The WhatsApp messenger continues to hold first place in popularity in World, significantly ahead of its main competitor, Telegram. It is used by 74 million people, which makes it a common way of communication, including between businesses and clients. WhatsApp developers thought about this point and released a separate business version.

Let’s look at what a business account on WhatsApp means, how to create it and how it can be useful to an entrepreneur or company.

What is a business account on WhatsApp?

A business account is a separate type of account in the messenger, which is focused on communication between businesses and clients. Its main task is to allow communication not with one employee, as happens in the regular version, but with the entire company at once.

It has more advanced personalization options, making your business account more recognizable. When used correctly, this allows you to increase the likelihood of a purchase, simplifies mailings, and makes it possible to automate some aspects of communication.

Through a business account, you can send mailings to your client base. Such messages show excellent results – their open rate reaches 98%, which is impossible to achieve when sending by email.

Such accounts are registered through a separate application, which will require a separate account.

What is the difference between a regular and business account?

There are a number of differences between the accounts that make a business account more suitable for entrepreneurs and companies.

The main difference is the expanded profile, in which you can enter more information about the company. The following items are available:

Addresses
Phones
Corporate email
Working hours
Link to official website

You can set a logo in your business account profile, and a verified profile receives a special check mark to confirm its authenticity. Other differences between business accounts and regular accounts:

Linking your profile to a landline rather than a mobile phone number
Setting up automatic replies to customer messages
Function of conducting personalized mailings to the database
Panel with analytical information about the account
Creating a catalog with goods or services inside your account

Like a regular WhatsApp account, the business application is completely free, and there are no additional paid services. To launch and use this type of account, you need to download a separate WhatsApp application; the regular one will not work.

WhatsApp Business Account Options

Depending on confirmation of the specified data, accounts can be divided into 3 types.

Business account. A standard account that any registered user receives. This means that the business account on Whatsapp is not verified and the degree of trust in it is minimal. In correspondence, the client will not see the name, but only the phone number. In the profile, a gray question mark is placed next to the name.
Verified account. It can be seen by a gray tick next to the name instead of a question mark. This type is assigned to accounts in which the account registration number matches the official phone number of the company.
Verified account. It is distinguished by a green tick; you can receive it after passing moderation. The conditions for its passage are unknown; so far only relatively large companies have been able to pass it. It is impossible to influence this process in any way.

In addition to increasing recognition and confirming authenticity, the checkmark provides one important benefit. During mailings, the user will not have a “report spam” button, as with mailings from regular accounts.

What is a WhatsApp business account used for?

About half of messenger users want to communicate with companies through it. This can be used for the following actions.

You can inform customers about new products and services, and send them recommendations compiled specifically for them.
Reminders about discounts, promotions, personal offers. You can also send congratulations on your birthday or other holidays via WhatsApp. Clients respond positively to such expressions of care.
Appointment reminders: This feature is popular among professionals who receive clients. Hotels and airlines remind you about your reservation.
Sending messages about any changes in the company: relocations, changes in schedule or working conditions.
Through WhatsApp Business, you can receive feedback from clients about the quality of services received, wishes, and conduct surveys among them.
You can use the internal catalog to promote products
Sending notifications about the delivery of goods

Every entrepreneur has the opportunity to creatively approach the use of business accounts and find original models of use for them.

Instructions: how to make a business account on WhatsApp?

The process of creating a business account is as simple as possible; it does not require complex skills. Everything looks like creating a regular account in any messenger.

How to register

The first step is to download the WhatsApp Business application. It is only available for smartphones and can be downloaded from the Android or iOS app store. Standard WhatsApp is not suitable for these purposes. Both of them can be installed on one device, but you will have to register under different phone numbers.

After installing and launching the application for the first time, it will prompt you to indicate your country and phone number. You will receive an SMS to confirm your phone number.
When the number is confirmed, the application will prompt you to start filling out your company profile. You need to indicate its name and select the type of activity from the list. At this stage you can install the logo. Here you need to approach the process carefully; you won’t be able to change the data later.
After entering the first data, the messenger will offer to create a product catalog. If this is not necessary, the process can be skipped.

At this point, registration is complete, you can proceed to using the created account.

How to set up an account

You need to go to the application settings by clicking the three dots in the upper right corner on the main application screen. Next you need to go to “Business Tools”.

Here you can provide additional information about the company, including addresses, opening hours, etc. From the settings menu you can configure automatic messages, organize your client and chat database by labels. From there you can order advertising on social networks.

How to customize message templates

One of the main advantages of a business account is options for convenient communication with clients. They should make the process easier and help you make a good impression even when you can’t respond.

The necessary settings are located in the same “Business Tools” section. There are several types of messages.

Absent

The function was created to communicate with clients during non-working hours, when there are no employees available to communicate with them. User loyalty is negatively affected by the situation when he writes to a company and receives silence in response. The operation of the function is as simple as possible. If no one is there, the applicant receives a message in the spirit of “We cannot answer you at the moment, we will definitely contact you as soon as possible.”

To configure, you need to go to the appropriate menu item and enter the text. There you can also set the time at which the specified message will be sent. To send, the device must be kept charged and connected to the Internet during non-working hours.

Greeting message

It is received by those who contact the company for the first time or have not communicated with it for more than 2 weeks.

It is configured there, you can use the standard WhatsApp text or enter your own instead.

Quick response

Allows you to speed up the response, which simplifies communication and increases loyalty in the eyes of the client. The lack of waiting when contacting support is a plus for any company. But most requests to the company are of the same type. To do this, a quick reply function has been implemented: just enter an abbreviation into the chat, after which the messenger will write a predefined full answer.

WhatsApp Business allows you to set up to 50 quick replies. They support emoji and images. When replying in chat, you need to write “/abbreviation”.

How to get a tick

The problem with getting the highest status and green tick is that WhatsApp does not have any rules for this. Messenger and its parent company say this is an internal process, the rules of which are not disclosed. Presumably, this may be influenced by the following factors:

Availability of publications about the company in the media
Availability of pages on Wikipedia, LinkedIn and other well-known portals
Recognizable brand
Official publication of financial results
Having a large number of subscribers on official pages on social networks
Availability of a large staff and departments

Additionally, the issuance of a green checkmark will be influenced by the quality of communication with clients and compliance with the rules of the messenger. You cannot spam from a Business account, just like from a regular account; messages should only be received by those who have agreed to them. You cannot send multiple messages to one recipient outside of a conversation.

The official WhatsApp website says that the verification program is operating in pilot mode and not all companies are accepted to participate. With a full launch, the rules may change and getting a check mark will become easier.

How to create a short link

A short link is needed to transfer clients to the chat without having to know and enter a phone number. The messenger can also issue it in QR code format for posting on the company’s website.

All in the same “Business Tools” in the appropriate section, you can copy the link and send it to clients.

There you can also take a QR code to quickly go to a chat with the company that owns the business account.

How to create a directory

The catalog is created in the “Business Tools” section or at the stage of registering a business account. It contains product cards with images, descriptions and prices.

You cannot create cards for the following products in the catalog:

Medicines, dietary supplements and weight loss products
Alcohol and tobacco products
Animals and related services
Cryptocurrencies, credit cards
Products 18+
Dating related services
Loans

The card can be sent to the client in the messenger; he will not need to go to the website or third-party applications to study the characteristics. There will also be a link to purchase on the site. You can create selections of products in the catalog.

How to create a newsletter

The newsletter allows you to remind customers about yourself, notify them about a promotion or the appearance of a new product. To create a newsletter, you need to click on the three dots in the upper right corner of the main window and select “New newsletter”.

Next, mailing recipients are selected from the list and a message is composed. You can add recipients for mailing only from those who have your phone number in their contacts.

Risks of getting banned for mailing

When sending messages from a business account, you can often get banned for violating the rules. This may happen for the following reasons:

User complaints about messages, a ban may come after several complaints
Suspicions of messenger algorithms for spam
The volume of messages is too large: it is better not to send messages of more than 500 characters
Using other people’s images and logos in mailings

It is advisable not to start more than 250 dialogues per day and not to conduct more than 1000 chats with those with whom you have already communicated. It is better not to send more than 50 messages per hour. It is advisable to encourage the client to add his phone number to the contact list, so the messenger will have more trust if it is necessary to initiate communication with him.

Rules for using a business account

Before creating a business account on WhatsApp, you need to carefully read the rules. In the messenger they are not intuitive.

It is necessary to take a responsible approach to filling out your profile. You cannot mislead the client about the company’s services or impersonate another company.
You can only contact someone who has provided a phone number and consented to such communication.
If the correspondence was started by the client himself, you can freely communicate with him only for 24 hours. Further, only templates are allowed.
It is imperative to comply with the requirements of the interlocutor if he wants to stop sending him messages or be removed from the contact list.
The owner of a business account undertakes to ensure the protection of the data of his clients; if they are lost, they can be banned.
It is prohibited to receive any personal payment information from clients or request their document details.
You cannot forward messages from one client to another.

WhatsApp considers certain situations at its discretion. In such cases, you can get strange accusations, especially when it concerns issues of suspected fraud.

How to delete a business account on WhatsApp

If the account has become unnecessary, for example, the company has stopped working, then it will not be possible to block the account for a while. The account can only be deleted. In this case, all correspondence with clients and their backup copies will be lost forever. WhatsApp also deletes accounts that have been inactive for 120 days.

To delete, in the “Settings” section there is an “Account” item; when you click on it, you will find the “Delete account” item.

To delete, you need to enter the number with which you registered your business account.

You won’t be able to restore it after this, but you can create a new one. It will also be possible to register a regular WhatsApp account using the same number. Switching an account from one type to another is not possible, only deleting and registering a new one is available.

Possible problems with your business account

The problems are usually related to obscure and sometimes simply undisclosed rules of WhatsApp and the corporation that owns it. Because of this, you cannot pass verification, and sometimes you can get banned.

Another inconvenience is that it only works on mobile devices. The messenger has an API through which you can connect it to third-party developments. Among them there are also clients for communicating from computers, but they are always paid.

This type of account can be linked to landline numbers, but you cannot use 8-800 numbers, which are popular among businesses.

Advantages and disadvantages of a business account on WhatsApp

There are a number of advantages to using this type of account:

Simplifying communication with clients
Increased trust on the part of interlocutors
A business account can replace complex paid chat scripts for a website
Working through a business account is free

Flaws

Bans are very common
The dubious future of WhatsApp
No support for popular operating systems
Difficult to get a verified account

Is it worth creating a business account on WhatsApp?

Many companies and entrepreneurs do not have a way to organize communication with clients cheaper and more convenient than through WhatsApp. No other communication method has such a high open rate. Therefore, WhatsApp has no alternative. Viber provides similar functions, but it is much less popular.

If you are careful and pay close attention to the rules, there will most likely not be a ban. With good sales skills, a WhatsApp business account can be turned into an effective tool for communication and increasing company turnover.

Faqs

How much does a business account cost on WhatsApp?

Messenger services are completely free, but third-party developments that expand functionality may require payment.

What does “This conversation is with a business account” mean on WhatsApp?”

This means that communication is with the company. But without a green checkmark, you can’t be sure that the account is genuine, you still need to be careful.

Why do you create a business account on WhatsApp?

To make communication with clients easier and to be able to conduct mailings.

Conclusion

A WhatsApp business account will be a convenient tool for communicating with a warm audience that knows about the company and is familiar with its offerings. Therefore, it makes sense to start using it as early as possible and try to involve customers in this interaction.

But before you start, you need to carefully read the rules, otherwise you may lose your account with added clients