WA Business

Recently the author has the chance to review WA Business and how it can be useful in business organization applications.

Background

No doubt, WhatsApp has become a more important communication tool than emails, and has become so popular in areas like Hong Kong.  Some of the well known features in addition to Instant Messaging include:

• Groups, which forms a very good collaboration tool
• Transfer of pictures and files, location, contacts
• Web interface in addition to phone operation extending the application from phone to computers

It has become part of the life of most people in Hong Kong.

On the other hand, WA Business is relatively new.  Most people found unfamiliar with it, and do not see the benefits it can bring to business.  It is still new, but recently there seems to be some progress of its development.  One of the difficulty is, for each phone number, you can join either one of WA and WA Business, but not both.  This makes it difficult for people to try because most people has only 1 phone number with 1 SIM card.

WA Business

WhatsApp Business is a free to download app that was built with the small business owner in mind.

In the recent review of the WA Business by the author, the following usage worth attention by those who are interested:

1. Business Profile - Customers can easily view your brief business profile
2. Labels - Labeling is a way of classification.  It offers the ability to classify contacts or chats into different labeled classification.  As a result, groups or broadcast lists can be created easily.  Apart from classification, labels can also be used as funnel staging labels to show the status of customers in a pipeline.
3. Broadcast - Broadcast is available in the normal version of WA too.  However, in a business setting, it becomes more useful.  The beauty of broadcast is that, the receiving party will receive from you directly, and they don't see your list or groups, and appears as a 1-to-1 message.  Note that in order that the recipients can receive your broadcast message, they have to have your contact in their WA too.
4. Catalogues - Pre-built catalogues can be stored in the WA Business account, so that your product or service can easily and quickly be forwarded to your clients.  Each catalog can include a picture and a link.  It is possible to link the catalog to your web page for a more detailed description.
5. Auto Response Message - Greeting messages can be setup to introduce your business, or an away message when not able to answer but inform them when they can expect a response.
6. Quick Replies - Allows you to save and re-use messages that you frequently use.  This is extremely useful for common questions.

If you have a smart phone which supports double SIM card, you can have 1 phone register with WA, and the other with WA Business.  It is allowed to install both Apps in mobile at the same time.

This is a very good piece of tool for small companies, or for customer service.

More Introduction Video of WA Business