How to leverage WhatsApp for customer engagement

Are you searching for new ways to engage customers and drive conversions? Effective customer engagement strategies are crucial if you’re hoping to build loyalty and ensure consumers have positive experiences with your brand. But what do they involve?

The most successful customer engagement strategies require several channels and methods, from traditional email marketing to social media activity. In recent years, the immediacy of digital communications means consumers have come to expect personalised and responsive customer services. Stats show that over 80% of consumers expect companies to respond to their messages within 24 hours, while 44% expect responses within an hour – not an easy feat!

This is where WhatsApp comes in. With stunning average open rates of 98%, WhatsApp messages are perfect for delivering vital information, including personalised order updates, appointment reminders, and links to special deals. In short, WhatsApp customer engagement strategies allow you to reach as much of your target audience as possible.

Key features of WhatsApp for customer engagement

WhatsApp features heaps of handy tools designed to facilitate strong customer engagement, including:

• Instant messaging: WhatsApp allows businesses to send instant personalised reminders and time-sensitive messages. For example, you can send customers handy shipping updates without consuming your customer service representatives’ time.
• Group chats: WhatsApp allows you to send mass messages in group chats – perfect if you want to launch a new product, change business hours, or provide an urgent service update.
• Multimedia sharing: WhatsApp allows businesses to share photos and videos to promote their brand, but it also lets customers do the same when asking for a quote or explaining their issue.

Best practices for using WhatsApp for customer engagement

Just starting out with WhatsApp? Here are a few things to remember:

• Build your brand: Create a WhatsApp business profile with a high-quality logo and crucial details, such as your business name, opening hours, website URL, and location.
• Connect with customers: Keep customers engaged by responding to enquiries quickly and sending regular updates about company news, recent product launches, special offers, and more.
• Keep messages short: Customers don’t want to read an essay! Avoid fluff and only include relevant information.
• Use automation and real humans: Remember to combine automations and chatbots with customer service representatives to ensure customers receive responsive, informative messages.

Integrate WhatsApp with other customer engagement channels

To create a seamless experience for your customers while staying efficient, customer support teams should seek multi-channel solutions that can integrate WhatsApp with other customer engagement channels, including phone lines, SMS, social media, and email. Multi-channel inboxes allow businesses to centralise all their customer communication in one place, no matter the platform. Customer success teams can leverage a multi-channel inbox to never miss an enquiry and keep their response times low.

So, as you can see, WhatsApp is one of the most popular and versatile customer engagement channels available. If you’re wondering how you can start leveraging WhatsApp for your business, book a demo with Fuzey today and get your multi-channel inbox set up in no time!