Use WhatsApp For Customer Support Effectively: 2024 Guide

Why Should You Use WhatsApp For Customer Service?

Let's jump right in!

Flexibility to choose from multiple message formats

WhatsApp allows you to send text, images, videos, or PDFs. That covers all major formats of communication.  

• Want to send your restaurant's menu or a catalog of your designs? Use PDF. 
• Want to give an update about delivery? Go for a text message. 
• Have an upcoming event? Announce the launch with a short video. 
• Need to explain a complex process? Send screenshots and images.
• Add a human touch to your conversations by adding emojis  😉 
  

For an even richer & interactive experience for your customers, use live video, voice note, or call functionality. It will help resolve the customers' queries more understandably. 

Make your business run efficiently with chatbot capabilities

WhatsApp chatbot is a set of automated replies that mimic a human conversation, and the dialogue feels like you are chatting with a human. 

For example, if you run an ecommerce store & have a WhatsApp chatbot created, it can show products to your users according to the category they choose or help them track their package. It helps in customer retention and engagement. 

A WhatsApp chatbot will help make your business more efficient because: 

• It will assist your users during non-working hours.
• You won't have to keep hiring agents as your business grows. 
• It can handle multiple chats while freeing up your time for more strategic tasks. 
  

Customers feel that WhatsApp is a secure and credible channel

Customers want a quick and easy way to communicate with businesses but not by putting private information on unsecured channels. 

WhatsApp has discussed its end-to-end encryption feature in great lengths, promoting it as a channel that can be trusted to share information. This builds confidence in customers that no one is snooping on their conversation with you. 

WhatsApp also validates the authenticity of your business account. Customers are shown a message that they are interacting with the official business account of your brand. 

WhatsApp offers a smooth, quick, and easy way to communicate

Going to your website, finding a form to submit a query, and then waiting for what feels like a dark, long winter to get a reply is a frustrating experience for any customer. 

Now, imagine if they could just grab their phone, search your business on WhatsApp in less than ten seconds and send you their query. WhatsApp doesn't take ages to load, the UI is familiar to everyone, and it's intuitive for people of all age groups. 

That's smooth as butter. 

So using WhatsApp to solve your customers' queries will get your customer loyalty, create word of mouth and enhance brand image. 

Here are some examples of successful brands talking about how WhatsApp has helped their business (source).

How to Deliver Great Customer Support via WhatsApp

We've discussed the why. Time to dive in to the how!

First, let your customers know you are on WhatsApp 

If no one knows you are WhatsApp, then all your strategies and tools will be useless so let your audience know you have added WhatsApp as a communication channel. 

Start by adding your WhatsApp number to the

• Home page of your website by using a WhatsApp chat icon
• 'Contact Us’ page on the website
• Email signatures of your customer support team or account managers (in B2B)
• Newsletter or promotional emails 
• Bio of social media accounts 
  

You can run email or social media campaigns informing your audience that you now cater to their queries on WhatsApp. Position it as a competitive advantage or provide incentives to start interacting with you on WhatsApp. 

Pro tip: Make your WhatsApp number clickable by using a vCard. That way, when someone clicks on it, they will automatically be redirected to WhatsApp, and your contact details will automatically be downloaded in their contact list. 

Here's an example of a WhatsApp chat widget on a live website: 

When you type your message & click the send icon, it leads to your WhatsApp chat and starts a conversation with the brand. 

Use WhatsApp Business API and a Shared Inbox

If you:

• Are answering 50+ queries per day on WhatsApp 
• Have more than one team member handling customer service
• Want to handle queries from different social media platforms in a single platform 
  

Then, you need to use a WhatsApp Shared Inbox. It is a collaborative inbox that lets multiple people receive, respond and track messages in one place. Here are some advantages of using a Shared Inbox for WhatsApp:

• Individual tickets can be assigned to a team member, so you always know who is responsible for a customer query.
• The risk of data misuse is avoided by only allowing the right team members to access the messages.
• Owners don't have to share their WhatsApp numbers and OTPs with customer support agents.
• Teams work efficiently as you can add notes on chats for internal teams.
• You can resolve queries quickly with automation, tags, and fast reply templates.
  

DelightChat is one such provider of a WhatsApp shared inbox. But that’s not all, it also allows you to manage your customer support queries from various channels like social media and email, all in one place. Here's what you can do with DelightChat: 

• Manage WhatsApp API number for customer support
• Also manage messages from, Facebook, Instagram, Live Chat, and Email
• Create multiple shared inboxes if you run multiple ecommerce stores
• Track which team member is working on which conversations
• Ensure seamless ticket transition from one agent to the other by using private notes on chats
• Speed up responses to common queries with fast-reply templates 

A WhatsApp shared inbox can be activated with the help of the WhatsApp Business API that you can get from DelightChat.

Signup for a demo and the team can help you set it up within a few minutes.  

Build post-purchase engagement messages

Getting a new customer is not the end of the customer journey. You have to nurture them even after purchase. So that they are not just customers but become raving fans because of your service & you get an opportunity to increase the customer lifetime value by offering upsells. 

Let's summarize the different types of messages you can send 

• Order confirmation: Send a message that the order has been received and it's being packed. Include a warm thank-you for giving your business a chance to serve them. 
• Order tracking: Send a link to track the order once it is ready to be shipped. 
• Delivery notifications: When the order is delivered, inform over WhatsApp that the order is delivered. This is helpful when the order is collected by someone else other than the actual customer or neighbors. 
• Feedback: Send a link to a form for recording their experience with your store or ask them 2-3 questions directly on WhatsApp and later collate the answers from different customers. People are much more likely to respond on WhatsApp than email since it's easy and quick. 
• Upsell: Once someone has bought from you, there's a higher chance they will buy again to see what else you can offer them. Use WhatsApp messages to showcase products related to their recent purchase or recommend upgrading to a higher version of the product. 
• Referral requests: Referrals are a great way to find new customers through the existing customer base. You can also include an incentive to refer friends and family. 
  

Since most of these messages would be standard for all customers, it makes sense to create these once and use them again & again. To manage the editing, and sending of these messages, DelightChat offers the 'Automation Messages' feature.

To convert people who left items in their cart and didn't complete the purchase, you can send an abandoned cart recovery message. A template is available in DelightChat. 

Here's how template messages appear in the customers' chat: 

Create canned response templates

Do you dream of your customers calling your support team ‘superfast,’ ‘quick,’ ‘much better than alternatives?' Does your team type the same message again and again for frequently asked questions? 

Then you should look at creating canned responses (also called fast-replies). These are pre-drafted answers to commonly asked questions that can be sent to your customers after no or minimal editing. 

Canned responses help you reduce the response time and increase the productivity of your customer service agents. 

Example of a canned response for an ecommerce store:

Customers asking the status of their refund is a common query. This is a message you can type once and store in your inbox. Select it whenever you get a refund query.

--

Hey <customer name> 

Sorry to hear that the product didn’t work out for you. 

Your refund request has been received. A refund will be initiated upon successful pickup. You can expect the refund as per the following timeline:

• ‍NEFT – 1 to 3 days post refund initiation
• Online Refund – 7 to 10 days post refund initiation, depending on your bank
• Others <Add details of other options you support>

--

Creating, storing, editing, using, and sending these replies might sound complicated. But it's possible to do all this with the help of technology and tools. 

To execute this, DelightChat offers a 'Fast Reply' feature in its inbox. The 'Fast Reply' button is available by default in all chats, and you can create a new response in just a few simple steps.

Reply within 24 hours

WhatsApp has a 24-hour rule. According to this: 

• You can not start a conversation with a customer proactively. Customers will have to message you first. 
• Once the customer reaches out to you, you have 24 hours to reply back. After that, you will not be able to reply. 
• The 24-hour window starts when the customer sends you the message and not when you receive the message. 
• Your reply should be delivered before 24 hours, or else you will lose contact with the customer.
  

That's a bummer! You might miss on customer queries if they reach out to you during the holidays or outside of business hours. 

How do you overcome this?

Enter: DelightChat

With DelightChat's 'WhatsApp Message Template' you can proactively reach out to your customers. The WhatsApp message templates must adhere to specific WhatsApp guidelines to be approved. After being approved, which takes 10-15 min, the message can be sent to the customers.

You can send updates, alerts, and transactional notifications. WhatsApp nowadays also has started approving templates that are promotional in nature. Finally, there's an upper limit of 1024 characters. 

Here is an example of a WhatsApp Message Template:

Hi {{1}}, your order no. {{2}} has been placed. To track your order, please visit this link. 

Here, {{1}} & {{2}} are variables which will be resolved differently for each customer. 

Let's see how you can do this in a few simple steps using DelightChat.

The task can be divided into two parts:

a) creating a template message, and

b) sending a template message. 

For creating a template message, go to WhatsApp Marketing > Message Templates and Click on 'Create Message Template'.  

Create your message template by populating all the required fields. Click on 'Apply for template'. 

The template takes 2 minutes to get approved after which you can use it in your replies. 

For sending a template message, here are the steps:

Whenever there's a customer to whom you haven't gotten back within 24 hours of receiving their message, the chat will be disabled and you will see a 'Send Template Message' button in the chat. 

Click that button to open up a window to select your template message. 

Select the template from 'Template Name' dropdown and your message will be loaded. 

Check how the message will finally look with 'Generate Previews'. Hit 'Send Message' to send the message. 

5 Real-world Examples of Businesses Using WhatsApp For Customer Service

CRED sends order updates

CRED is a credit card payment platform  & has an ecommerce store to discover new brands. 

They send a message on WhatsApp instead of clogging the ever-flowing email inbox, they send a message on WhatsApp when you order anything from them. (guilty of ordering a lot of snacks!) 

Here are the takeaways from this message:

• Tells you about the item purchased 
• Informs the status of the shipment 
• Includes a tracking link 
• The tone is conversations, and the message is short 
  

91Springboard informs the status of a support ticket 

We messaged 91Springboard, a coworking space outside of working hours. They sent us an immediate reply. This is an automated message but certainly very helpful. 

Here's what we liked about this message: 

• Warm welcome & acknowledgment of query  
• Clarity on their working hours and when we can expect to hear back 
• Link to get a virtual tour until we speak to a real human being or visit the place physically. Helps with engagement. 
  

Fresh & Hearty welcomes a new subscriber

Fresh & Hearty is a health food store. They have a CTA in their Instagram bio to connect with them on WhatsApp. When we did that, they greeted us with a short & sweet welcome email. 

Here's what we liked about this approach: 

• Active promotion of WhatsApp as a communication channel on social media
• The use of emojis keep the message tone conversational 
• Promotion of links that the audience must know 
• It's easy to forward this to a friend if you like the brand
  

Anata shares their menu 

Anata is a marketplace for fresh, farm produce. They share their menu with past customers at the start of the week. 

Here's what we liked:

• Used text, PDF, emojis, and a button to make sure their people take action
• Included a link to reach out to support 
• Offered coupon on a minimum order value 
  

Indigo shares tickets and booking confirmation 

Flying can be stressful! So Indigo, a major Indian airline, wanted to give their customers a faster way to get an answer to their questions. That’s why they created a dedicated customer support account, where you can receive your booking confirmation, check-in notification, boarding pass, and flight status updates.

Here's what you can take away from this: 

• The use of formatting options (bold, italics, spacing) bring clarity while reading the message
• Emojis create a feeling of excitement & positive association with the brand
• Links are shortened to not create confusion and keep the message less messy 
• Upsell options right after the necessary information 
  

DelightChat: Shared Inbox to Manage WhatsApp Support

Does it feel overwhelming to add one more channel of communication to your business? Well, you don't have to feel that way because of the tools like DelightChat that help manage all support channels & customer queries from one dashboard. 

To scale your customer service using WhatsApp, give DelightChat a try. It is a customer service tool tailor-made for ecommerce brands.

With DelightChat, you get:

• Shared inbox to manage WhatsApp, Instagram, FB, Email & Live Chat queries
• Smart automations, ability to reply quickly using templates, easy team collaboration on support queries
• Official WhatsApp Business API
• WhatsApp Marketing features like sending bulk broadcasts to customer lists
  

Sign up today to get a personalized demo!