Integrating WhatsApp with a chatbot can be a great advantage for both you and your customers. As Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said in the presentation of its latest launch: “The best business experiences are right where the people are. And that place is WhatsApp”.
This instant messaging tool is the number one smartphone application with more than 2 billion users. In fact, it is the largest messaging network in the world today from which more than 55 billion instant messages are exchanged daily.
And this is not just for millennials… Who doesn’t have the app installed on their phone? Even my mother uses it! You know, the well-known “Mom texting…”. Almost 100% of digital users are familiar with this app.
So why not take full advantage of it?
If you want to know how, let’s go for it.
What is a chatbot for WhatsApp
First, in case you just landed on this blog and don’t know what this is all about, I’m going to explain what a chatbot is.
A chatbot is a tool that helps you automate your business’ customer service by answering your customers’ most frequent queries.
With a chatbot you can save time and money while your business is attended 24 hours a day, every day of the year offering your customers immediate answers to their queries.
It’s normal that this tool is at the crest of the technological wave…
But what does a chatbot have to do with WhatsApp?
Well, now you can connect the queen of instant messaging with a chatbot and the user can interact from WhatsApp but, from behind, the answers will be provided by the bot in an automated way.
In the case of using this integration, instead of the typical chatbot widget appearing on the website, a button with the WhatsApp icon will appear. Pressing the button will open the conversation in the WhatsApp app on your phone or the desktop version.
And, from there, the conversation you know how it goes on 🙂
Advantages of using a chatbot in WhatsApp
1. You are where your customers are
We have already said that WhatsApp is the most used instant messaging application in the world, so why not take advantage of it for your business?
2. Can be connected to other applications
Easily and without the need to hire intermediaries.
3. Real time conversations
Unlike automated messages (already allowed by WhatsApp Business), a chatbot allows immediate conversations with the customer to answer their queries, offering a more personalized experience.
4. Offers you better coverage and faster response speed
Increase the number of sales and customer loyalty because a chatbot can respond to several people at the same time and at a higher speed than a human working 24/7.
5. Increases customer satisfaction
It improves brand recognition and the customer’s trust in the company by making them feel supported at all times, both in the pre-sales phase and during the sales and post-sales process.
6. It allows the use of a wide variety of formats
From videos to images, GIFs, stickers and, of course, texts. It generates closeness with the user and empathizes with their tastes.
How to create a chatbot for WhatsApp?
First of all I want to tell you what has happened in recent years with WhatsApp.
Until 2018, WhatsApp was a personal app. That is, it allowed 1:1 conversations. Although it could be used in the business world, it did not have tools that would allow them to optimize either their campaigns or dialogues with users.
But, in January 2018 WhatsApp Business was launched, a revolution for medium and large companies with special functionalities for them. From that moment on, companies could create product catalogs, tag customers or send messages and quick responses to their customers, among other things, through this instant messaging tool.
In the following years, WhatsApp developers have been working to go one step further and in 2022 they are releasing the Cloud WhatsApp Business API to the world. A new version so that all types of businesses, large and small, can easily access the advantages offered by WhatsApp in communicating with consumers from its API.
Thus, API Cloud WhatsApp Business is designed for more advanced uses than its previous version. The big difference compared to WhatsApp Business is that it allows you to automate conversations with users and broadcast messages in bulk.
Putting all this in context, what you have to do to create a chatbot for WhatsAPP in a very summarized way is the following:
- First of all, create a business account on Meta (if you don’t already have one, of course). You can use your Facebook business profile, for example.
- Then, create within the platform a new business APP and fill in the fields with your data.
- It’s time to select WhatsApp to access the WhatsApp Business platform API and to start taking your first steps.
- From the first steps section you can already try to launch your first messages with a number that Meta provides for this purpose.
- Now, all that’s left is to choose your chatbot tool like Arkibot and connect it with the data it provides you with to finish the integration. But this is another story that I’ll tell you right now 🙂
And with this you would already have a chatbot integrated in WhatsApp to start working on conversational marketing and communication with your customers from another channel.
How to add a chatbot in WhatsApp?
In our case, we are going to tell you how to connect Arkibot with WhatsApp quickly and easily. Not to be a spoiler (come on, yes, it’s spring🌻), but Arkibot is a very complete chatbot tool that advances at the pace of technology.
Connecting Arkibot with WhatsApp will allow your customers to make their queries from WhatsApp but, from behind, the answers will be given by your Arkibot chatbot in an automated way without you having to be aware of answering and being able to focus on your work.
In this case, you can connect your Arkibot chatbot with WhatsApp in the easiest way. If you think that “it’s easy” is what everyone says, I assure you that this is not a saying, it’s a fact.
We have created a guide with step-by-step explanations in text, images and video for you to learn how to connect your Arkibot chatbot with WhatsApp without complications and from the team that created it.
If you want to take a look at it and see for yourself what you can do with Arkibot, here it is. 👀
Now it’s up to you to decide whether or not to take the step of getting Arkibot (and for only 9.90€/month) to connect it with WhastApp and take communication with your users and your customer service to another level.
And if you have any questions, you know where we are. 😉
Want to know more?
Come in and try Arkibot,
your business customer service is going to change after this.