WhatsApp business comes with an abundance of features for store owners to make the best use of the app. Be it for marketing, sales, and many other departments.
But a lot of the time many store owners miss out on these amazing details because it’s not talked about enough. So we formed an all-in-one checklist that you can follow to maneuver your way through WhatsApp Business.
But first, you need to get yourself a verified WhatsApp business account. Did you create an account? Then head on to the next steps -
Set-up business profile
Now that you have your WhatsApp business account, your first course of action would be to set up your business profile. I know it’s pretty self-explanatory. But here’s the thing - a lot of the time business owners miss out on many details that contribute to how your store is perceived by your customers.
Just like how you would walk past a shady store with little to no information, your customers would also not feel encouraged to check what your store has to offer. So it’s important for you to polish your business profile to grab their attention.
Profile picture and description
Straight off the bat, you should be using a good-quality profile picture that can be easily identified as your brand. For example - the company logo that you use everywhere. Next up add a moderate yet insightful description of your business. But make sure that you are using highly targeted and relevant keywords. If you have a bakery service using keywords like “fresh” and “delicious” is more relevant that “new” or “trendy”.
Contact information
Having your contact information is not just about your business phone number and email. To make the process of your customer reaching out to you as seamless as possible, you need more details than just that. A lot of the time customers are redirected from one contact point to another just to get a certain update, this can be quite annoying. So in order to avoid this from happening you should include the following information.
The physical address of your store along with Google maps location.
Official email addresses along with alternative email addresses.
Add your business website.
Add different phone numbers for every team. Such as technical team, sales team, billing team phone number, etc
Add grievance officer information
Add contact information that can be reached 24/7
Add your business hours. If it's an international business make sure to add the time zone as well.
Automated messages
One of the best things about the WhatsApp business platform is automated messages. Automated messages provided by WhatsApp Business are pre-written responses to receiving messages from potential or current clients. They don't require any assistance from a human agent and are set up to be sent out automatically.
The way these automated messages work is through keywords. So if someone says “Hello” you can set up an automatic greeting message as a response to that. Milestone triggers are another feature of WhatsApp Business that allows automatic messaging to function. This is accomplished by integrating WhatsApp with other platforms, such as a customer relationship management (CRM) system.
The system prompts the consumer to receive a message after a milestone is reached. An example would be a customer receiving a thank you and confirmation message after making a purchase online.
Common automated responses
When setting up automated responses there are a few common messages that you should always integrate. Of course, that does not mean that is all to it. You can add more automated messages depending on your offering and target group. Here are some examples of basic replies-
Thank you message after a purchase
Greeting message
When its outside business hours, or on public holidays like Christmas or New years
Basic replies against selected keywords to provide quick, automated replies to specific questions
Direct customers towards specific departments if they have unique queries.
Label chats
A very convenient feature of the WhatsApp business platform is the label tool feature that aids customer segmentation. This helps you categorize customers on the basis of their queries and makes responding to them much more efficient.
To get started with it open your WhatsApp Business app, hit the three dots in the top right-hand corner, and then pick “Labels” from the drop-down menu.WhatsApp has introduced five labels for its business users by default, which are color-coded. Of course, you’re free to change, add, or remove the labels as you see fit.
Labeling is a simple and visual approach to segmenting your customers. Label chats based on messages. For example, some labels are “Ordered”, “Dispatched”, “Complaint” etc. By doing so you can make it prioritize which texts to respond to first and make the process much more efficient.
Product Catalog
You can always redirect your customers to your website to make a purchase, but giving them the offer to purchase it right on their WhatsApp is more convenient. Although being redirected to the website may feel like a few seconds, within these few seconds your customer could change their mind if they face any roadblock such as slow load time. So why take the risk?
Use the product catalog feature on WhatsApp business to bring your store to your customers. Include products under relevant categories. And for each product, including the price and where can they buy it from. To help your customers take apt decisions List the benefits of that particular product in detail. Make sure to high-quality images of each product.
But its also important to keep in mind that there are certain guidelines provided by WhatsApp that you need to follow when setting up your product catalog. So make sure to through and follow the WhatsApp eCommerce guidelines before creating a product catalog.
WhatsApp status
Have you ever considered WhatsApp status advertising as a tool? If not, you are missing out. If used the right way, WhatsApp status can be your road to more reach and sales.
Many vendors are unaware of how to make use of WhatsApp status to its full potential. It’s not just about posting random updates about your store. Proper strategic content planning can hook your customers to make that purchase. Through WhatsApp status advertising, you are able to chat with your customers in real-time and have two-way conversations, just like in a physical store. Similar to network marketing, this one-on-one communication makes your clients feel closer to you.
Link your WhatsApp
Be where your customers are. And your customers are all over socials. So it’s important for you to make sure that all your social channels are active and interconnected. The best way to make sure your socials are interconnected is to link them together. Link your WhatsApp Business app to Facebook and Instagram for better coordination and to offer all means of contact to your customers. To reach more customers, you can also create WhatsApp adverts for other meta-social channels.
Broadcast and group chats
WhatsApp Group & WhatsApp Broadcast are two of the most powerful communication features on WhatsApp. With both options, you can reach out to your customers and simultaneously engage with them. Just like any other chat group, the WhatsApp group allows you to add all your customers in one group and exchange relevant messages. With WhatsApp broadcast on the other hand you can send any messages to 256 contacts simultaneously that are included in your broadcast list.
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.
