology to create award-winning customer communication experiences. Clare.AI has already provided solutions for a number of multinational enterprises and Fortune 500 companies.
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