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Everything You Need to Know about WhatsApp’s Shared Inbox

April 3, 2022
5
min read
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Kazi Nazia

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Are you running your eCommerce business on WhatsApp? If you answered yes then, this must be your everyday scenario — you’re working on WhatsApp to communicate with customers and be it for sales or support, this is the primary tool you use. But you still somehow miss getting back to a few of your customers. Their unopened chat gets pushed below in the swarm of conversations and you miss that potential sale. 

What if you get yourself an amazing WhatsApp-based shared inbox software that helps you solve all of the above problems and makes selling far more efficient? Sounds like a pretty sweet dream, right? That’s what a shared WhatsApp inbox brings for you. 

A shared WhatsApp inbox will help you make running your business on WhatsApp effective and efficient to a high level. And we’re here to tell you all about that. 

How does a shared WhatsApp inbox work? 

In a shared WhatsApp inbox, you don’t need to keep jumping from and to the WhatsApp web,  WhatsApp app to reply to your customers. You can view and respond to every chat from one single dashboard. And so can your other team members, all at the same time! And with your account verified, you get more credibility for your store and get access to WhatsApp APIs and WhatsApp CRM.

In the traditional way of selling on WhatsApp, you had to communicate back and forth at multiple touchpoints. EVERY TIME, you must switch to the website, check inventory, and then return to the customer before completing a single order! What’s more, is that in many cases you may find yourself not being able to respond to all customer queries in time. This gap in customer response time could cost you a loss of potential sales. 

A shared WhatsApp inbox is a team inbox built to address this very problem. It is an inbox almost like an email, where you can see all your customer’s texts on one screen. From this collaborative inbox, you can easily assign conversations to your agents and at the same time monitor their work. How cool?  That way you are less likely to miss out on any customers. 
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Benefits of using a shared WhatsApp inbox

Now that you have an idea of how a shared WhatsApp inbox works, let’s see if you need it or not. Well, in my opinion, if you're an eCommerce store owner who’s looking to improvise your customer support and increase the efficiency of running a business on WhatsApp, then you definitely need it. But let’s have a deeper look into its benefits. - 

1. Frictionless selling 

In the traditional way of selling on WhatsApp, you have to jump from and to your eCommerce store for every purchase. This can be very time-consuming and frankly ineffective. There’s also a scope of misplacement of orders during this process. 

A good shared WhatsApp inbox can help you solve this problem. How?

By bringing all your social channels under one dashboard - including WhatsApp. This means you don’t need to keep jumping from one social channel to another to respond to customer queries. But rather be able to respond to all messages from one business inbox. So while you're talking with your customers and getting the order details, you're able to place the orders. This will shorten the time that it previously required for you while placing an order.
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2. Faster response time 

According to a study by SuperOffice, Nearly half of all the customers (46%) expect companies to respond faster than 4 hours. While 12% expect a response within 15 minutes or less.

So not being able to respond to your customers in time can cost you potential sales. With a shared WhatsApp inbox, you can view all the unopened chats and assign them to your agents so that no message is left unseen and unresponded. And since you will be able to distribute to everyone equally, you are reducing the workload on every individual and thus significantly improving the response time. 
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3. Automate customer queries

Although, a shared WhatsApp inbox helps you have a faster response time, It is not possible to always stay active on your social channels. Even if you have agents for the job, they won’t be present every second of the day. 

But here’s the thing - a lot of the customer queries are recurring ones that you can tackle by automating them. But if you are using a WhatsApp Business account, there's no way to automate queries. All of this could add up to be a problem. 

But with a good shared WhatsApp inbox like MyAlice, you can get a WhatsApp Business API account. Where you can completely automate the frequently asked questions and design a chatbot with different buttons, carousels, and images to provide first-level support, reducing the toll on your support team massively. You can even use our eCommerce automation to completely automate the purchase journey of a customer, meaning they will be able to search and select a product, add and configure their card and finally place an order, all by themselves, right on WhatsApp.

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4. Modify orders from one screen

Customers can request that their orders be modified or canceled anytime. Previously you had to bring yourself to go all the way to your eCommerce store’s website and bring modifications. 

But as I’ve stated before, a shared WhatsApp inbox will make selling on WhatsApp frictionless for you. You no longer have to go back and forth between multiple touchpoints to get this done. 

You can now update, cancel, refund, or duplicate orders directly from your chat screen thanks to a shared business inbox. No more back-and-forth switching!
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5. Keep your customers updated and in the loop

If your customers place an order on Whatsapp, it is also important for you to keep them updated on Whatsapp. Be it for their payment confirmation, product shipment, etc. But on WhatsApp, you are not able to notify your customers instantly about these updates. You need to manually send every text to each customer individually. 

Through a shared WhatsApp inbox like  MyAlice, you can send these kinds of notifications as and when needed using WhatsApp Template Messages. Meaning, that during the post-purchase phase, customers will be able to stay aligned on their orders in real-time. So you can provide notifications to your customers once they complete their payment, when their product is shipped, or when their pre-ordered products arrive in stock. When you do, this can reduce the number of support questions you receive and also help you to improve your brand loyalty.

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6. Agent performance visibility

You already know by now that a shared WhatsApp inbox lets your team members or agents use your business’s WhatsApp at the same time. It lets you assign conversations to them so that they can deal with it for you. 

But with a shared WhatsApp inbox like MyAlice, you can do another task. And that is to monitor your agents along with their performance from its dashboard

This team inbox not only makes it convenient for your agents to manage customer queries. But it also makes it easier for you to see their performance. That way you can provide them with proper suggestions or remuneration based on their performance.

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7. Get intel for re-marketing 

Consider this as a bonus benefit that would get by using a shared WhatsApp inbox like MyAlice. Unlike many other shared inbox software, MyAlice provides you with a wide array of data about your customers. 

On MyAlice, you get a series of information about a customer such as how many times they've ordered from you, which products they've ordered or interacted with, and how much money they've spent.  With this information, you can actively work on re-marketing. 

Now that you know what your customers like and don’t like, you can segment them based on this division and send them targeted messages and ads about your products. 

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Do you need a shared WhatsApp inbox?

Now that you know all about what a Whatsapp shared inbox is, and its benefits you should be able to decide for yourself if you need it or not. But if you still find yourself in a dilemma, you can ask yourself these questions.-

  • Do you want to decrease your customer response time?
  • Do you want to make selling on WhatsApp more efficient and effective?
  • Do you get more than 30 messages every day?
  • Do you need to assign customer support to agents?
  • Do you want to monitor your agent’s performance?
  • Are you on multiple social channels?

If the answer is yes, then you need a shared WhatsApp inbox. 
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How to set up a shared WhatsApp Inbox?

Now that you know that you want a shared WhatsApp inbox, it’s time to set it up so your customer support team can start using it. Here’s what you need to set up a shared WhatsApp inbox - 

  1. A verified WhatsApp business account. 
  2. A WhatsApp business number following the WhatsApp number guidelines 
  3. A display name that aligns with your business. 

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Steps to get a WhatsApp Business API account:

  1. Check the WhatsApp Commerce Policy (https://www.whatsapp.com/policies/commerce-policy/) to confirm the business does not fall into an excluded category (WhatsApp automatically rejects businesses that do).
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  1. Make sure your Facebook Business Manager is verified. If not, you can know the steps to verify from here: https://business.facebook.com/settings/security/business_verification
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  1. Select a phone number that has not been used for WhatsApp Business previously. Refer here to know the guidelines: https://docs.google.com/document/d/141llz5jgdbioxfutPVpYD9VD9-yG6WHiRkJ9rB9nEPA/edit

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Once you have confirmed all the above, reach out to our team at support@myalice.ai to proceed to the next steps.

Steps to Make the Business Account Official (Green Tick)
The difference between a WhatsApp Business Account and an Official WhatsApp Business Account is that in terms of official accounts, WhatsApp has verified that an authentic, notable brand owns this account. It will have a green tick badge in its profile and chat thread headers. The name of the business is visible even if the user hasn’t added the business to their contacts.

What are the requirements to get a Green Tick? 

  1. You must be using the WhatsApp Business API Account
  2. You must enable 2 Step Authentication for your account
  3. Facebook Business Manager should be verified
  4. Must be a business (Individuals are not allowed)
  5. Must be a notable and reputed brand

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How to get a green tick through MyAlice:

Given you have acquired a WhatsApp Business API account through us, all you need to do is just let us know at support@myalice.ai that you’re interested in getting a green tick for your account. We’ll take it from there.

If you have all of these things done, all you need to do now is contact MyAlice. MyAlice's customer success team will contact you to connect the number you used for your WhatsApp business account. The rest of the work will be handled by the support team so you can sit back and relax. 

And if you need any guidelines while setting up your business account or while verifying it, feel free to get in touch with our support team to assist you along the process. 

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MyAlice: The Only Shared Inbox you need for your eCommerce store 

The realm of eCommerce is constantly evolving and leaning more towards social selling. So a good WhatsApp inbox can be a game-changer for your business. It can boost your customer support, improve brand loyalty and make selling efficient and effective. 

We at MyAlice believe in providing all these values and more to eCommerce businesses. So if 

you think your business needs these values, then we are what you're looking for. 

Don’t believe us? Avail the 14-day free trial today to check it out for yourself.

Do you find yourself chasing down new customers because current customers aren't sticking around, and you need to keep your eCommerce business afloat? Is it a sustainable strategy to run your eCommerce business?

We hear you saying no because it actually isn't. It's time you need to focus on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

In this competitive narrative, you can't really go far by keeping on investing in getting NEW customers rather than keeping your OLD customers. What you really need to concentrate on is maximizing your revenue from your present customers. And this is where customer lifetime value comes into play.

According to Tim Cameron Kitchen - CEO of Exposure Ninja, "In order to increase your customer lifetime value, you need to pull two levers. One, increase the number of purchases. And two, increase the purchase value of each customer. And of course, a good business will have a combination of both of these levers."

We want your business to have high customer LTV. So we noted down a series of pointers that you could follow to increase your customer lifetime value and higher profits. Before we dive into the strategies, let's start with the basics.

What is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)?


According to Omniconvert, "customer lifetime value (CLV) shows how much revenue a business can expect from one customer compared to how long the company predicts that customer will stay."

Customer lifetime value is an important metric for eCommerce brands to measure the average accumulating total of their purchase for some time.

Lifetime value helps you determine if your business will scale the ROI from marketing. It also helps you evaluate the retention strategy depending on how low or high your LTV is.

How To Increase Customer Lifetime Value

You can increase your customer lifetime value by either increasing your Average Order Value or Average Purchase Frequency. An increase in either of these metrics will rise Customer Lifetime Value. Apart from that, let's take a look at the other ways to increase CLV.

— Improve Your Customer Support

Treating your customer right is the core to increasing customer lifetime value. According to Tim Han, an international speaker and author from success insider - "treating your customers like family is the key to recurring customers."

Now we're not telling you to turn a blind eye to their red flags and keep on supporting them. But we definitely recommend you to go a bit above to give them special treatments. In fact, according to research from PWC,  86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. So enhancing your customer support is an absolute must.

A solid customer support strategy includes attention to the customer pre, mid and post-sale. Your customer support should cater to your customer at every stage of their buying journey. A great way to make sure your customer's queries are always answered in no time is by using an AI-powered chatbot. Having a live chat available can turn a customer question into a sale or complaint into a resolution. We recommend you check out MyAlice as their chatbot can actually automate your entire selling process from start to finish. And the best part is, MyAlice is completely free to sign up!

You need to make sure your customers are returning again and again for the delightful experience you provide.

— Send out occasional gifts

Who doesn't like free stuff? Especially when it comes as a surprise from a place you shopped from. We find ourselves leaning towards shops that offer great discounts or free goodies in most cases. And that's because this is a psychological trick that all of us fall for.

Lippincott's creative consultancy provided a scientific and psychological-based study called the "Happiness Halo" - proving exactly that. In the "Happiness Halo," the author stresses, "Appeal to customers' reason and they're yours for a day. Appeal to customer's emotions, and they're yours for a lifetime."

And nothing is more solid than sending gifts to appeal to your customer's emotions. It shows them that you care about them more than just a means of getting some sales.

We're not telling you to send out gifts 365 days a year to every customer for every purchase. But rather, identify your loyal set of customers and potentially loyal customers, and then send out occasional gifts to show them you care.

— Nudge Your Customers into Subscriptions

One of the most popular ways (that works) of increasing the number of purchases of your customers is by bumping them into subscriptions. They're one of the new trends of e-commerce. And they can be lucrative enough that we even see big names like GoPro getting into the subscription realm they previously didn't opt for.

You can nudge them into a subscription by displaying a subscription-biased pricing option of your product.

This basically means you will show the pricing option of a one-time purchase on one side. And on another, the pricing option is based on subscription. However, you need to show your customers how the subscription pricing will be more effective and profitable.

This will incentivize them to opt for the subscription rather than going for a one-time purchase.

Another way of getting your customers into subscriptions is by showing the subscription as the default purchase method. And if customers want to go for a one-time purchase, they need to click on that purchase method.

You can do to level up the subscription game by giving them an option to allow your customers to customize the time frame and the amount of product for the subscription. This way, they will not have too much stock of the product based on their lifestyle. And they are less likely to cancel the subscription altogether.

— Integrate Add-ons and Upsells

Another great way to increase the average order value of your customers is by adding add-ons and upsells. Big names like GoDaddy GoPro have been using this pricing strategy for years now, which has helped them generate more sales.

Everything that you throw at your customers before and after purchasing the products is for one thing - increasing the order value.

And therefore, there's an increase in customer LTV. Some of your add-ons and upsells features may seem annoying to your customers. But it's a genius idea for your business.

Since you are competing in a very competitive and price-sensitive space, If you want to maximize your customer acquisition, you need to maximize the value of every customer you get through the door.

By doing so, you can save the money that you would have otherwise spent on getting new customers. So you can now invest it in other business activities. Like - marketing. Which will help you build market share without increasing the price of their core product.


— Introduce Premium Versions

Introducing a line of premium versions of the same product can incentivize your customers to opt for better options. But, you need to make sure you can present it in a manner that demonstrates why the premium versions are better than the regular ones.

That way, customers who always want the best of everything are more likely to opt for the premium purchase. The pricing of the premium product will also be higher than the regular, which may be a problem for some of your customers. In such a case, you can introduce split pay for that.

Now split pay is absolutely everywhere and another massive trend of e-commerce over the last few years. One of the biggest players in the split pay market -Klarna, claims to increase the average order value by up to 58%.

Split pay will help you get more sales for your premium products and end up increasing the average order value for your customers.

Drawing Conclusion: Loyalty Brings Revenue

The right customer lifetime value model can boost your company's growth and progress in many ways. It puts more money in your business's wallet by lowering customer acquisition costs and saving money on marketing and sales activities.

Delivering a great deal of value, understanding the customers being in their shoes, prioritizing customer service are what they need to come back to you again and again.

Learn More:

  1. How Customer Service Can Help Sustain Your E-Commerce Business
  2. How To Get Repeat E-commerce Customers: Encourage Them To Return For More

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