Chat is not new: as a medium of communication, it has been around for ages (since 1973 in the form if Instant messages and 1980 in the form of online chat).
The biggest problem that chat, as a messaging platform, faced since its initial days was the fact that it was restricted to its own internal platform. Instant Messages were restricted to personal computers connected to the same network; an online chat was restricted to between a single platform. Those that were cross-platform were either too clunky (remember IRC based chats, anyone?) or traded good user experience for system resources (Yahoo! Chat was famous for causing blue screens of death)
When RIM introduced the Blackberry, users got a way to send detailed, properly typed messages, unlike the pidgin shorthand that text messages had reduced English to, but the challenge that came up was responding in clear and concise English on a platform other than text messaging. Enter WhatsApp, the first true cross-platform messaging system, which allowed users to send messages across Blackberrys and standard phones, with a decently acceptable user interface that did not kill your phone or long for mobile computing from the “Jetsons”
Fast-forward to today, WhatsApp has become a one true messenger that is available on the mobile phone of your choice, be it your ancient Blackberry (albeit without Official WhatsApp support) or your laptop (thanks to WhatsApp web), and its popularity dwarves it closest non-family rival (WhatsApp has about 13% more usage than Facebook messenger, but that is rivalry between brothers and sisters. Outside of its immediate family, WhatsApp’s closest competition is WeChat, and beats WeChats’s usage by a good margin of 50%).
Cut to the new buzzword — Digital Transformation. Digital Transformation aims to reach out to people where they are — when it started, it was focused at going to mobile and cloud, but in its 2.0 avatar, digital transformation aims to go to the app/platform where people are present.
Research suggests that today, 75% of people’s time is spent on emails (arguably for work) and 73% on navigating from one place to the other (isn’t GPS wonderful?). But after this, about 65% of the time is spent on social media. Specifically, people check their WhatsApp 23 times a day (its an average right? I seem to be checking it more than 23 times an hour, first thing I do as soon as open my eyes every morning, and last thing before going to bed), 58% check their WhatsApp “several” times a day, and is the 3rd most downloaded app in the world (almost 2 billion downloads) and well as the most used app (450 million daily active users, averaging 29 messages per minute). Is it a surprise that close to 3 million enterprises and corporations are reaching out to their customers through WhatsApp?
WhatsApp for Business is a way to monetize on the dream traction that WhatsApp has. What it does is it gives millions of businesses a recognizable, legitimate business voice, that instantly can establish a trust (backed by the companies’ brand) with its users. It gives the business a means to hear the voice of consumer directly, in a way no platform has managed to do so till date.
Is it a surprise the WhatsApp for Business is a disruptor to the world of chats?
Enabler of “interactive” communications through WhatsApp Business API
Now that we have understood how WhatsApp business can potentially be a game changer in customer service domain — Imagine a “WhatsApp campaign builder” that makes it easier for businesses to “automate” their communications flow!
Twixor’s “WhatsApp journey builder” as we call it, allows enterprises to design and build rich conversational experiences through WhatsApp business API. The easy-to-use drag and drop module comes with capabilities to embed conversations with rich media, document sharing, audio, location and much more.
You can use this drag-and-drop tool to create automated messaging workflows in minutes for WhatsApp business API. No. Coding. Required. (sounds unbelievable? I’m more than happy to give you a demo. Reach me here)
Enterprise customers today find it much easier to launch “interactive” campaigns on WhatsApp via the WhatsApp business API, and at a much faster pace. A win-win scenario for both brands and their customers. They are now able to go to market with creative messaging in a matter of minutes and delight their customers with “two-way” interactive messaging and witness higher engagement rates.
