Why WhatsApp Chatbots Are Key to Sales and Marketing Strategies

Close your eyes and think about all the notifications, updates, calls, and messages you and your customers may receive in the last 30 minutes. Overwhelming, right?

This is the “attention economy” in action—a concept coined by American political scientist Herbert A. Simon that has gained enormous significance in our information-saturated world. 

Today, customers demand instant gratification and immediate responses from businesses. As attention spans shrink and AI technologies advance, marketers and sales professionals face a critical question: ”What can I do to capture the attention of a prospective customer?”

WhatsApp chatbots offer a compelling answer. These AI-powered tools can cut through the noises and provide the instant, personalized interaction that your customers require.

By using WhatsApp chatbots in your marketing and sales strategies, you won’t just be keeping pace but actively commanding attention in a world where, as Samuel Johnson aptly put it, "The true art of memory is the art of attention."

The rise of WhatsApp as a customer-preferred channel

The entire digital wave has been both a boon and a bane to marketers and salespeople. Websites slowly gave way to mobile apps as people began to rely on their phones for everything, from communication to consuming information. 

Consumers increasingly prefer a mobile experience for communication without the added storage space. Businesses are now scrambling to provide instantaneous responses to customer queries to stand out in crowded markets.

Businesses are finding great success with messaging apps, particularly WhatsApp. Here’s why: 

• WhatsApp is the most widely used messaging app in the world, with nearly three billion users across 180 countries.
• It boasts a 98% open rate, far surpassing the open rates of email and SMS. 
• In 2023, a user, on average, spent over 30 minutes per day on WhatsApp.
• Over 140 billion messages are exchanged on the platform every day.

Source:  Gallabox

Considering these statistics, businesses are making a beeline towards WhatsApp. Combining chatbots on WhatsApp with AI-driven automation helps businesses solve challenges and significantly boost marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction rates. 

As a two-way communication platform, WhatsApp is asynchronous and offers powerful features, such as WhatsApp Business API, that companies can use to automate conversation flows. WhatsApp chatbots allow businesses to share personalized responses 24/7 and even guide users through the purchase funnel – at a fraction of the cost compared to the returns delivered. 

What are WhatsApp chatbots?

Chatbots deployed on WhatsApp are automated conversational agents designed to interact with users on the platform. When programmed well, these can:

• Engage in natural, human-like conversations
• Respond to users in real time without a limit
• Share messages in various formats, including text, images, videos, buttons, and voice

If you are one of the nearly three billion WhatsApp users, you’ve likely come across a chatbot run by a business. For instance, if you book a routine health check-up at a hospital or a diagnostic center, you might receive the details of your booking and test results in a PDF via WhatsApp. 

After a period of time, the healthcare institution may choose to send you a promotional offer on related or related follow-up tests. If you engage with these messages, chances are you’re talking to a WhatsApp chatbot. 

Source:  Gallabox

How do WhatsApp chatbots work?

It’s important to note that a WhatsApp Business API account is a prerequisite to running WhatsApp chatbots for your business. You can either build a chatbox from scratch or sign up with one of WhatsApp’s marketing software providers. 

There are generally two types of chatbots:

• Rule-based chatbots: These follow algorithmic flows based on “if this, then that” logic.
• More advanced chatbots: These are powered by natural language processing (NLP) or large language models (LLMs). They are more sophisticated and can make sense of user queries, retrieve relevant information, and provide answers in real time, mimicking human interaction.

How to migrate to WhatsApp Business API

If you are considering adding WhatsApp chatbots to step up your marketing, sales, and customer service game, follow the guidelines laid out by Meta/WhatsApp. 

Once you have these set up, sign up with an authorized Meta partner, and you’re good to go.

Benefits of WhatsApp chatbots

Now that you have a fair idea of what WhatsApp chatbots are and how they function, let’s outline some of its most compelling benefits. A WhatsApp chatbot is:

• A good mimic. If set up well, WhatsApp chatbots can closely mimic human responses, making it hard to tell you’re talking to a bot. 
• An invisible, efficient assistant. A WhatsApp chatbot acts as a perfect assistant, working behind the scenes to give instant replies and validation.
• Always available. No matter the day or time, chatbots are available 24/7 to assist users or let them know when to come back during business hours.
• Saves time and resources. Instead of hiring two more resources to field customer queries, chatbots free up your team to focus on more complex, productive tasks.
• Is cost-effective. Setting up a WhatsApp chatbot is a one-time investment, with costs that are lower than what you'd spend hiring additional staff. The returns far outweigh the initial expense.
• A natural fit in your team. With the right tech, the chatbot can easily fit right into your business operations, supporting marketing, sales, and customer service or support teams.
• A continuous learner. The more conversations a WhatsApp chatbot engages in, the more it learns about your users or customers. It quietly files away every additional piece of information about them and uses it to make its responses sharper and more precise on an ongoing basis.

Challenges when using WhatsApp chatbots

Just as there are two sides to the same coin with respect to any tool, situation, or person, WhatsApp chatbots are no exception. Here are some drawbacks:

• Not fully automated: While WhatsApp chatbots can be designed to automate certain tasks, you cannot take a complete hands-off approach. For example, a healthcare bot might still need human intervention during an emergency or crisis.

• Dependent on human intervention: As a business, your team would need some tech-savvy members to configure, run, and maintain the bots, particularly if issues arise or the bot requires updates.

• Security concerns: Cyber attackers may hack into systems to use chatbots to spread malware or ransomware or create fake chatbots to trick users into revealing sensitive information.

• Limited in handling complex issues: WhatsApp chatbots' responses to “understand” certain queries depend on the information they have been fed or have access to. While pairing rule-based chatbots with NLP-powered ones can make them more advanced, resolving complex queries that go beyond their programming is still a challenge.

• Limited natural language understanding: Sometimes, users may use vague or ambiguous language to communicate or ask complex queries. WhatsApp chatbots, which do not understand human emotions yet, may not be equipped to handle such text messages.

• Message length constraints: WhatsApp has message length limits, making it difficult for chatbots to deliver lengthy or detailed responses.
• Weak context management: Unlike humans, chatbots may find it hard to keep up with complex conversations or track multiple threads. This limits their ability to manage detailed discussions.

Most of these challenges can be solved to some extent by having both rule-based and NLP-trained or LLM-powered WhatsApp chatbots and seamless integrations with the appropriate data and tech stacks.

Source:  Gallabox

WhatsApp chatbots use cases

Now that we have a fair idea about the bright and dark sides of WhatsApp chatbots, let’s do a deep dive into its specific use cases. 

Based on our experience, we would like to slice and dice them based on their versatility across three major business functions: marketing, sales, and customer service.

As a fancy marketer

Did you know that a WhatsApp chatbot is an excellent lead magnet and even helps you qualify those leads? 

If your business runs ads on Meta’s suite of platforms, you can direct users who click on them to a WhatsApp chat window (connected to its official account) to initiate a two-way dialogue with them. You can also use QR codes (even offline) and website widgets with the appropriate call-to-action buttons that act as triggers to launch a WhatsApp chat with your prospects. 

By asking the right set of questions through WhatsApp, the bot can collect relevant information and help you automate lead qualification to a great extent. 

For instance, let’s assume you run a giant real estate company, and a prospective customer texts, “Hey, I want to know more about your XYZ project in Rio De Janeiro.” Your WhatsApp chatbot can collect all the required information and even schedule a property visit. At any point, the user can be connected to your customer-facing colleagues to handle any queries, if they so wish to chat with your team.

WhatsApp chatbots can send personalized offers, promotions, and discounts based on customer data stored in your customer relationship management (CRM) system. They can automate notifications, updates, appointment booking, and even send reminders to users.

As a seasoned salesperson

Once leads are in and qualified, WhatsApp chatbots carry forward the baton to win the race. These can be designed to share detailed information about the products or services, respond to frequently asked questions, and clarify any doubts your prospective customers may have.

WhatsApp chatbots can be trained to guide prospects through the buyer’s journey by sending tailored information depending on their stage in the sales funnel. You can set them up to help the prospects place an order for a product or sign up for a service or consultation. 

Planning an event? WhatsApp chatbots can manage registrations, RSVPs, and even send live event updates to attendees.

Using a customer’s past-purchase history, WhatsApp chatbots can help your team by unlocking some cool cross-selling and upselling opportunities. 

As a patient customer service representative

You can program your business’ WhatsApp chatbots to close the loop by using them as the first point of contact for all your customer conversations. They can share updates on orders, notifications, or invoice details at any time.

What’s more, the bots could pull up answers from all the material you’ve provided them about your business, products, and services to give perfectly tailored responses to your customers. 

As a do-it-all

Beyond specific business functions, WhatsApp chatbots offer flexibility across different areas. For example, they can help customers through the checkout process, connect them with payment options, and gather feedback on newly launched products or services. 

Chatbots can also request customers to leave their reviews on marketplaces, websites, and other public platforms to boost your brand image.

If your business operates in multiple geographies, WhatsApp chatbots can translate conversations into the customer’s preferred language, making your services more accessible globally. Can the world shrink even further?

Source:  Gallabox

Industry-specific use cases of WhatsApp chatbots

The resourcefulness of WhatsApp chatbots cuts across a variety of industries. Here are a few examples:

• Education and EdTech: The Acres Foundation, a social enterprise working on school transformation in India, has set up advanced WhatsApp chatbot flows to manage its entire admission and sales processes via the app. 
• Healthcare: Kerala-based iTEES Eye Hospital uses WhatsApp chatbots to improve post-appointment interactions with its patients. They were able to drive a 500% increase in patient footfall and 3X growth in return visits, besides boosting employee productivity by 70%.
• Travel or Hospitality: Rapido Rentals, a vehicle aggregator that connects drivers to commuters,  uses WhatsApp chatbots to automate the electronic know-your-customer (e-KYC) process for verifying the identity of their drivers.
• Banking, financial services and insurance: Qatar Insurance Company, one of the largest insurance companies in the MENA region, deployed WhatsApp chatbots to mechanize responses, track chat interactions and generate leads within their CRM. This translated to a 102% increase in lead generation, 2X growth in customer satisfaction rates and a 30% higher employee productivity. 
• E-commerce: Hugg Beverages, which offers natural alternatives to traditional medicines in the form of beverages, used WhatsApp chatbots to assist in customer interactions.
• Direct-to-consumer: FreshVeget, which sells fresh organic vegetables and fruits, uses WhatsApp chatbots to automate its entire customer buying journey up until payments. 
• Real estate: Century Real Estate, a leading Bengaluru-based builder, banks on WhatsApp chatbots to collect relevant information from users, store leads and nurture them by sending personalized messages. Similarly, PropLeaf, a leading real estate consultant automated its responses to general customer queries using WhatsApp chatbots and was able to increase its customer-connect ratio by 25% in a short period of time.

Source:  Gallabox

“Sell me WhatsApp chatbots” challenge

Here’s an elevator pitch to decide whether WhatsApp chatbots are right for your business.

WhatsApp chatbots work exceedingly well for both B2B and B2C models, especially the latter. Setting up a chatbot on WhatsApp from scratch may require heavy capital, but the long-term benefits outweigh the costs. 

Keep in mind that much of the success of running WhatsApp chatbots and getting optimum results is largely dependent on how well the flow is automated, whether they’re rule-based or backed by NLP and LLM, and what datasets the chatbots have access to.

If your business is growing rapidly and needs additional resources to handle marketing and sales at optimal costs, WhatsApp chatbots could be the perfect solution for you! 

Before integrating AI chatbots into your strategy, ensure you understand the legal components. Learn more about key legal considerations to make an informed decision for your business.

Edited by Monishka Agrawal