WhatsApp Business
Description
WhatsApp had 2 billion users before Meta launched a dedicated business version of the application, which meant hundreds of millions of customers were already contacting businesses through personal WhatsApp accounts that had no tools for managing business communication at any scale. A single phone number that all members of a team shared, no means of setting automated responses, no product catalog, and no division between personal and professional conversations created real operational problems for small businesses. WhatsApp Business, released in January 2018, solved those issues with features designed specifically for business use while retaining the same end-to-end encryption and interface that the user base was already familiar with.
The app is aimed directly at small and medium businesses — a restaurant, a clothing retailer, a local service provider, a freelancer — who communicate with their customers mostly through messaging. A separate tier, the WhatsApp Business Platform accessed via an API, serves larger enterprises and contact center operations, but the app itself is for the millions of businesses that manage customer communication via a single person or a small team.
KEY FEATURES
Business Profile
The business profile visually distinguishes a WhatsApp Business account from a personal account. The profile shows the business name, business category, business description, business address, business hours, business email address, and business website URL. Customers who message the business, or view the profile see this information instead of a personal name and photo. A verified badge is a mark by Meta for businesses that Meta has verified, providing credibility signals for customers who discover the business via WhatsApp’s business directory.
Automated Messages
Three types of automated messages address the most common gaps in business communications. A greeting message is an automated message that is sent when a customer sends a message to the business for the first time or after 14 days without any message, and it introduces the business to the customer without requiring anyone to be online when the message arrives. An away message, which is automatically sent outside the business hours specified in the profile, to set response expectations when the business is closed. Quick replies save frequently used responses — directions, pricing information, terms, FAQs — as shortcuts that the sender activates by typing a slash followed by a keyword, which inserts the full saved message without being retyped.
Labels
Labels are used to organize conversations and individual messages with colored tags. A business could have labels for New Customer, Pending Payment, Order Complete, Follow Up, and Complaint, and applies the labels to conversations to track the status across a list of customers. Labels are used to filter the conversation list to show only those conversations with a specific tag, providing a quick view of, say, all conversations marked as currently pending a response.
Catalog
The catalog feature allows businesses to build a browsable listing of products or services within WhatsApp. Each catalog item contains a name, price, description, item code and up to ten pictures. Customers browsing the catalog can share individual items or the entire catalog with others and add items to a cart to share with the business. The catalog makes it unnecessary to transmit product photos and prices separately in every customer conversation, referring instead to a structured listing.
Statistics
WhatsApp Business displays delivery and read statistics for messages sent — how many messages were sent, delivered, read and received within a selected period. These metrics apply to broadcast messages and standard conversations, and provide businesses with basic visibility into message reach and customer engagement.
Broadcast Lists
Broadcast lists allow you to send a message to multiple contacts at the same time, and each contact will receive the message as an individual message instead of as a group chat. Recipients respond privately to the business and not to other recipients. Broadcast lists require contacts to have saved the business number in their phone’s address book to receive the message, so broadcasts are restricted to existing contacts, not cold outreach.
WhatsApp Business Web
The desktop web interface at web.whatsapp.com connects to the mobile app, reflecting conversations in a desktop browser window, allowing businesses that deal with messages from a computer to type responses without accessing the phone. WhatsApp Business Web supports all the messaging features such as quick replies, catalog sharing, and label management.
Multi-Device Support
WhatsApp Business supports up to four linked devices at a time — a phone and up to three other devices including computers and tablets. All of the linked devices have access to the entire conversation history and can send and receive messages independently, so a small team of people can share one WhatsApp Business number across multiple devices.
