Appcare: How to successfully use WhatsApp as a service channel?

Research by NewCom Research shows that WhatsApp is still the undisputed number one social messaging app, both in the Netherlands and worldwide. As many as 82% of Dutch people actively use WhatsApp and worldwide more than 2 billion people use it in 180 countries.

In many countries, including the Netherlands, WhatsApp has become the most popular communication channel. Therefore, organizations also desired to use this channel for business purposes. With the arrival of the WhatsApp Business API, appcare is now also accessible for organizations. Since last year we have been a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider. We integrate the WhatsApp Business API directly into our all-in-one solution for digital customer contact, data analytics and conversational AI.

What are the main benefits of appcare for both customers and organizations?

Some key reasons to start communicating via WhatsApp:

• Communication via WhatsApp is low-threshold
• Personal contact thanks to private conversations
• Sending photos, video, documents and voice recordings is easy
• Reachability: service can be provided 24 hours a day.

The threshold for sending a message via WhatsApp is low. Everyone always has a smartphone at hand and sending an app is done in no time. There are now 12.4 million Dutch people who have installed WhatsApp and both young and old know how to use it.

Through public channels, prying eyes can easily read the conversations between customers and organizations. This is not always desirable. By using WhatsApp, you keep the conversation private and promote personal contact with the customer. This personal contact turned out to be more important than ever in times of the pandemic. With appcare you create great opportunities to build a confidential relationship with your customer.  

Sending a photo or sending a video? With a single click of a button, you share rich information with friends, family and organizations. This can help explain a question or problem. The customer and organization will understand each other better, making a conversation even faster and more efficient.

Sending a message can be done at any time of the day, and service does not stop before 9:00 or after 17:00. Chances are, however, that your service team is not in the office 24 hours a day. In that case, consider using a chatbot to ensure that the customer receives an answer even outside of business hours.

Zendesk’s Customer Experience Trend Report 2021 shows that messaging channels gained ground during the pandemic. Whereas messaging channels were particularly popular in Latin America and Asia before the pandemic, this trend is now spreading to continental Europe. Today, over 2.77 billion people worldwide use messaging channels on a monthly basis.

In the graph below you can see that the number of support questions via WhatsApp has increased the most in the past year.

The figures from the trend report show that customers appreciate a quick response and qualified agents the most in solving their questions. Being available 24/7 is important for more than a third of the respondents. And a quarter thinks friendliness is important. Almost all of these aspects can be dealt with by organising the appcare within your organisation well.

Do you want to know how your customers experience your communication or service? Then it might be a good idea to use a tool that actively measures NPS and thus feedback from your customers. An example of this is the tooling of our partner InSocial.