WhatsApp for eCommerce: Use Cases to Personalize Customer Experiences

For a few years now, chatbots have been successfully integrated into the fundamental foundation of eCommerce. Customers are becoming more accustomed to the idea, particularly since the global epidemic brought several chatbot advantages to the fore. Today, however, the topic is moving away from web bots and towards messaging services and the possibility of conversational commerce. First, Facebook Messenger was the talk of the town because of its business-friendly approach. With the launch of WhatsApp Business API in 2018 and the app’s continued popularity, more and more online businesses are focusing on integrating WhatsApp with their e-commerce platforms.

In this post, we examine various WhatsApp integration strategies that an eCommerce business may utilize to engage in conversational commerce, whether through a messaging bot or a live chat.

Whatsapp For Ecommerce

What is WhatsApp Business, the API, and How Does it Work?

To comprehend how WhatsApp can help your business. Understanding WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business API, the two business options, is essential.

WhatsApp Business App

A free app called WhatsApp Business was developed with small and medium-sized enterprises in mind. It enables them to interact with both existing and future clients. With a business profile, you can only contact users who have given you permission to do so or who have initiated contact according to WhatsApp’s privacy policies.

• The key features include:
• keeping a certified business profile with relevant data
• Greetings, rapid replies, and away messages are all automated in messaging services.
• Labels for the conversation (such as “new customer” or “complaint”)
• Chat metrics
• WhatsApp web for desktops

WhatsApp Business API

An app is not what the WhatsApp Business API solution is. It takes a more complex setup to enable you to combine your WhatsApp Business profile with the applications and platforms you already work with or with automated chatbots. Your eCommerce firm needs to apply and receive approval before using this service.

In addition to all of the advantages of the WhatsApp Business App, the API solution offers two primary messaging features:

Paid automated messages, also referred to as WhatsApp Template Messages, are outbound alerts.

Free WhatsApp Session Messages are created to support customer service. Any message delivered or received in response to a user-initiated interaction falls under this category. Each time a user sends a message or request, a new session is initiated and it lasts for 24 hours. If you don’t respond within the allotted period, you’ll need to restart the discussion using a paid WhatsApp template message. See examples of template messages here.

Unlike WhatsApp Business, the API enables companies to perform considerably more complex activities and procedures, such as automating conversations using WhatsApp bots.

Why Implement WhatsApp API for eCommerce?

Let’s address the WHY before discussing WhatsApp Business’s different apps and its API for eCommerce.

Why WhatsApp instead of an online chatbot?

Why WhatsApp instead of another texting service?

Chatbots on websites are useful for shoppers who are seated at a desktop computer, but they also work well on mobile devices, especially when contrasted to the experience of using a messaging platform. Given that mobile commerce is steadily climbing the eCommerce ladder to the top, this is a significant problem.

Apps for instant messaging are useful in this situation.

These applications transformed the communications sector by enhancing the usability, accessibility, and adaptability of texting. Enhancing the interface with rich media adoption (such as gifs, stickers, videos, files, music, video messages, etc.) increased the experience’s interactivity even more.

Several messaging competitors held a roughly equal share of the industry a decade ago, but not anymore. With 2 billion active monthly users worldwide, WhatsApp has dominated the messaging service market since its humble beginnings in 2009.

This figure represents slightly more than 25% of the total population and 32.4% of people aged 13 and older.

In addition to being numerous, WhatsApp users are also highly active, sending over 65 billion messages daily. In other nations, users actively engage with the app for more than 20 hours every month.

Being accessible on a platform where customers already feel at ease and at home can help an eCommerce business gain their trust while also saving money on developing custom solutions like apps.

Instead, WhatsApp enables you to concentrate on what matters, namely the level of customer experience, conversations, and query management.

Top WhatsApp eCommerce Use Cases & Benefits

Communication with consumers goes through several distinct stages starting at the initial point of contact. You may encounter not just one, but several touch points along the consumer journey with the aid of WhatsApp Business API.

The acquisition is where it all begins.

1. Customer Acquisition

The official WhatsApp API is first and foremost a great chance to attract customers online more naturally than ever. You can either do this by choosing to follow them from your web or mobile device to the “real world.”There are numerous approaches you can take.

You have a rare opportunity to transform legal duty into a potent CTA because you can send proactive automated messages to WhatsApp API customers who have already naturally opted-in:

chat room. You can design a WhatsApp chat bubble or button to invite website visitors to use WhatsApp to solve their problems instead of an on-site help bot waiting in a site corner.

Button for Product/Category Page. By doing this, you enable potential clients to get alerts, news, and updates through a channel they regularly check. For instance, your lead can register to be notified when a product is back in stock!

CTA for campaign ads. Last but not least, using the click-to-WhatsApp strategy in your paid advertisements is a fantastic way to increase acquisition. That is, rather than being directed to a landing page when prospects click on your Facebook or Google advertisement, they will instead be welcomed to a WhatsApp discussion, which engages them right away in a comfortable setting.

Any of the aforementioned tactics gives your company quick and easy opportunities to interact with leads who might have otherwise clicked through your advertisement or website.

2. Incentivized Sales

Have you considered utilizing WhatsApp for sales? By rewarding sales, a WhatsApp chatbot can assist you in retaining both current and potential clients. There are two approaches you can take:

Use a bot to converse with users and provide discounts.

Customers should be directed to a bot from a coupon pop-up or landing page so that the bot can activate the coupon in question by asking them a few basic questions.

Leads will be able to get fast gratification with only a few message exchanges and avoid having to go through uncomfortable processes like having to validate an email account.

The bot’s backend functionality enables your business to manage the coupons by:

interacting with the shopping cart to track whether and when a potential or current customer utilizes the coupon

When a customer’s voucher still needs to be redeemed, follow up with them and inquire why and whether they need help.

3. Personalized Experiences

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

Phone Number

Country (as per the country code on the phone number)

(Sometimes) WhatsApp User Name

If you do need more, just include it in your opt-in if you don’t already. Instead of depending solely on the user name, you may use the opt-in to request the user’s actual name or city of residence.

As a result, you may start tailoring the discussions right away based on those variables, either by making customer-specific remarks or by routing consumers through various dialogue flows.

In practice, this translates to addressing users by name, displaying a menu in a different language or with options according to their location, or sending them an initial message before requesting any personal data.

No matter how a potential customer accesses your chatbot — from a landing page, website, advertisement, or another source — your bot can immediately offer a tailored experience.

4. Quizzes

Quizzes have been around for a long, but they don’t seem to go out of style as most trends do. Users constantly rank them among the most popular online activities because they find them to be entertaining and interactive. It only makes sense to include them in your eCommerce chatbot.

The two advantages of having a chatbot quiz inside of a classic one:

• You instantly create a lead and gather information by taking the quiz and interacting with it.
• The bot gathers information that will enable it to further hyper-personalize the user’s experience if the quiz is intended to do more than just provide pleasure.

Customers who respond that they prefer practicing yoga to running, for instance, may later be retargeted with content, events, or items related to yoga and meditation.

5. Product and Purchase suggestions

Although they are frequently possible because of the user interface, product recommendations within a bot are still not that common. A one-on-one interaction is still the best setting for customized recommendations.

WhatsApp currently has fewer possibilities than Facebook Messenger bots when it comes to integrating product carousel options into conversations.

Truth be told, you really don’t need any elaborate solutions when it comes to selling and cross-selling. The user has already started speaking with your bot there. Simply utilize mobile-responsive URL addresses, gifs, or photos to represent the merchandise. Facebook stated that it would be extending its Product Catalogue feature to WhatsApp Business in the upcoming months.

Purchase recommendations, one of the aforementioned WhatsApp eCommerce use cases, are a further step towards hyper-personalizing user interactions by fusing previously gathered data with fresh needs.

6. Help Guides

Despite all the other benefits, online buying prevents customers from closely inspecting the product or asking a short inquiry to a nearby standing sales assistant.

Unfortunately, speaking to an actual person usually takes far too long. However, a staggering 75% of online shoppers anticipate receiving assistance within 5 minutes. That is why chatbots have become so common in eCommerce, despite some minor developmental flaws.

They can respond to inquiries much more quickly and effectively, which reduces waiting.

WhatsApp chatbots go one step further since they can respond anywhere and quickly. An online conversation can continue on WhatsApp even after the user logs off of their computer. Even better, it takes place in a setting that the user finds welcoming and is a great deal more reliable and mobile-friendly than any other website or app bot.

Sounds like another automated customer service system?

Nope.

It’s not the purpose of a product help manual to provide FAQs.

A product guide bot points out the advantages of the products and promptly clarifies typical misunderstandings and queries. When buying a snowboard, skis, or bicycle, for example, where size is an important consideration, this guidance can be very helpful.

7. Product Finder

The product finder is another on our list of WhatsApp eCommerce use cases. In contrast to a help manual, a product finder engages customers in discussion while assisting them in sorting through the otherwise dizzying array of options. Customers may visit and review the products they are interested in fast and effectively rather than having to sift through hundreds of pages.

The simplest method to do this is to create a quiz-style product finder, where a bot will ask your customers a series of questions and direct them to the products that are most appropriate for them. You would use a “quiz-style” product finder in this situation.

8. Abandoned Cart Recovery

One of the most common problems that internet retailers still encounter is shopping cart abandonment. In fact, the average overall cart abandonment rate across all sectors in 2018 was 75.6%. The typical solution to this issue is to send remarketing and reminder emails. Such campaigns do not, however, have very spectacular response and engagement rates. Only 21% of the emails that are typically opened result in a click, and only 50% of those clicks result in a purchase.

Yes, it’s something, but WhatsApp marketing gives you the opportunity to succeed much further. Despite the majority of people utilizing messaging applications in 2018, the average global SMS open rate remained at 94%. WhatsApp, on the other hand, with its 1.6 billion monthly active users, is likely to follow, if not surpass, this tendency. Campaigns run on Facebook Messenger, however, observed a 98% open rate. If 98% of consumers who left their carts unattended open and read your message almost immediately after getting it, your odds that they will return to finish the transaction increase.

9. Transaction Confirmations, Invoices & Notifications

Was the money successfully received? Is there a problem with the bill? Have your payment options or privacy policies been updated?

End-to-end encryption provided by WhatsApp allows you to deliver critical information to clients rapidly and securely without worrying that it will accidentally land in the “JUNK” folder.

As a result, you can be confident that your customers are current and that their personal information is secure.

10. Post-Sale Support

You can use your WhatsApp presence to check in with your consumer shortly after they receive their order. In terms of the consumer experience, creating and delivering product-specific check WhatsApp template messages can help you a lot.

When your product needs installation or use instructions, this WhatsApp for eCommerce integration comes in handy.

You have the option of responding with a bot or transferring the user to a live person if they reply to your purchased HSM template message. The best part is that the bot or human-driven chat will be free if you respond to the customer inside the 24-hour customer service window.

11. Product Life-Cycle offers

Many things that can be bought online have a very predictable life cycle.

Imagine this!

You are aware that your customer is running low on supplies. They haven’t yet been rearranged, though. Perhaps they are investigating other possibilities, they forgot, or they are busy.

Your client “serendipitously” receives a template message from you asking, “Hi [name], how’s your supply of [product] holding up? “, thanks to your WhatsApp API for eCommerce connections. Send us a message if you need a rapid reorder if you are running out. Similar to the issue of abandoned shopping carts, email has become a valuable resource for life-cycle offers. However, as we already indicated, WhatsApp messages are reviewed and opened considerably more frequently and quickly.

12. Shipping Updates

Have you already delivered the purchased item?

Instantly notify your customers by sending a short WhatsApp notification!

Apparently nothing special?

WhatsApp allows you to provide shipment updates every time the package changes locations without upsetting the buyer, unlike the typical email with a tracking number.

Additionally, you avoid the typical friction of opening an email, selecting a tracking number, and being routed to a strange website.

13. Loyalty Programs

Only half of the battle is won when clients sign up for your brand-new loyalty program. Perhaps even the easier half of the fight given that, according to Capgemini’s research, 54% of loyalty programs are completely dormant, nearly a third of participants leave the programs without ever using any of the benefits, and many don’t even realise how many points or benefits they have accrued.

You may automate the following with WhatsApp integration:

• Notifications of the point balance
• Gamification (e.g., allowing users to accumulate points by doing crossword puzzles or quizzes)
• Messages that promote atonement
• reminders for rewards

14. Collect Feedback/Reviews

Sales are aided by feedback and reviews, but gathering them is not simple. After making a purchase, many customers stop opening emails that request reviews. Few people who do open the email ever bother to click to visit your website and leave feedback, unless they had a negative experience.

While some people are more likely than others to write reviews, many people are put off by the effort required, especially if they don’t think leaving a review is worthwhile.

Consider this! How many more reviews would you submit if you only had to type something up or record a voice message?

The fact that the evaluation was provided as part of an automated chat is much more significant. This enables you to respond quickly to unfavorable comments and direct the user down the right dialogue flow when the bot notices their displeasure.

What’s Next?

These are the WhatsApp eCommerce use cases that can completely alter and customize how you interact with your customer base.

There are undoubtedly a lot more uses for the API integrations we haven’t yet covered. That speaks volumes about the numerous opportunities WhatsApp has created, particularly in the area of eCommerce. Start this service with Msgclub.