WhatsApp for Business Playbook (VJD Portfolio)

EBOOK

The Ultimate WhatsApp Playbook Utilise the fastest growing chat app to reach your customers globally

Executive summary The year is 2013 and WhatsApp, one of the newest kids on the Over the Top (OTT) messaging platform scenes, has recorded just over $20 million in revenue. Few betting folks would have put money on the fact that it would be purchased under twelve months later by Facebook. And even fewer would have put that price tag on $19 billion, making it the biggest internet deal since the Time Warner/AOL merger of 2001.

Zuckerberg, of course, saw the writing on the wall. Facebook made their purchase at a time where they had realised their goals of becoming mobile-first, and were acting on newly released confidential data from Onavo that showed WhatsApp outpacing their own mobile app Messenger by 4.7 billion messages daily. Today, as the most popular chat app in the world, WhatsApp has no doubt already proved its value. But with over 1 billion more users and counting flocking to the app in five short years, just as Facebook could not afford to ignore WhatsApp in 2014, today, any modern business would be amiss to now.

In this eBook we will explore some of the ways you will be able to leverage this broad and fast-growing global app to communicate at scale and with ease. Show your customers how much you prioritize their needs with an exceptional user journey, buffered with useful and valuable alerts, reminders and notifications that will make your brand stand out in their minds, increasing both retention, and lifetime values. We’ll also demonstrate how you can engage and convert more consumers than ever, by opening a new channel for your inbound campaigns.

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WhatsApp: the stats WhatsApp is live in over 109 countries And indeed the number one favoured app in many of them, including every country in the continent of South America, in India, Spain, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria and many more powerful economies, with consumers hungry to engage with your brand on a channel of their choice.

WhatsApp has 450 million daily active users Or in other words, at least 16% of the world’s population are on WhatsApp every single day.

WhatsApp has more monthly active users globally than any other app (1.5 billion) The first app to come even close to this is from WhatsApp parent’s company. The Facebook Messenger app boasts a still impressive 1.3 billion.

WhatsApp sees 60 billion messages sent per day And while WhatsApp is now just opening up its business messaging APIs, it’s worth noting the figure of 10 billion. This is how many messages are sent between customers and businesses on Facebook Messenger alone. WhatsApp, the darling of Facebook, with even more users, will no doubt blow this figure out of the water in 2019.

WhatsApp gives you 24 hours to market While you wont be able to send outbound marketing messages at scale using WhatsApp (just like sister app Facebook Messenger), you will be able to reply to inbounds with marketing offers and information for 24 hours. This conversational style of commerce will no doubt set the tone for business messaging as we head into the third decade of the 21st century.

WhatsApp enjoys over 50% penetration in over 10 countries When you consider the varying demographics and the variety of consumer preferences, this is a WhatsApp stat that has stayed with us since first hearing it. Clearly this is a channel that has broad appeal for your customers.

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Rules for consideration Just like other channels in your omnichannel arsenal, WhatsApp has its own rules to follow for business use in order to protect both the business, and the end consumer. The three biggest factors for considerations are: 1. the WhatsApp Business Account verification process 2. WhatsApp’s guidelines for marketing messages 3. highly structured messages (HSMs) for initial outbound communications.

In order to qualify for business messaging with WhatsApp, you must first set up a WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) where WhatsApp will verify your company ID and phone number you are sending from. Your provider should be able to assist you with the requirements for this and talk you through it, but is not something they can take the reins of entirely or it would be too easy for any individual to become verified for a business they are not associated with. The WABA protects your business, so that you can be sure you are not being impersonated, and also the end-consumer who will be confident that they are communicating with verified agents.

When it comes to marketing, WhatsApp prohibit the sending of outbound marketing messages at scale, but does allow for WhatsApp messaging to play a role in inbound campaigns. We will go on to demonstrate this in this eBook.

HSMs are the templates that WhatsApp uses to approve your outbound communications. These can still be personalised with custom data fields such as name, seat number, purchase history, address or any details that are relevant to your sends, and your business. And you can set up any number of these HSMs you require. They are only required for your initial outbound communication. After this point, your agents can communicate in real-time freely in a 24-hour conversation window. Your provider should be able to assist in the set-up of your HSMs and give guidance on any content limitations. They should also correspond with WhatsApp directly in order to get your HSMs approved.

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WhatsApp for business use cases Outbound campaigns With WhatsApp, you can send alerts, reminders and notifications for a competitive customer experience that provides frictionless customer service. Initial messages must be sent as a HSM, but after this, agents can communicate in real-time with customers in a 24 hour window.

Example One Julie has just booked with a travel brand for a summer getaway. She receives her booking confirmation on WhatsApp and forwards the message to her group chat of friends asking who else is coming. The message also informs her she hasn’t yet booked a seat for the flight and that she can do so by simply replying. Julie can also click through to purchase additional luggage, or priority boarding.

A few weeks before the trip, Julie receives a message with tips and ideas for her location. She shares the message with the group chat, and it even inspires one of her friends to be a lastminute tag along.

A few days before the flight, Julie receives a reminder that online check in is now open, with a link. She asks in the message which terminal her flight is from and receives a reply from the travel brand. The brand also asks if she would like to make any purchases such as one of the executive lounges.

Example Two Abdul has ordered a scarf from his favourite retailer. He receives the order confirmation via WhatsApp along with the estimated day and time or arrival. The message tells him he can reply to let the driver know where to leave the parcel if Abdul’s not going to be in.

Abdul notices from the confirmation that he’s accidentally inputted the wrong address. He utilises the 2-way messaging available with WhatsApp to seamlessly reply, speak with an agent, and rectify the problem in seconds, receiving a new order confirmation, this time with the correct address. With failed deliveries costing upwards of a £1 billion in the UK alone, WhatsApp will no doubt not only better serve the customer, it will also save businesses money.

Inbound campaigns WhatsApp can also be used to leverage 2-way communication by managing inbounds, converting from your marketing campaigns.

Brands can include their WhatsApp number or a QR code on their marketing collateral or adverts, encouraging users to message in to learn more, or perhaps reserve an item, such as the latest model of phone. This inbound interaction then opens the 24 hour conversation window, where agents can send messages to the customer in real-time, outside of the HSMs. These messages can also include marketing such as promo codes.

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Benefits of WhatsApp user journeys In all of these use cases, the customer is receiving an unparalleled brand experience and will regard these companies as innovators, increasing brand awareness, lifetime values of customers, and also retention and referral rates. Appearing in the end-customers WhatsApp (instead of bloated channels such as email which have connotations of spam) will break down barriers of formality between brand and consumer, making the customer more susceptible to buying, viewing the brands alongside their friends and family in their app.

What’s more, WhatsApp offers an avenue into countries that are notoriously difficult to reach via SMS, where network complexities can make sending either expensive, extremely restricted, or impossible. The large character limit of each message too puts WhatsApp out on top for languages that rely on non-GSM characters (where Unicode such as Chinese hanzi can push SMS 160 character limit into scores of segments without much content) or for use cases where long messages are required, particularly in technical spheres that rely on messaging such as engineering.

2-way messaging also offers cost-saving solutions for businesses, by either intervening matters before they become a cost to the brand or consumer, such as rectifying an address or name on a booking and relieving strain on costly call centres for items such as returns, updates to accounts, complaints or other customer service issue. These cost-savings are further amplified by the revenue which can be generated via upselling or cross-selling once customers are engaged in conservations with agents.

Most importantly, with each channel in your omnichannel arsenal offering a door for customers to walk through into your virtual store, WhatsApp is one of the most enticing for consumers on the planet today.

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Pricing With WhatsApp, you can send alerts, reminders and notifications for a competitive customer experience that provides frictionless customer service. Initial messages must be sent as a HSM, but after this, agents can communicate in real-time with customers in a 24 hour window.

Scenario one – Savings by segment This message, whilst brief, by SMS standards is large, and clocks in at four segments with an average cost of £0.029 each, or £0.116 in total.

One HSM capable of character count in the thousands on WhatsApp by comparison would cost only £0.035. For every 12,000 of these kind of operational messages sent, there will be a saving of nearly £1000 for the business. For five segment messages, it would take just 9,000 of these messages to make the same saving. For 10 segment messages, as is common with industries that currently rely on SMS for sending highly technical updates (such as to engineers), it would only take 4000 sends to make that £1000 saving.

With retail, utilities, travel, hospitality and finance companies regularly sending tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of transactional or operational messages via SMS that are multiple segments long, the accumulative savings compound to significant amounts. For example, a business which sends on average 20,000 four segment SMS per day would save £1620 daily switching to WhatsApp, adding up to £591,300 annually. Even if the business migrated just 25% of their customer base to WhatsApp comms, they would still save £147,825 over the course of a year.

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Loan Bros Hi Penelope, I just wanted to confirm that the repayment date on your account has been changed to the 3rd of every month. The next repayment will be on 03/06/2019. If you've moved your date further away, then this will also change the date your loan is due to finish. Remember, it's important that you budget for the repayments, so that the account is kept up to date. The easiest way to update your account details, make payments and view your statement is through our app. Download it here loanbros.me/app. Thanks, and have a great day, from the Loan Bros 10:39 AM

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Pricing Scenario two – The conversation starter

9:41

DeliverUs You parcel will be arriving soon by Cheryl from DeliverUs on Thursday and should arrive between 11:00 and 12:00. Or reply 1,2,3,4 for delivery: 1 To a neighbour 2 To a post office for you to collect 3 Next working day (Mon-Fri) 4 Two working days from today (MonFri) You can also track your parcel by replying ‘Where’s my parcel?’ to this message, where we will send you a live location update.

The outbound messages in this example would have cost seven SMS segments to send at an average cost of £0.203. With a WhatsApp model, the original HSM would only cost £0.031, with a small transaction fee of £0.004 per message in the conversation, amounting to a total of just £0.051 providing a staggering 75% saving in message costs alone. Factoring in the expense of a call centre model to rectify issues similar to this, or leaked efficiencies from non delivery of items or other logistical problems, and WhatsApp becomes the clear solution for saving costs for your business.

10:39 AM

1 10:39 AM You have chosen to leave your parcel with a neighbour. Please reply to this message with the house name or number of your preferred neighbour.

10:39 AM

9:41

You have chosen to leave your parcel with a neighbour. Please reply to this DeliverUs message with the house name or number of your preferred neighbour.

10:39 AM

The boat house 10:39 AM Thank you. You parcel will be arriving soon by Cheryl from DeliverUs on Thursday and should arrive between 11:00 and 12:00 to your neighbour at The boat house. If you need to amend this delivery, you can do so up until 8pm the working day before your scheduled delivery. Simply reply to this message and an agent will manage your enquiry.

10:39 AM

This conversational way of communicating with your customers can also be leveraged for items such as surveys, which can be completed in-app, at low cost to you, and low effort to your customers, or for practical comms such as meter readings or balance enquiries. The possibilities start to become endless, with costs remaining low.

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Pricing

Scenario three – Rich media, inexpensive sends!

Of course, one of the most attractive examples of using a rich channel for your business is the ability to send rich media! With an image, video or file costing the just £0.035 via the HSM, or £0.004 in the conversation, WhatsApp comes out on top of alternatives such as MMS which runs at an average of £0.30 and is also not prioritized as traffic by the networks!

9:41

Heavenly Spa Here is your voucher for your spa appointment today. Have a wonderful time!

10:39 AM

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Huge savings to be made

For every 1 million conversations you have between your business and your customers, using WhatsApp would save you £15,000 for conversations that include two outbound messages, or £78,000 for those that include four! This is not to mention the fact that the messages in your WhatsApp conversation can include images, video, documents or other rich media, and will also be capable of supporting Unicode.

For messages that would need to include multiple segments traditionally using SMS, the savings grow even larger. For instance, a campaign sending an outbound 2 segment SMS would save £23,000 for every million messages sent by switching to WhatsApp. A 10-segment campaign would result in a £255,000 worth of savings, and a 25 segment campaign would render huge value of £690,000 worth of cut costs.

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Your guide to opt-ins By this stage, we’ve probably convinced you that WhatsApp is a channel you need to start leveraging as a business, and soon. But what’s next? To get started with sending on WhatsApp, you’ll need to set-up your WhatsApp Business Account. Once you have done this, you’ll immediately be able to receive inbound messages on your WhatsApp number for both customer service and marketing enquiries. If you require a virtual mobile number, your provider should be able to help you with this.

Next, you’ll need to start gathering opt-ins in order to start leveraging the outbound opportunities that WhatsApp provides you. There are two ways with which you can start doing this. Firstly, is at the point of capture. When a customer signs up to order a product or service from you, simply add in an opt-in permission at this stage. From the customer perspective, there is no additional information to be entered providing you require a phone number. You could even use WhatsApp as part of your verification service to do this, ensuring the customer has entered their phone number correctly for them to receive alerts, reminds and notifications about their order or booking. This also verifies the customers identity, with a 2FA process, protecting their account and adding due diligence to your security processes with little effort.

The second way to gather opt-ins is to leverage your existing customer data and seek them on other channels such as SMS, email or Facebook Messenger. Remember, this is your chance to promote your innovation as a brand and offer a service to the customer that they will want to hear about. Expect a lot of interest from this opt-in campaign, and buzz about your brand as a result.

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What to look for in your WhatsApp provider We know, you want to get started on WhatsApp as soon as possible! But before you do, there are a few things to ask of the providers you are considering to ensure you have picked the right WhatsApp solution for you.

Are they built on scalable?

Even WhatsApp themselves didn’t anticipate the sort of growth they would achieve. Do you know where your business will be in 12 months from now? Make sure you have a provider who can quickly deploy in any country, and can handle message volumes from one to millions.

Do they offer 2-way solutions?

With 2-way messaging being such a crucial linchpin in the integrity of successful WhatsApp use cases for businesses, you would think that every provider would offer this. And yet, many brands have signed up to providers who cannot, much to the endcustomer’s dismay, reply to messages or even receive inbounds, rendering most use cases redundant. Ensure your provider can not only offer 2-way solutions, but also that they have the capability to integrate into your existing systems to handle the inbounds, or be able to offer you the software to facilitate your agents.

How easy is the integration process?

How elegant is the code for your dev teams? How much technical debt will it eliminate, or will it add? Does the integration process make adopting omnichannel easier, or harder? These are all matters that will affect your bottom line and you will need to get answers for before going forward.

Do they offer automated fallback for users not on WhatsApp? It feels like the opposite is true, yet not everyone in the world is on WhatsApp. At least not yet. Does the provider your considering offer an easy fallback channel of your choosing for your sends for users where this is case? Or will you be stuck doing multiple sends, for multiple segments of customers?

What kind of knowledge base do they have?

How much experience does the provider have in the world of business messaging? Do they have the support and knowledge base required to quickly handle any issues that may end up costing your business otherwise?

How secure will the data be of your business and your customers?

Customers are more concerned about the use of their data than ever. It can be tricky to trust third-parties with consumer data for this very reason, let alone the legal headaches in a post-GDPR world. Does your provider make it easy for your legal and customer experience teams to tick the boxes of approval?

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Leverage dotdigital’s One API to integrate once and be ready to send with WhatsApp With over 17 years of experience in business messaging and APIs, let dotdigital handle the integration and guide you through the message requirements. Our technology also offers automated channel fallback options to make sure you message reaches as many users as possible. Fallback to SMS or other channels, all with one send.

The unparalleled advantage of the One API is our single integration process that allows you to immediately tap into omnichannel potential and gain access to all the channels we offer. No one knows what the future holds. But your business can prepare for it today. Whether you are ready for WhatsApp now, six months from now, or in a year’s time, by leveraging the One API, you’ll be ready ahead of the competition when it matters most.

Drive communication that engages, supports and converts With chat agents able to handle six times more enquiries than call centre staff, messaging is a solution that pays for itself. Leverage 2-way messaging with dotdigital’s solution to not only send but also receive on this valuable channel, and others. Within WhatsApp conversations you have the power to send and receive rich content such as images, PDF confirmations, QR code tickets, help and support videos, and more. Leverage our APIs and webhooks to integrate to and from your CRM and optimize and improve upon every campaign with detailed reporting including delivery and open rates.

Robust and secure

REST API

End-to-end encryption protects your business and your customers. WhatsApp for business means your customers know they are speaking to a verified company, and that their data is secure. What’s more, dotdigital are multicloud based, offering you ultimate peace of mind.

The dotdigital API uses REST to offer an elegant but simple solution for your business. Our team of experts are always on hand to help with any support you may require in the integration process, and beyond.

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Next Steps Whether you want to find a way to cut costs, generate more revenue or increase the perception and awareness of your brands, let us help you achieve goals with WhatsApp for business.

Find out more Call us on 01242 802312 text or WhatsApp us on +447860034444 or email us salesteam@dotdigital.com

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