Integrating the WhatsApp Business API to build chatbots offers businesses a powerful solution for automating customer interactions on the widely-used messaging platform. Leveraging the WhatsApp Business API from the outset provides a seamless foundation for developing chatbots that deliver personalized and efficient customer support, marketing, and transactional experiences.
By harnessing the capabilities of the API, businesses can create chatbots that respond to customer inquiries, provide product recommendations, process orders, and more, all within the familiar environment of WhatsApp. This integration not only enhances customer satisfaction but also streamlines business operations, making it an invaluable tool for modern businesses looking to scale their communication efforts.
WhatsApp Marketing is now one of the fastest-growing forms of digital marketing, and almost every brand has a certain percentage of its budget dedicated to this strategy.
Companies can interact with customers via greeting messages, quick replies, and business profiles by simply using WhatsApp Business. Some may even partner with one of the WhatsApp Business API providers to access bonus features such as chatbots and CRM integrations.
Interested in creating a WhatsApp Chatbot but don’t know where to start? In this tutorial, we are going to show you how easy it is.
What is WhatsApp Chatbot?
A WhatsApp Chatbot or Live Chat is a software program automated by artificial intelligence and baked-in data. It is specifically designed for businesses that are interested in adopting conversational commerce on the encrypted WhatsApp platform.
Other than being able to realistically mimic human conversational patterns, the chatbot WhatsApp is also capable of keeping a consistent tone and brand identity throughout the conversation. This is especially important in e-commerce as the bot can effectively engage with customers and save a lot of hassle in terms of customer support, marketing and sales.
Why do you need your own WhatsApp Chatbot?
1. Enhance customer service
A chatbot using WhatsApp Business can help simplify the customer support process as it can automatically take over simple and repetitive tasks while transferring complicated questions to human agents smoothly.
2. Establish a strong brand identity
The WhatsApp Chatbot is, in fact, very flexible for customization. Businesses can design greeting messages, quick replies, and icons according to their unique persona. Unlike humans, bots don’t have any emotion or personality, meaning they can always stick to the brand personality under whatever circumstances.
By adding color and tone to the scripts, your WhatsApp Livechat bot will be able to leave customers with a positive impression, improving their loyalty towards your brand. More importantly, Emerald’s research discovered a clearly distinguishable brand identity can remarkably accelerate customer engagement as well as sales.
3. Improve marketing campaigns
With a “more leads, more sales” mindset, today’s businesses are all about lead generation. However, to be blunt, driving prospective audiences to follow you on social media and sign up for your email list is a tough game. It is of utmost importance for businesses to optimize each customer touchpoint of the target audience in the conversion funnel.
For example, when launching a click to WhatsApp campaign, you should never leave the customers hanging. According to ringDNA, the optimal lead response time is 5 minutes or less.
In other words, businesses should get back to the customers as soon as possible. Still, an instant response might be a bit difficult for a single person to handle or too pricey for live chat agents to achieve.
Fortunately, the WhatsApp ChatBot can shoot the senders a quick note easily, offering solutions to their queries in a flash, resulting in higher conversion rates.
How to use WhatsApp Business API to build WhatsApp Chatbot
Step 1: Apply for WhatsApp Business API
The very first thing you need to do is apply for the official WhatsApp Business API. You have to submit your company name, and website URL, together with the name and contact details of a company representative. The verification process might take up to 4 weeks, but once your application is approved, you can start to dig deeper into various functions of the official WhatsApp Business.
Step 2: Think about the dialogues in the live chat
To make sure the WhatsApp Chatbot can address your business needs, you then need to customize the conversation flow. Since a chatbot is supposed to give quick replies, it is recommended to include a list of responses to the frequently asked questions that are brief and cut to the chase. Don’t forget to prepare a smooth transition message in case a human agent needs to jump in and carry on the conversation thread.
There is no one perfect recipe for a chatbot with WhatsApp design as every business has its own style, so just keep your customer’s journey in mind when you map out your conversation elements and diagram.
Step 3: Find a chatbot application
For inexperienced users, creating a WhatsApp Chatbot from scratch can be quite troublesome. Thus, to avoid unnecessary blockers, it is highly suggested to get help from a bot builder.
For instance, SleekFlow offers simple automation rules, or even better, the latest FlowBuilder, that allows you to quickly set up the most effective conversation flows for your live chatbot.
Even with no programming skills, you can still manage to draw up a comprehensive roadmap for your customers. While automation is the ultimate goal, SleekFlow is also programmed to qualify leads and centralize information without the need for human staff.
Step 4: Test your WhatsApp Chatbot
Never roll out a new feature until you have confirmed that everything works.
Test your WhatsApp Chatbot to see if it behaves well on WhatsApp. Remember to review it carefully as it affects your final customer experience, you can check up on integrations and catch possible errors before the official launch.
Of course, there is no such thing as a flawless chatbot. Thanks to useful tools like SleekFlow, editing and modifying your WhatsApp Business chatbot is no longer a daunting task. So let’s get your head down and keep exploring!
WhatsApp Chatbot limitations
While WhatsApp Chatbot has been a great messaging solution for businesses in many countries across the world, it also has its limitations. For instance, WhatsApp for Business is not recommended in certain countries such as Germany. Based on the Data Protection Act being implemented in Germany, businesses must refrain from using WhatsApp Business Chatbot for transactions. Thus, if you are planning to extend your business there, you must assign a backup messaging solution.
Moreover, although WhatsApp can be a good messaging app for small businesses, using a single WhatsApp Business account can be difficult, especially for larger corporations with a whole department of customer service employees. To resolve this issue, you can use a shared inbox for teams, for your WhatsApp Business account, where all employees can log in and reply to messages using the business account on any device.
FAQ
How can businesses use WhatsApp Chatbot?
Businesses use WhatsApp Business API for chatbot to provide 24/7 support. It is important to enhance user interaction by speeding up the response.
What are the benefits of using WhatsApp Business API?
WhatsApp Business API can be used for chatbots. Chatbots can handle conversations with multiple people. It can provide fast response to user’s queries. Its 24/7 support can be very beneficial to increase user engagement.
Do you need coding skills to set up WhatsApp Chatbot?
Well, little coding skills can turn out to be helpful. But, if you do not how to code you can still setup WhatsApp Chatbot. Many platforms on internet can help you in set up Chatbot via WhatsApp Business API.
