7 Tips To Use WhatsApp For Customer Support

No waiting lines, delayed replies, or impersonal messages — this is what customers dream about in communication with brands. Satisfied customers, high open rates, and fast replies are KPIs of the other side, company managers. 

The solution? Right customer service tool and communication on channels where your customers are.

So meet an undisputed leader with over two billion users — WhatsApp. 98% open rate and 40% response rate make it one of the best customer service channels. 

Here are seven tips on how to use WhatsApp for customer support most effectively in 2024. In this article, you’ll find out what integrations to use, messages to send, when to connect live agents, launch instant replies or chatbots, and their copy. 

Let’s dive in.

Please Note: This blog includes tips for using WhatsApp for customer support with the help of WhatsApp Business API based platform AiSensy. If you don't know what is WhatsApp Business API or AiSensy, make sure to read this WhatsApp Business API guide first!

1. Start with your profile

What do people see when they enter your brand page on WhatsApp? Brand name, avatar, and description are the first that comes to mind. But, unfortunately, that's not enough to define that an account is not fake and how to connect with a brand on the app.

Here are must-haves and optional elements of a business profile on WhatsApp: 

Must Have

• Logo
• Brand Name
• Description of what your brand does with CTA to engage customers
• Website Link
• Work hours
• Contact details (phone, email, address, etc)

However, Business profile details like Green Tick, Business Category & WhatsApp Catalogues can't be shared via the WhatsApp Business app. 

WhatsApp Business Profile details possible only via WhatsApp Business API

The above-mentioned profile details are possible with the WhatsApp Business app. These are only possible with the assistance of a WhatsApp Business API account which you can create with a WhatsApp Business Partner (BSP) like AiSensy.

With your WhatsApp Business API account, you can also have these things added to your WhatsApp Business profile:

• Verified Green Tick Mark
• WhatsApp Catalogue to sell your products directly on WhatsApp.
• Business Category

Here are examples of the business profiles on WhatsApp:

1. Levi's

Since Levi's is a well-known brand, its description highlights ways of business communication with customers. To prove their status, Levi's share logo, verification mark, and website URL.  

2. Coastal Habitat

Not-so-popular businesses that work offline mostly prefer to highlight what and why they do in description. The second element they show is a company address. 

2. Highlight your products in a catalogue 

Besides description, there is another way to tell users about your products — product catalogues.

Over 40 million consumers look through product catalogues on WhatsApp monthly.

Ensure you create it, especially if you’re an eCommerce brand. Add product images, titles, and short descriptions of your best-performing items. Thus, customers can choose what to order without switching to your website.

Using AiSensy, you can seamlessly connect your WhatsApp Catalogues & send product catalogues to users right on WhatsApp. Now, with the introduction of WhatsApp pay to AiSensy enables you to sell your products end-to-end right on WhatsApp.

3. Use AiSensy's intuitive Live Chat

90% of customers view an instant response as either crucial or very important when they need customer service assistance.

But, let's say your inbox is flooded with 1000s of user messages. How do you tackle such a challenge?

There's a very simple solution: Use AiSensy's Live Chat to ensure that customers get the response they want in a flash.

How? Well, with AiSensy, you can have as many customer support agents as you want answering customer queries in one go.

The Live chat is divided in three sections: Active, Requesting & Intervened.

Active chats are chats handled by the WhatsApp Chatbot, the requesting chats are chats requested for human intervention & the intervened chats show chats which your agents have intervened

You can easily add agents to AiSensy & assign them these chats. Refer this doc to know how.

4. Tell people about the opportunity to contact you on WhatsApp

Congrats! You created a WhatsApp profile. Time to spread the word about it among your potential customers. 

To contact you, they should have your phone number. Even if you use a virtual phone system, ensure you display it on your website and socials.  It can be: 

• phone number in the header or “Contact Us” section; 
• Website widget by clicking which customers can directly send you WhatsApp messages; 

• WhatsApp QR code on your brand banners, brochures, printed ads, etc. 

When everything is set up, it’s time to chat with consumers.

Just do this & see how your customer engagement skyrockets from Day 1!!

5. Answer customer questions

Creating a brand profile is the first thing WhatsApp offers you to do. But a customer journey starts in chat. So make sure you don’t welcome them with silence.

1. Launch an automated greeting message

Here is an example of what it may look like. 

Generally, it'll be a short description of the brand or a simple communication from the brand that they'll be sending you messages on WhatsApp.

This is also known as a WhatsApp Optin which is crucial for every business to send messages legally to all users.

2. Set an away message and response time expectations

You can easily set automated away messages for your business in AiSensy. Here's how. 

It will help to guide customers when your support agents aren’t working. Tell when they can get support from a human agent and provide alternative sources of information for FAQs. 

What about processing customer requests? There are two types: complex ones that require in-depth research from an agent and frequently asked questions that don’t need human assistance. 

Here is where you can save your team’s time. Define the list of FAQs, prepare answers, and send them automatically. How to do that?

1. Launch a chatbot. You can create the simplest one with pre-defined answers like these two:

The same chatbot type can assist customers in simple processes like booking, order tracking, food ordering, and purchase. 

You must be thinking that it would require coding expertise to create a Chatbot, right?

Well, not with AiSensy!! You can create simple Drag & Drop Chatbots allowing you to create Chatbot flows as quickly as in 10 minutes.

Automated messages aren’t limited to answering FAQs or guidance only 👇

6. Send customer notifications

Customer service is more than just answering questions. It is about proactive communication as well. Things like confirmation of the purchase and doctor appointment reminders ease customers’ life. Here are ideas for automated and manual WhatsApp messages to engage your audience. 

Confirmation of purchase or booking. Here is an example of an automated booking confirmation reminder:

Reminders about scheduled events, appointments, payments, etc. People tend to forget things like doctor appointments or payment deadlines. Such notifications are a great way to keep your clients informed.

Here is an example of an automated payment reminder:

And here are manual messages from a clinic assistant:

Both work great. But let’s be honest, the second is more personalized. Want  your automated messages to look the same? That’s possible with a proper WhatsApp business API and customer service tool integrated with your CRM. Thus, at least, you can address customers by name. 

• Delivery status. There are two ways to inform customers about the status of their order. Look at this example: 

Besides the shipment status, this message contains a tracking number, a link to the tracking system, and an invitation to chat with support.

• Sales announcement. Share details of the upcoming offer with links to a promo landing page. Here is an example:

Customers can follow the link or click the “Top offers” button to see the best deals in a chat. 

• Cart abandonment messages are an excellent way to return customers. 3-5 days after visiting your store, send potential customers a message with a link to their cart. Offer limited in time discount to engage them in return.  

• Back-in-stock alerts. It is a common thing when the desired item is out of stock. Now imagine your sales increase when customers finally get an opportunity to buy it. To ensure they know about your update, allow them to subscribe to that item tracking and send them relevant alerts when it is back in stock. 

Add items’ images and links to the product page to make your message more appealing. 

• Product recommendations are perfect for retaining customers’ attention. Track their website behavior and purchases. Based on this data, you can define a product they are interested in most of all and offer it in a WhatsApp message like the Tata CLiQ store team did:

This recommendation is based on the customer's browsing history from the past month and a follow-up regarding abandoned cart items.

Read also: Top 7 Strategies to Get WhatsApp Opt-in from users easily

7. Capture customer feedback

WhatsApp is an excellent source of inspo for improving your service or products. Ask customers about their experience, what they like, and want. Messengers like WhatsApp have an incredible open rate. So there are more chances to get an answer than via email.

Usually, brands send customer surveys after purchase, like Alpha Coffee Company in this example:

Ensure you integrated WhatsApp with your customer support tool to collect the statistics data.

To sum up: The secret element

Now you know six tactics on how to provide personalized customer service on WhatsApp. Let’s recall the best insights:

1. Set up your business profile. Add your brand logo, description, contacts, and tell people how to use this channel. 
2. Highlight your products in a catalog.
3. Integrate WhatsApp into your tech stack. Connect it with CRM and a customer support tool your team uses. 
4. Spread the word about your WhatsApp number among the target audience.
5. Take care of customer requests. Use instant replies and chatbots to answer FAQs. 
6. Send triggered messages about upcoming sales, purchase confirmations, event reminders, etc. 
7. Improve your service and products with customer feedback. 

But there is a seventh, most crucial step — tracking and analyzing results. Customer surveys are ideal for monitoring CSAT (customer satisfaction score). In addition, keep an eye on the first response time, average resolution time, number of new and active conversations. 

This will help you understand how effective new customer service efforts are. 

FAQs about WhatsApp for customer service

Q. How can I use WhatsApp for business support?

Q. Which companies use WhatsApp for customer service?

Q. Why would a business use WhatsApp?

About the Author

Evelina Carillo

Evelina Carillo is a friendly and skilled writer and blogger with more than a decade of experience in crafting all sorts of content for the marketing, customer support chatbot and business world. She's also spent five years diving into the exciting world of EdTech where she's continued to learn and grow in her field.