Using Whatsapp for Customer Service

8/16/2019 Using Whatsapp for Customer Service

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Using WhatsApp for customer service

Contents

INTRODUCTION

1 / PERSONAL MESSAGING: WHY CARE?

2 / THE PRACTICAL STUFF (+ TIPS & TRICKS)

The WhatsApp rulebook

3 / STORIES OF 5 EARLY ADOPTERS

WhatsApp as a survey medium

4 / WHAT’S UP NEXT

CONCLUSION

INDEX


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We’re humbled by the extraordinary ways

all of you

have used WhatsApp.

Whether it’s sharing vital information

during natural disasters or health emergencies,

finding a date,

growing a small business,

buying an engagement ring,or seeking a better life.

We’re honored to be a small part

of what people are doing

to make their lives and the lives of those around them

better.

- From ‘One Billion’, a blog piece written by the WhatsApp team after welcoming

their billionth monthly active user, 1st February 2016

https://blog.whatsapp.com/616/One-billionhttps://blog.whatsapp.com/616/One-billion


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INTRODUCTION /Why I love conversational commerce

Let’s get it over with: you should know that I sell Casengo, software for better

customer service (including a WhatsApp integration). You could indeed interpret

everything I write as if I were trying to sell the Casengo application to you. But

there are better ways to sell software than writing a book.

I just want to share some of the lessons I learnt in the more than 15 years I’ve

been active in the customer service field. This book is my two cents worth of

wisdom about the influence of personal messaging apps on the way businesses

treat their customers. I’ll also be talking about the role of artificial intelligence –

and of China – in the messaging landscape. Quite the adventure!

All of these topics have something to do with a magical idea that is coming upfrequently these days: conversational commerce.

I love conversational commerce.

I started thinking about it around the time I was preparing to found Casengo

in 2011. Turns out I wasn’t the only one [1]. Three years later, conversational

commerce had turned out into a trendy but slightly intangible term, well

described by Chris Messina, Developer Experience Lead at Uber:

Conversational commerce is about delivering convenience,

personalization, and decision support while people are on

the go, with only partial attention to spare [2] .

1 Are You Ready for Conversational Commerce?’, February 2014, BIA Kelsey

2 2016 will be the year of conversational commerce’, January 2016, Medium

http://blog.biakelsey.com/index.php/2011/02/07/are-you-ready-for-conversational-commerce/https://medium.com/chris-messina/2016-will-be-the-year-of-conversational-commerce-1586e85e3991%23.wl697uk8ahttps://medium.com/chris-messina/2016-will-be-the-year-of-conversational-commerce-1586e85e3991%23.wl697uk8ahttp://blog.biakelsey.com/index.php/2011/02/07/are-you-ready-for-conversational-commerce/


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Convenience, personalization, decision support on the go – that’s conversational commerce

right there. If it comes into full bloom, I’m quite certain it will make our lives in the Global

Village better. But it can only succeed if both the seller and the buyer are on the same page,

on the same wavelength, communicating clearly with mutual respect. Customers love brands,

but brands need customers. They should take the time to get to know the members of their

audience, and offer support tailored just for them.

It’s the marketplace of the old days; it’s commerce just as authentic as the Friday market where

everyone knows the bald fishmonger and his son by name, and where the cupcake girl is always

in for some chitchat on the weather (followed by an order of 12 cupcakes, because it’ll make her

smile).

If you want to use WhatsApp as a professional business tool, it’s vital you’re interested in your

customer. The whole conversational commerce thing rests on this assumption. Customer is

king. You help him where you can, and you use personal messaging to do so. For the first time

in history, there’s a potential direct line between every company world-wide and every consumer

with a smartphone, anywhere. WhatsApp acts like an umbilical cord between a business

and a big chunk of its customer base. If you provide your customers and prospects with

enough nourishment, the bond between us all in the Global Village will not disappear after one

transaction - instead, it will get stronger, and the world will thrive.

With apps like WhatsApp, you are in your customer’s pocket. You live in his smartphone. You’re

in his comfort zone, and he in yours.

It’s crucial, then, that your customer doesn’t grow bored or annoyed with you. He’s the king of

the castle, and will throw anyone out who treats him like a living dollar bill . Be willing to invest

some of your precious time in him – and him alone. That means: use WhatsApp as the one-on-one channel it is, not as a social media channel.

This doesn’t mean you have to be in constant touch with your customers. Leave those poor

people alone! But when you talk to a customer (be it on the phone, via email, or through live chat

or WhatsApp), be at your very, very best.

Keep the conversation going


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AI might scare you. Or you might find it too science fictional. Or perhaps the idea of robots and

digital bots thrills you. Either way, we’ll need it. Conversational commerce is only scalable i f

we accept AI to become part of our lives. ‘It’s no longer a question of if bots are coming, but

how,’ Ted Livingston, CEO at chat app Kik. ‘For the first time ever,’ he added, ‘bots will let you

instantly interact with the world around you.

Yes, they’re here. As we speak, Google, Facebook and Apple are fighting for the best AI experts

out there. In March 2016, Alphago (made by Google) beat a human Go champion at Go, a very

complex game. Not complex enough for AlphaGo…

And let’s not forget about Microsoft. Those guys allegedly developed a chatbot that 10 million

people have declared their love to her. That’s human beings telling a robot called XiaoIce (Little

Bing) that they have feelings for her. A very successful Turing Test indeed! I hear Little Bing

comes close to Scarlett in that intriguing AI movie, “Her”. Bizarre, for sure.

Once AI becomes very good, very human-like, we won’t know whether we’re chatting with a bot

or with a human being – and neither will we care. As long as the voice on the other side feels

human to us, and is interesting (or fun, or convenient), we’ll love chatting to brands.

The power of conversation is a thousand times stronger than Facebook likes or Twitter followers.

Facebook and Twitter are nice to have around, but personal messaging is a must-have. Build

a true relationship with consumers, and watch them turn from perfect strangers into perfect

customers, coming back for more again and again and again – even if you increase your prices.

As long as you explain why, they’ll stick around.

‘I love you, little Bing!’

3 ‘The Future of Chat Isn’t AI’, March 2016, Medium

4 Intriguing movie from 2013, rated 8.0 on IMDB, with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson’s voice. Must see! (Too

bad about the ending.)

Sharing = caring

Here’s bit about me. The first serious company I co-founded, together with my brother Thijs, was

Livecom[5], in 2003. It was a sort of Zendesk avant la lettre (Zendesk was launched 4 long years

later): an application that allows large organizations to respond to customers more efficiently.

Even back then, I felt it’s not the medium that matters, but the customer and his message.


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5 This was before Microsoft’s live.com got popular. I almost bought the URL once. Almost. It still hurts.

6 ‘Casengo Raises $2M To Accelerate One-Inbox Approach To Customer Service’, April 2014, TechCrunch

7 Check out the result of our hackathon on YouTube!

8 Videos of all of Zuckerberg’s public Q&As can be found on Facebook’s Facebook Page.

9 ‘Messaging apps are now bigger than social networks’, January 2014, Business Insider

10 ‘Why Facebook has entrusted its future to the CEO of PayPal’, October 2014 WIRED

I sold Livecom successfully in February 2016, which now allows me to focus on the company

I founded in 2012: Casengo. Casengo started off as a Livecom spin-off. It’s a simpler product,

aimed at small and medium-size businesses that appreciate the importance of excellent

customer service. By blending the best of email and live chat, we promise our users – especially

companies without a 24/7 customer service team – more happy customers. And we deliver.

In April 2014, Casengo raised 2 million dollars [6]. However, we didn’t hit the mark until January

2015, when – during an old-fashioned hackathon[7] with lots of pizza and even more beer –

we were the first multichannel support platform ever to integrate WhatsApp. We made this

integration available to some of our users in March 2015, well before the big boys did. When I

saw them follow suit, I realized that conversational commerce was finally happening.

Good conversations are meaningful messages back and forth. It sounds so simple. And yet it

kept Mark Zuckerberg up at night. Messaging is the next frontier, he said back in 2014, during

his first public Q&A session [8] at Facebook HQ. That’s exactly why he’d forced his users to

install his Messenger app a few months earlier. ‘Mobile messaging,’ he famously told his eager

audience, ‘is one of the few things that people actually do more than social networking.’ So he

quickly forced his users to install the mobile Messenger app, and bought WhatsApp, just to be

sure.

A year later, people were (and still are) using messaging apps more often than social networks [9].

And the smartest companies are, too. They bravely threw a line into the sea of customers, and

reeled them in, one after the other. A senior editor at WIRED saw it and wrote:

The company that controls the [world’s] messaging [landscape] will control

the future of the way we interact with people and, quite possibly, with

businesses [10] .

Mobile messaging – the game is on. Do you want to watch, or play?

The messaging landscape with c-commerce at its best

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/08/casengo-raises-2m-to-accelerate-one-inbox-approach-to-customer-service/https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DcPAbZD6xPRUhttps://www.facebook.com/qawithmark/videoshttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-messaging-app-report-2015-11http://www.wired.com/2014/11/on-david-marcus-and-facebook/http://www.wired.com/2014/11/on-david-marcus-and-facebook/http://www.businessinsider.com/the-messaging-app-report-2015-11https://www.facebook.com/qawithmark/videoshttps://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DcPAbZD6xPRUhttp://techcrunch.com/2014/04/08/casengo-raises-2m-to-accelerate-one-inbox-approach-to-customer-service/


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01 /A direct line to your customers

We live in a global village populated by mobile consumers. People like you

and me: always online, never satisfied for long. That’s what I realized thinking

about why WhatsApp wasn’t a hit right away. After all, it was launched in

2009 - before the smartphone revolution. A time when the majority of people

owned something like a plastic black or blue Nokia that they used to text or call

people.

At the time, we were stil l deep into social networking. But as the number of

smartphone users grew thanks to the introduction of the iPhone, a proper

mobile app market was created. We started thinking in apps, not websites.

Slowly, we changed. We started bringing our smartphone everywhere likea favourite pet, even to the cinema or the restaurant. We used it to look for

answers whenever a question popped up. We started rating and reviewing,

booking and buying online. The longer we did this, the wiser, pickier and

impatient we got. Mankind took an evolutionary step forwards.

For the first time ever, the web let you access information

from anywhere in the world. For the first time ever, mobile

made connected computing constantly available [11] .

I’m writing this in April 2016. The mobile generation is thriving. We know

what we want, demanding quick answers from both our friends and the

brands we adore (or despise). The internet, with its social media, review sites

11 ‘The Future of Chat Ain’t AI’, March 2016, Medium

https://medium.com/%40tedlivingston/the-future-of-chat-isn-t-ai-b07f65bc252%23.26t04lxu8https://medium.com/%40tedlivingston/the-future-of-chat-isn-t-ai-b07f65bc252%23.26t04lxu8


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and e-commerce options, has turned into an extension of our consciousness[12]. We are now

discovering conversational commerce, and artificial intelligence will play a big part. We’re waking

up to a global but very connected village. And this behaviour forces companies to treat us like

rich, respectable kings.

12 Just as Marshall McLuhan predicted in 1962.

13 ‘WhatsApp: best for customer service?’, February 2014, The Guardian

14 GWI is the world’s largest market research study on the digital consumer. Some argue that its figures on the Chinese

market (WeChat in particular) are questionable. I have no idea whether that’s true, but to be sure I’ll only quote GWI

on markets excluding China.

15 GWI PROFILE Q4 2015 on WhatsApp, GlobalWebIndex

WhatsApp is going to be the primary customer service app. That was clear [13] even before

Facebook bought WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars. As I write this, WhatsApp has over 1 billion

monthly active users. One thousand million people using the same app? That’s close to creepy.

And the user base is growing fast: according to GlobalWebIndex [14](GWI), WhatsApp has been

growing furiously ever since Facebook acquired it in 2014. Since then, an extra 1 in 8 internet

users use WhatsApp[15].

WhatsApp was built specifically for the smartphone. It was launched in February 2009, a month

after Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s founding father, bought his first iPhone. And as this Ukrainian

university drop-out, one of Yahoo’s infrastructure engineers, was checking out the new App

Store, he realized he wanted to build an app. A wave of new apps was coming; it would wash

over the world like a benign tsunami. This was the chance to build an app that would allow i ts

users around the world to connect with their peers. An app like that would make the world shrink

comfortably into a global village.

With hardly any users, WhatsApp started off slow. At first, it was a bit of a boring app that

allowed you to update and share your status: “Hey there, what’s up?” But then, in June 2009,

Apple introduced its push notification system. All of a sudden, each status update on WhatsApp

appeared live on the screen and demanded being looked at by its receiver. WhatsApp had

turned into one of the few safe and ad-free messaging apps around, and Koum knew it. As he

said to Forbes[16]: ‘Being able to reach somebody half way across the world instantly, on a device

that is always with you, [is] powerful.’

One small app for man…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxyhttp://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/feb/26/whatsapp-customer-service-brand-twitterhttp://www.globalwebindex.net/https://pro.globalwebindex.net/reports/23https://pro.globalwebindex.net/reports/23http://www.globalwebindex.net/http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/feb/26/whatsapp-customer-service-brand-twitterhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy


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Soon after the push notifications added a crucial layer to personal messaging, WhatsApp started

growing faster than any other social utility[17. A famous note by co-founder Brian Acton reminded

everyone at WhatsApp what the app was all about:

No Ads!No Games!

No Gimmicks!

16 ‘Exclusive: The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook’s New $19 Billion Baby’,

February 2014, Forbes

17 ‘Inside The Facebook-WhatsApp Megadeal: The Courtship, The Secret Meetings, The $19 Billion Poker Game’,

March 2014, Forbes

18 ‘WhatsApp: voor de mondige stedeling’, October 2015, Clou

Of the time we spend on our smartphone, we spend almost 90% on apps. And one of the most

popular of those apps, accessed at least daily by 4 in 5 users, is WhatsApp. Which makes it very

interesting to smart companies like yours and mine. No, ads are not allowed. But isn’t building arelationship with your customers worth millions more than any flimsy ad?

TNS NIPO, a renowned Dutch research institute, recently published the results of a national

WhatsApp study[18]: in the Netherlands, WhatsApp is popular mainly amongst articulate city-

dwellers with more money to spend than average. And it turns out that these consumers love

using WhatsApp to reach out to brands. ‘People who are using WhatsApp already, welcome

customer service through WhatsApp,’ researcher Job van der Berg explains. ‘However, people

who don’t use WhatsApp anyway – mainly low-skilled and older consumers – say they wouldn’t

appreciate customer support through WhatsApp at all.’

The previously mentioned global GWI study shows similar findings: almost 75% WhatsApp users

world-wide live in a city. Most users are between 16 and 34 years old, and 1 in 5 have a good

income. How’s that for a potential target audience?

… one giant app for businesses.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-babyhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/03/04/inside-the-facebook-whatsapp-megadeal-the-courtship-the-secret-meetings-the-19-billion-poker-game/http://tns-nipo.com/getattachment/Overheid-en-Non-Profit/CLOU-WhatsApp_JobvdBerg_TNSNipo.pdf/http://tns-nipo.com/getattachment/Overheid-en-Non-Profit/CLOU-WhatsApp_JobvdBerg_TNSNipo.pdf/http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/03/04/inside-the-facebook-whatsapp-megadeal-the-courtship-the-secret-meetings-the-19-billion-poker-game/http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby


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1 Add a WhatsApp share button to your website or in your app.

This allows your happy customers (aka fans) to easily share your

content and ‘recommend’ it to friends.

2 Compile a ‘Broadcast List’ and push messages to multiple

people at once.

But be careful: only those who actually saved your contact number

will receive your messages. As this has nothing to do with my own

business, customer service, I don’t care for this option myself. I

actually dislike this option very much. If you decide to go for it, keep

your content very relevant and only sent it to people who explicitly

said they wanted you to keep them up to date (the “opt-in” principle).

3 Organize a Group Chat, which will let you chat with up to 256

people at once.

Again, hard to use for customer service, unless it’s for a veryspecific, one-time campaign. Also great for in-company chats if your

company doesn’t yet use productivity apps like Slack.

4 Offer customer service through WhatsApp.

Every time someone saves your company‘s WhatsApp number in

his contact list, a direct one-to-one line is established. If you use it

wisely, you’ll be rewarded with a high customer satisfaction rate and

a higher turnover[20].

As the first three ways haven’t got anything to do with customer service, #4 is the only option I’ll

be talking about in this book. 1-to-1 customer service through WhatsApp, that’s gold.

19 I got this from social media expert Jarno Duursma. He wrote a short guide called WhatsApp for businesses, in which

he pays as much attention to commercial ways 1, 2 and 3 as to way #4. Though only a quarter of the book is about

customer service, I can recommend this book (in Dutch) all the same.

20 That’s why Casengo’s slogan is More happy customers. We aim for a higher customer satisfaction rate (happier

customers) and a higher revenue (more customers)!

4 business-ways to use WhatsApp

In the past, any self-respecting company would avoid the sacred WhatsApp arena. Friends only,

no commercial rubbish. Companies who dare to spam WhatsApp users are blocked. But thereare other ways to reach customers through WhatsApp than bothering them with spam [19}:

http://www.whatsappvoorbedrijven.nl/http://www.whatsappvoorbedrijven.nl/


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Why would you want to use WhatsApp for customer service? Some companies report shorter

phone queues and few complaints on Facebook or Twitter. Others say they use WhatsApp to

reach new audiences, meaning WhatsApp actually gives them more work rather than less. An

independent survey[21], though, recently showed that “social media is among the last places

consumers want to go for customer service”[22]. WhatsApp is the better alternative.

Unless, of course, you don’t have the capacity to answer quickly. WhatsApp is a quick channel;

people are used to get a response as soon as they see 2 blue check marks, indicating the other

person has read their message. You can’t let the customer wait 2 working days for a reply on

WhatsApp. Half an hour is the limit! If you don’t have enough people or enough time to take care

of your WhatsApp customers, then my suggestion is to ignore the WhatsApp trend for now, and

hope for better times.

21 ‘Social Media Customer Service Declines, American Consumers Don’t Know What Good Service Looks Like, New

Survey Finds’, March 2016, NICE/BCG

22 ‘Survey Finds Social Media Customer Service Declines’, March 2016, Contact Centres

23 ‘WhatsApp: best for customer service?’, February 2014, The Guardian

WhatsApp: the benefits

Benefit #1 WhatsApp is fast, highly intuitive and free.

Businesses who don’t consider this app as a customer contact channel

are way behind. Why would you not want to establish a direct line with

your customers, using one of their favourite apps? There’s nothing to lose

and a lifelong relationship to win – if you know what you’re doing (see

chapter 2).

Benefit #2 WhatsApp allows you to be present on a device your customer loves.

If you ignore the one spot your customers all hang out, you’re not thinking

clearly. Marketing and sales are about being where your customer is at

his happiest: amongst friends.

Benefit #3 WhatsApp is private.

The fact that WhatsApp is one-to-one allows more room for nuance. It

stimulates a very personal approach, quite unlike Twitter and Facebook,

where the conversation starts off publically, one-to-many. This makesWhatsApp ideal for customer service. Being personal and private, ‘it

extends the consumer relationship beyond complaints and queries’[23].

Conversational commerce at its best!

http://www.nice.com/engage/press-releases/Social-Media-Customer-Service-Declines-American-Consumers-Dont-Know-What-Good-Service-Looks-Like-New-Survey-Finds-416http://contact-centres.com/survey-finds-social-media-customer-service-declines/http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/feb/26/whatsapp-customer-service-brand-twitterhttp://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/feb/26/whatsapp-customer-service-brand-twitterhttp://contact-centres.com/survey-finds-social-media-customer-service-declines/http://www.nice.com/engage/press-releases/Social-Media-Customer-Service-Declines-American-Consumers-Dont-Know-What-Good-Service-Looks-Like-New-Survey-Finds-416


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Before you get started...

There’s one thing that all of the early adopters in chapter 4 mention when sharing their insights

on WhatsApp: ‘Don’t be scared of using WhatsApp. Just go for it, it’s awesome.’

Here’s an overview to help you through the various phases in your WhatsApp trial: thinking,

preparing and launching. They’re all just as crucial. If you don’t want your customers to catch

you stressed, slow and totally confused, don’t skip any phase. Also, keep improving your

behaviour on WhatsApp; it’s all one big exercise in adjusting and reconsidering!

Phase 1: Thinking things through

Using WhatsApp isn’t good for all of us. Before you get ahead of yourself and start

implementing, there are a few stakeholders you need to think about.

Customers

Are your (potential) customers actually ‘on’ WhatsApp?

Chances are very high that they are. But they might also just be the rare exceptions: people in

their eighties, for instance. However, don’t be too quick to assume that they don’t use it… Find

out for certain first.

Your team

Does your team have the capacity to answer the questions from WhatsApp?

If your team is already way too busy to answer phone calls or answering emails, then it might be

better to postpone your WhatsApp initiative. Unless, of course, you think that adding WhatsApp

will decrease the pressure off the phone and email channels.

How quickly can you follow up?

Because WhatsApp is such a personal channel, customers tend to have high expectations for

getting their questions answered quickly. Aim for a quick resolution time: 1 hour max. And once

you answer, you must follow up right away. You’re either in or you’re not.

Your stakeholder’s behaviour


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Competitors

What are your competitors doing?

Being the first in your field to offer WhatsApp support can be great to trump competition. But if

you’re not an early adopter, it won’t trump anybody. You’ll need to start using it to up your game

and stay on par.

Ask yourself (and perhaps a peer - brainstorming is easier with a sparring partner) why you want

start with WhatsApp in the first place. Pick one overarching goal and take it from there. What do

you want to achieve? Faster service, more happy customers, or perhaps a revenue increase?

It’s important to keep this goal in mind whilst making decisions on all the required steps and

tactics. Keep reminding yourself throughout the planning stage what you want to accomplish,

and what you need to accomplish this. Also: get everyone on the same page before you take-off.

Consider the first weeks to be nothing but a trial: test the waters gently, gain experience and

learn. As soon as you’re getting more traction, you can consider more specific metrics and

adjusting your course accordingly.

Your overarching goal

Assemble a WhatsApp team: decide who’s in charge of your overarching goal, and who will reply

to queries quickly and efficiently. These are typically members of your customer service team

who know how to handle 1-to-1 channels like email and phone. Some companies assign the

WhatsApp channel to their social media team, but that often turns out to be a mistake, as social

media is mainly about 1-to-many.

7) Get your team together

Phase 2: A 7-step prep countdown

Even though strategizing and thinking things through is important, start getting practical very

soon. What will you need to do before you can even think of making your WhatsApp number

public to your customers and prospects?


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For most people, WhatsApp is a relaxed channel, used to interact with friends, family

and sometimes colleagues. You will notice that many people will use that same style of

communication with you as they do with their friends. Depending on your company culture,

you’ll want to respond in a similarly playful fashion (while keeping it professional).

If you already have a general style guide for your customer service team to follow, check if you

need to make adjustments to fit the WhatsApp channel. This is no place to sound like a useless

robot. Consider your rules around emoticons, canned messages, humour, etc. Make sure you’re

all on the same page: giving your customers the best experience ever. Check out chapter 2 for

loads of tips and tricks!

5) Adapt the way you talk

Depending on the type of company you run, organize an introductory meeting or an actual

brainstorm session. To get everyone on board, explain the benefits of WhatsApp, translate those

benefits to fit your company and do not forgot to discuss the overarching goal. Do you want to

shorten the phone queue? Or lower the email volumes? Or get your customer satisfaction rates

up?

6) Involve your team

4) Get a WhatsApp number

You’ll obviously need a phone number that your customers can use to reach you through

WhatsApp. Two options here:

1 Buy the cheapest prepaid SIM card.

Online, or from a local telephone shop. Keep into account that mostproviders deactivate a SIM card after 6 months of inactivity. Just use

that number to have a call every 5.5 months, and you’ll be fine. (Add

it to your calendar as a repeat action.)

2 Get a SIM card with an actual subscription.

This is the more expensive option that gets you peace of mind: you

won’t run the risk of disconnection.


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If you’re offering international support with WhatsApp, you might want to consider getting

different local numbers, depending on the type of company. Generally, this is more important in

B2C than B2B.

Although your WhatsApp number is supposed to be used for WhatsApp support only, there is

always the odd customer who decides to give you a call on that number. Depending on how you

manage your messages (phone, software, web.whatsapp.com), this can be problem. So if you’re

not using a dedicated phone, you have two options:

1 Record a voicemail to let people know which other number toreach you on.

2 Install an automatic forward of incoming calls to a different

number, for example your support line.

3) Consider voicemail versus call forwarding

First add your company name, your logo, email address, URL etc. Then update your status,which is easier than it sounds.

A status update for business purposes should be a helpful description of what your company

is doing on WhatsApp. You might want to add the “opening hours” of the WhatsApp channel,

for instance. When are you available to respond to queries sent through this channel? Turn the

default status (“Hey there, I’m using WhatsApp”) into something much more concrete.

A good status update, for instance, could be: ‘Need product advice? Happy to help from Mon-

Fri 9:00-17:30 CET!’

If, later on, you have multiple WhatsApp numbers to involve different departments or query

types, you might want to present different status updates for each number, making clear which

number is meant for which type of questions. If, however, you have multiple WhatsApp numbers

simply to cover a bigger volume, keep the status update identical.

2) Personalize your WhatsApp account


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There are three options to manage your incoming and outgoing messages:

1 A smartphone

2 WhatsApp Web (web.whatsapp.com)

3 Specialised software for WhatsApp support

1) Manage your messages like a pro

Sometimes it’s perfectly possible to start testing WhatsApp support with just a phone. But

depending on your company size, that might not be feasible. There are four major factors to

consider when deciding what the best option is for you:

1 How big is your team?

If your company needs only one person answering customer questions

through WhatsApp, a smartphone or WhatsApp Web will probably do

the trick (at least in the beginning). If, however, your WhatsApp team

needs to be bigger, operating from a phone and WhatsApp Web quickly

turns into a bottleneck. Specialised software helps multiple colleagues

collaborate, forward conversations, assign conversations to the right

colleague, etc.

2 How many incoming questions do you think you’ll be receiving?

If the number of WhatsApp questions remain limited (say maximum

10 a day if you have more than 2 customer service people “on”

WhatsApp - this number may vary), you could make do with the phone

or WhatsApp Web. But you should get specialized software the minute

you get stressed about volume. A large number of incoming questionssoon makes WhatsApp an unmanageable channel unless you use

professional software.


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4 How many WhatsApp numbers do you manage?

Lots of companies chose to have various WhatsApp number for various

departments, products, subsidiaries, countries, etc. Whether you need

Whether you need software ultimately depends on the size of your

WhatsApp team and the volume of incoming WhatsApp queries. So just

like pointed out in the two previous paragraphs, let those two factors

influence your decision.

5 Do you need more advanced features?

Although getting started quickly can be important to prove whether

WhatsApp works for you or not, sometimes a more sophisticated

approach is needed. If your manager or boss demands solid data and

metrics, easier search abilities or centralised data with the rest of your

customer data, specialised software will be your only way forward.

How do you know which WhatsApp support tool is the best?

Most software providers are ticketing systems that allow you to collaborate effectively as a team.

But customer service is more than that. There are a few things you can look for in your customer

service tool. After all: the more useful features the tool boasts, the easier it will be to rock ‘n’ roll.

1 Pick a software provider with a helpful support team.

Offering customer service through WhatsApp can be risky, mainly

because WhatsApp doesn’t support an official API. An alert provider

with a flexible and knowledgeable team helps mitigate some of those

risks. Contact and compare several tool makers before making any sort

of decision. Do you like them? Are they flexible? Do they keep their

promises?

2 Don’t consider tools that only focus on WhatsApp.

Your tool should allow you to receive customer questions from different

sources, like email and live chat. If you can “catch” all of these

questions in a single app, your efficiency will skyrocket!


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1 Get to know the tool’s features.

Check whether it allows you to send and receive photos, videos or

other types of messages. Perhaps you don’t want to send pictures

now, but you might want to in the future. Keep your options open! And

might you ever be using various WhatsApp numbers? Then get a tool

that collects them all within the same system! Also, check how the

tool operates: does it have native integrations with your systems of

choice, does it work with an open API, and is there another easy way

to export your data? Don’t focus too much on reporting or analytics

options just yet. WhatsApp is hard to measure. What matters in the

end is whether WhatsApp works for your customers and your business.

Also: don’t be seduced by the message broadcasting option: Run away

as fast as you can if the software provider keeps raving on about theirmessage broadcasting feature. You do not want to use WhatsApp as

a newsletter tool! Sure, it’s tempting - but withstand the enemy! You

don’t want to risk a ban or a block because WhatsApp thinks you’re a

notorious spammer!

2 Check if the tool offers quick responses & automated replies:

You can take some workload off your back by using templates and

automated replies. Careful though - this sounds more awesome than it

is on WhatsApp specifically. As talked about before, WhatsApp is too

personal a channel for quick response templates, that usually serve as

a good basis for answering frequently asked questions. And automated

replies can provide a warm welcome to customers “in queue”, but

only if you’ve thought it through perfectly. However, if you use macros

excessively, you may be triggering a block by either your customer or

WhatsApp itself. Be careful.

3 What about the smartphone?

Another thing to consider: some providers require you to keep your

“WhatsApp smartphone” (the smartphone with the SIM number used

for WhatsApp support) active at all times. It’s up to you to top up the

credit in time or the number will stop working. More expensive (but

reliable) tools allow you to connect your number once to the system

and be done with it.


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Need your manager’s (or your mirror image’s) approval to proceed? Download this clever prep

checklist for your team to refer to during the 3 phases preceding your WhatsApp trial. Then go

for it - and discover the power of conversational commerce.

Phase 3: 3-2-1 lift-off!

Now that you’ve ticked all the boxes of the preparation, you’re ready to get your WhatsApp

hands dirty and start receiving questions. Time to get down to action.

3) Let the world know you’re on WhatsApp

This is the most important aspect of whether you can gain traction on WhatsApp or not. If

nobody knows you’re there, you’re wasting your time. So make sure you spread the word far

and wide to both customers and prospects – but start slowly!

The most important place to start is adding your WhatsApp number to:

1 your ‘contact’ page on the website;

2 your email signature, especially of your customer support team oraccount managers (in B2B);

3 the footer of your newsletters;

4 your social media account profiles;

5 a pinned post on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn;

6 your homepage.

Be careful when adding your WhatsApp number to your homepage, though. Don’t just throw

it on there if your website gets a lot of daily traffic. It’s smarter to show the number to a select

part of your online visitors (say 10%), and gear up only after gathering experience and insightful

data. Know what you’re doing!


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Don’t forget to provide context and let your customers know what they can use your WhatsApp

support channel for. Managing expectations is super important to prevent disappointment.

No, people can probably not call you on the WhatsApp number, and you won’t be available for

support 24/7. But this only becomes a problem if you haven’t communicated it clearly.

If it’s relevant to your line of business, don’t forget to mention that you won’t send or accept

delicate personal information like bank account numbers or medical advice. Unfortunately,

a recent report showed that WhatsApp does not do a good job protecting its data from

government requests. So don’t share delicate data, and make sure your customer service team

knows this!

2) Manage your customers’ expectations

After you’ve tested WhatsApp and are getting satisfactory results, it’s a smart move to integrate

it with your other channels. After all, customer service is at its best when it’s not the medium that

counts, but the message and its sender. You’ll find that you’ll need specialized customer service

software to get more context, paint a more complete picture and make the WhatsApp channel

scalable.

1) Pick a great customer service tool

Besides these obvious starting points, get creative. You could, for instance, send an email to

your customer base to inform them of the new support channel, develop a marketing campaign

to position your WhatsApp service as a competitive advantage, use posters and flyers around

your physical locations, etc.

Also: when sharing your WhatsApp number online, make sure it’s clickable, leading to a vcard.

If a mobile visitor of your website clicks on the number, he’ll be able to download your contact

info, allowing him to save it to his address book with just one tap.


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02 /Customer support via WhatsApp:the basics with tips & tricks!

It’s astonishing how many companies underestimate the importance of “little

things” - details like customer support. Isn’t supporting your customers extrahassle? It’s not quite your core business. Spending time on customer service

and actually sounding like you care… Right. Your customers have already given

you their money, haven’t they? You’re not missing out by not providing great

service.

Except that you are. You need your customers to come back at some point.

A one-time customer is pretty useless in the long run, unless you sold them

a rocket ship or something. And yet bad customer service may be just as

harmful to your company’s future as no customer service at all. Customers

who hate your guts – because of, say, a service conversation gone wrong –

will ferociously blacken your brand when talking to friends or online followers.

Customers who remain indifferent won’t be quite as bad, because they never

got to speak to you in the first place.

Whether you’ve got a hangover or the flu, come rain or come shine, be nice on

WhatsApp. It’s an extremely direct channel, diving right into your customer’s

heart. He’ll hate you or love you. Home is where the heart is, and the heart’sextension, these days, is the smartphone.


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Lesson 1 Having A Great WhatsApp Conversation

How should you open and close a WhatsApp conversation with a

customer? What about tone of voice and empathy? And have you

thought through the issue of macros (preprogrammed messages)?

Lesson 2 Dealing With ‘Tough’ Conversations

It’s easy to gracefully accept a compliment through WhatsApp, but

elegantly handling complaints, spim and endless chit-chat is another

matter.

Lesson 3 Rocking the WhatsApp channel

Start upselling. Yes, you can! Also, you’ll get the most of this channel

if you add it to your array of communication channels. But first

promise to use WhatsApp to gather feedback from your customers,

the key to turning your brand into something much better and more

loved than before.

Read on to find out how. And don’t forget to prep your WhatsApp team properly! Just as live

chat, email, social media and the good old phone, WhatsApp comes with its own set of rules.Rules that you make because these will determine what your brand feels like to your customers.

Your team must adopt a consistent way of communicating through WhatsApp.

Be sure to download the “style guide” version of this chapter[24], add your specifics to it, and

make your WhatsApp support team understand what it’s all about: being in touch with your

customers in an absurdly intensive way. WhatsApp can be a great channel, but it’s not peanuts.

3 lessons to learn before starting a trial

24 You can download this worksheet slash style guide here.


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Lesson 1Having a great WhatsApp conversation

The primary reason to use WhatsApp is to strengthen the bond between you and yourcustomers, right? So your task is to make them love you. That’s quite easy to achieve: stick to

your word and sound human. It’s not only what you say, but it’s also how you say it. You are a

being of flesh and blood, just l ike the person you’re chatting with – so sound it .

1 Keep your tone of voice bright and helpful

Unless you’re responding to a complaint, you should type as if you

were smiling. Use positive words, think in solutions and be flexible.

Be profuse in your apologies and words of thanks, showing you work

for a customer-friendly company with empathic employees, happy to

be of service.

2 Mirror the other person’s style

Not sure whether emoticons are allowed? Quite a good rule to go by

is to take your customer’s behaviour as an example. But as always:

use your common sense. So if your conversation partner cracks

jokes, be careful: stay clear from jokes that are even slightly related

to gender, nationality, ethnic, political or religious background. And

skip football, too! After all: you don’t actually know for sure what kind

of person you are dealing with.

3 Avoid canned responses (preprogrammed messages)

There you have it: I’m not a fan of replies void of personality. Empty

messages and WhatsApp: not such a great combination. Canned

responses save time, but you risk sounding robotic if you use them

constantly. Also: to the guys at WhatsApp, canned responses are

red flags. If you send the exact same message regularly - or worse:

continuously - you might get marked by WhatsApp as a commercial

Sound human


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account, and will risk a ban [25]. If you do decide to preprogram

messages, think them through!

4 Correct typos but don’t sweat it

Made a typing error? Don’t make a big deal out of it. Errors aren’t

as bad as they seem – as long as you correct them. Little mistakes

might even inspire sympathy. Having said that: you might refresh

your team’s spelling abilities… You’re just human, sure, but you don’t

want to come across as an incapable human misrepresenting your

business.

5 Be relevant

The consequence of WhatsApp’s power to ban its users without

notice is that companies must do their very best not to annoy

either their customers or WhatsApp itself. You must invest in your

customers, only sharing relevant content with them. Relevant

content, in this case, is content that people actually want to read

– nothing resembling spam. The direct line between you and your

customer is paper-thin; sever it once, and you’ll have to build that

trust all over again.

There are 2 types of conversations. Whilst proactive conversations are the ones you strike

up (which doesn’t happen often in pure customer service), reactive ones exist only on the

customer’s initiative.

Proactive conversations are the ones you’ll probably have the least often. We’re ignoring

the ‘broadcast list’ option here, which has nothing to do with customer service; it verges on

marketing and advertising. However, sometimes it’s okay to strike up a conversation from a

customer service viewpoint.

Join the conversation

25 You can read more on being banned in ‘How not to get blocked by WhatsApp’, coming up right after this chapter.


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Say you want to send a WhatsApp message to Alex, a customer you’ve never reached out to

before – at least not through WhatsApp. He filled out his mobile number during checkout. An

elegant way to engage in conversation is to share some interesting content you’d usually share

by email. Try something like this:

!" $%&'( )*"+ "+ ,%-."+ /.-0

12+&34-5 6 78+) 923)&: )- %&)

;-8 &.+

/"3"+*&: )*& /83?)"-32%"); ;-8

)-%: 8+ "3 2 +8.=&; ;-8 9&.&

92")"34 /-.5 @23) )- ).; ") -8)A

You want Alex to be happily surprised, not annoyed or feeling hunt down like prey. He’ll block

you if he doesn’t like what you just said. But if he responds, you’re in – and the game is on. After

a bit, you can gently try something like this:

6/ ;-8B: %">

242"3( >%&2+& +2=& -8.

380C&. "3 ;-8. >*-3& ."4*)

3-95 D2


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We’re talking about reactive conversations here, where you respond nicely and quickly to a

customer question (definitely within 60 minutes, but preferably within 5 minutes or less), and

introduce yourself. You’ll never get a second chance for your first impression!

Welcoming your prospectsand customers

A simple canned response can be of great help when reacting to questions

quickly and professionally. Tell the people reaching out to you through

WhatsApp whom they’re chatting with and when they can expect a response

to their specific question. So manage their expectations. What can yourprospects and customers expect in terms of timeframe and benefits?

!"( 9&%?-0& )- E?-0>23; 320&F

23: )*23


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Bigger volumes to respond to? Then canned responses, also known as preprogrammed

messages, are a must. You’ve probably also heard of macros: they’re shortcuts to a set of

actions, sometimes containing canned responses (for instance, to deal with spim).

Canned responses seem useful in busy times, but they are to be handled with care as they might

set off the alarm bells at WhatsApp HQ. You should consider getting software enriched with a

human behaviour algorithm. This algorithm adds human characteristics to canned responses,

preventing you from being banned or blocked by WhatsApp.

Experience taught us that companies which send a message like ‘Welcome! Thanks for your

question!’ as a response to every single question, hundreds of times a day, eventually find

themselves blocked. Instead, add empty fields to your preprogammed messages, forcing your

team to complete the message with personal, relevant information. Your canned response goes

from being general and boring to genuine and personal. ‘Welcome! Thanks for your question! As

I understand, you …’

Be super careful with canned responses and macros


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First customer message Preprogrammed company reply

A standard question, such as:

Hi, I still haven’t received my order.

Could you track it for me?

Hi, welcome to and

thanks for your question. I’m and happy to help you

out today! So you .

A complaint, such as:

Hey, why don’t you guys respond to myemails? I’m getting sick of this.

Hi, sorry to hear that... Let’s get to the

bottom of this.

Or:

Oh dear, let me get this sorted for you.

Spim, such as:

Your mother is a prostitute and you’re

even worse.

That’s not a very decent thing to say.

We’re going to block your number now.

Or:

Haha thanks!

(then block or stop replying)

Examples of canned responses

Ending the conversation

Be sure to end each conversation nicely, picking the right time. This depends on the specific

content of the conversation and on the type of customer. Some customers respond every 10

minutes and are suddenly quiet – then you make your move. Others take days to get back to

you, which forces you to be patient. Only when you’re quite sure it’s not too early and you won’t

offend the customer, you ask him something along the lines of:

6+ )*&.& 23;)*"34 &%+&6 ?23 *&%> ;-8 9")*(

Q320& ?8+)-0&.RA


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No response? Then you might one to continue with something like:

6 *2=&3B) *&2.: /.-0 ;-8 /-.2 9*"%& 3-9( +- 6B%% ?%-+& )*"+

?-3=&.+2)"-3 /-. 3-95 6/ ;-8*2=& 23; -)*&. G8&+)"-3+(

78+) +&3: 8+ 2 0&++24& *&.&

23: 9&B%% 4&) C2?< )- ;-8I

Lesson 2

Dealing with tough conversations

Enjoying a direct line with your customers comes with a drawback: they won’t always come

to you with neutral questions. Some customers will moan, some will s hout, some won’t stop

talking. And yet you’ve got to deal with them – through WhatsApp.

Needless to say, the friendly factor should always prevail. You must remain friendly however

wrong or unreasonable you think the customer is. Here’s how to deal with complainers,

spimmers and chatterboxes.

Complaints

Strange as it sounds, customers who complain are potential brand ambassadors. Yes, really.

Deep down, a customer who takes the trouble to complain, wants to stay your customer. He

just needs a li ttle love. I believe – and this also goes for channels other than WhatsApp – that

if you listen well enough to a customer with a complaint, and solve his deeper problem (feeling

betrayed, unheard, unloved), you will turn his mood around completely. Actually I believe every

complaining customer is a potential ambassador. Since there is a change of mood around a

brand of product you can also change it again. In fact in that case you can even move him

further towards a real ambassador!

Use the LAST approach: Listen, Acknowledge, Solve, Thank.


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1 Listen

Let your unhappy customer vent for a bit. Don’t interrupt him and

send him encouraging messages (‘I see’, ‘Oh dear’, ‘Oh no’) to show

you are indeed listening. Remember: he can’t see you. By hearing

your customer out, you can find out what he’s truly upset about. And

don’t take any of it personal: it’s about your brand, not you.

2 Acknowledge

Say you are sorry. If not for the specific complaint, then at least

for the situation. Show you are sorry for the fact your customer

is unhappy. If your company did indeed make a mistake, admit it.

There’s nothing wrong with that. By acknowledging the problem, you

show that you hear your customer. You understand the problem and

will do everything within your powers to fix things between you.

3 Solve

Nothing quite as human as making mistakes, but fix them. If you’ve

got a perfect solution right away: go for it. If not, ask your customer

what he’d like you to do about the issue. Perhaps they’re happy with

a discount, or something you haven’t thought of. If you can’t solve

the problem right away, communicate clearly about the steps you’d

like to take. If you make promises, keep them. Follow up throughWhatsApp and grasp this opportunity to strengthen the bond!

4 Thank

Thank, thank, thank. Just like “sorry”, you can’t say this word enough

(whenever you mean it). You want the customer to feel you care.

And all of LAST through your customer’s favourite communication method! Complaints are

opportunities to turn angry customers into fans, which is easy on WhatsApp, as long as you

make them feel that the conversation you two are having, is worth the trouble, because you

seem to care.


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Spim simply is “spam” on instant messaging platforms. It’s a lot less of a problem than actual

spam. Most spim falls into the category of harmless and understandable: it’s actual prospects or

customers checking if your WhatsApp number really takes them right into your customer service

offices. It’s messages like: “Does this work?” and “Hello”.

Most companies I talked to didn’t find spim horribly annoying. It’s usually a temporary thing:

most curiosity fades three or four weeks into the launch of the new WhatsApp customer service

channel. After that, the spim that remains is hardly a problem: you can block numbers easily so

the spimmer won’t be able to cause trouble again, at least not using the same number.

You could always try to react to the spimmer (as this guy talking on Ted actually did), which can

cause a laugh or a frown (if the spimmer turns out to be a competitor). But from a business point

of view: leave it. There’s not enough spim going around yet to cause great trouble.

Spim

Let’s face it: people who can’t stop talking are a nuisance, on WhatsApp or on any other

channel. They waste your team’s time asking a thousand l ittle questions because they’re eitherbored or lazy. Sure, a WhatsApp conversation should never end, but conversations that last days

aren’t ideal. At some point, you’ve got to start dropping hints.

First try: asking them if you could talk to them through phone, in order to help them better?

(That’s something you should always do, by the way, as soon as delicate information is needed

to establish the customer’s identity.) If they decline that offer, sticking to WhatsApp for another

two or three days instead, try gently but firmly guiding them to the website’s FAQ (which should

be very good: well-filled knowledge bases drastically decrease the number of customer queries)

With the right software…

And if none of that has any effect, just go with the f low and help the chatterbox as well as you

can. Some customers need more love than others.

Long-winded laments

https://www.ted.com/talks/james_veitch_this_is_what_happens_when_you_reply_to_spam_emailhttps://www.ted.com/talks/james_veitch_this_is_what_happens_when_you_reply_to_spam_email


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Lesson 3

How to rock ‘n’ roll

Even though the WhatsApp channel is too personal for hard, cold sales, you can use it tosell more, simply by keeping the conversation going with meaningful messages. It’s hard for

me to give examples you can use right away, because upselling through WhatsApp is greatly

influenced by what it is you sell. It will require some brainstorming, preferably with a bottle of

wine and some cheese crackers. This step is all about you and your business.

Questions to get in the mood

The best way to use WhatsApp is related to what you sell and who your customers are. Whenbrainstorming with (part of) your team, get into a “WhatsApp state of mind”, let the ideas flow,

and try to come up with a way to find the most customer-friendly way tailored to your specific

company. You could wonder what you are doing right now without WhatsApp that you could do

with WhatsApp instead.

1 What could you do through WhatsApp that you’re doing through email now?

Perhaps you can confirm each new order with a WhatsApp message

instead (or on top of) an email. You can update your customer’s

order status or send news about an item on his wishlist that was out

of stock but has arrived now. Or say you sell mattresses: you could

WhatsApp your customers after 6 months to remind them to turn

their mattress soon. The sky is the limit!

2 What could you do through WhatsApp that you’re doing through phone now?

Some follow-ups are better sent through a less pushy, more “silent”

channel, because it gives your customer the freedom to decide

what to do next: ignore or respond to your message (without anyone

listening in). Say you sell vitamin pills: you could WhatsApp your

customers when they might be running out of pills: “Hey, are you out

of vitamin B12 yet? Just thought I’d let you know I can get you two

bottles with 40% discount if you respond within 24 hours. Just drop

me a line.” If you do this on the phone, cold-calling style, conversion

rates will be lower, as will the chance of irritating your customer

(because they’re having lunch).


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1 Could you get chatting with check-out drop-outs?

If you use professional software that allows you to see who’s

abandoning their online shopping cart, after filling out their mobile

number (but before actually paying), you might want to send them

a WhatsApp message along the lines of: “Hi, just noticed you’re

interested in but didn’t quite make the purchase. Anything I

can do to help?” If you send a short, informal but valuable message,

you will get a response. Take it from there.

2 Could you get the conversation going with positive reviewers?

Just thanking people who took the trouble to post a positive review

on your own site or on a third-party review site might open up the

door for more. Only start talking sales-pitchy if it feels natural. Do

not force anything on your happy customer – you want him to stay

happy.

Use WhatsApp for customer feedback

Here’s another trick for advanced users only: use WhatsApp to gather customer feedback. Input

from actual customers, for instance, can be great to improve your website. You can conduct an

entire survey – albeit a really short one – via WhatsApp, as part of the conversation. Only askfor feedback if it feels natural. If the customer just said he’s got to catch his train (which will

be the sort of personal information you’ll spontaneously get during WhatsApp conversations),

don’t bother him with a survey. If the stars are aligned, though, go for it - even after a negative

conversation! As long as you phrase the question delicately, you’ll find your customer will

often be happy to help. Check out pages 52 onwards for various ideas on WhatsApp surveys,

for instance to find out your Net Promoter Score (NPS), your customer effort score (CES), or a

combination of both.

Input from customers doesn’t always require asking for feedback: the actual conversation will

tell you what’s wrong. If you get the same question over and over again, add it to your online

FAQ list. If the same product seems to cause problems, check it out and fix it. And if you were

looking for a way to upsell: the clues lie in this kind of conversations. What’s this customer

interested in? What would make him buy more, or visit you more frequently?


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Even though live chat and WhatsApp are much more appreciated by customers than email

and phone, the majority of them still send old-fashioned emails or dial your number as if their

existence depend on it. To boost customer satisfaction overall and to increase your team’s

productivity it’s wise to integrate WhatsApp with your email channel.

Promote WhatsApp in your outbound email, and i f your customer uses WhatsApp and you’ve

got his number, follow up inbound email through WhatsApp. If you consider using professional

software, check whether the software supplier has both products: WhatsApp and email

management.

Integrate WhatsApp with your email channel


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Extra / The WhatsApp rulebook

If you use WhatsApp for customer service purposes only, you shouldn’t be too worried aboutWhatsApp blocking or banning your number. After all, all you do is honestly respond to genuine

queries. You’re having true conversations with other people, which is something WhatsApp

stimulates.

But you might find that once the line between you and your customer is established firmly – the

minute you finish your first WhatsApp conversation – you might be enticed to let your customers

know about upcoming sales, a contest you’re having or new items in your store. And before you

know it, you’ve sent the same message to 500 customers and then – nothing. Nobody responds,

except what I like calling the WBI, the WhatsApp Bureau of Intelligence[27]. Their message:

Your number is no longer allowed to use our service

Signed: WhatsApp

If WhatsApp sends you the above message, you’re fucked. They just banned your number, probably

because they thought you were spamming. Which – in all honesty – you probably were. Ouch.

On its website, WhatsApp states that accounts are blocked ‘if we believe the account activity is in

violation of our Terms of Service.’ So what’s in those Terms of Service[28]?

27 I made that up!

28 Find the terms of service on WhatsApp’s website.

https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/%3Fl%3Denhttps://www.whatsapp.com/legal/%3Fl%3Den


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Section 3, paragraph C: WhatsApp access

You agree not to collect or harvest any personally identifiable information,

including phone number, from the Service, nor to use the communication systems

provided by the Service for any com mercial solicitation or spam purposes. Youagree not to spam, or solicit for commercial purposes, any users of the Service.

Basically, the following actions are not allowed[29]:

1 Sending too many messages (more than 1.200 a day, a few days in a

row).

2 Being blocked by too many people in a short period of time.

3 Submitting content (in the status, profile picture or messages) that is

unlawful, obscene, threatening, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically

offensive, or plain inappropriate.

4 Being annoying to other users, for instance by sending the same

message to too many people, or by creating too many groups that

contain users who didn’t save your number in their address books.

If the WBI finds out you’re breaking any of these rules (which means that yes, they sometimes read

or analyse your messages), WhatsApp reserves the right to refuse service for any reason without

prior notice, at their sole discretion. That means you can be banned – usually for a period of 24,

48, 72 or 120 hours, depending on how bad you were – or blocked forever without a warning or

explanation.

Unless you get in touch with WhatsApp ([email protected]) and beg them on your bare knees

to forgive and unban you, your account – and your hard-earned direct lines to so many of your

customers – will die a slow death 72 hours after your account was banned. Your contacts (in your

case: your customers) will no longer be able to see you in their Favourites list.

29 WhatsApp explains it on its website, and Tech PC Tricks writes about it here.

https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/28030003http://techpctricks.com/how-to-get-unbanned-from-whatsapp/http://techpctricks.com/how-to-get-unbanned-from-whatsapp/https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/28030003


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To keep your reputation spotless, you should avoid being banned at all costs. It’s hard to say

what’s spotted by the WBI and what isn’t. But some of my customers have confirmed this is a good

strategy:

1 Use your common sense.

It will probably (and hopefully) tell you that you should only communicate

with people who actually want to receive messages from you. So don’t spam.

2 Make your conversation safe.

You know very well not to send pictures of male or female body parts, but

be aware of that fact that your customer must save your number in his

smartphone in order for the conversation to be seen as ‘safe’ by WhatsApp.

How? As soon as you dispatch the order, send a him a happy life signal

through WhatsApp. Not to say something dull like ‘welcome, new customer’,

but something very relevant and interesting to that specific customer. ‘Hi!

It’s Jack from Top Company. Just wanted to give you a thumbs up: your

order has been dispatched!’ If your customer responds, respond at least

one more time before you kindly ask him to save your number in his phone.

‘By the way, if save this number in your address book, you can reach out to

me whenever you have a question. I’m here for you, 24/7. Don’t hesitate to

reach out if there’s a problem with your order, or if you want those cartridges

refilled.’ That will give you the green light needed to go ahead with WhatsApp

marketing. Keep the conversation going with relevant content: the customer

must not get annoyed with you and block you.

3 Don’t spam.

Just thought I’d mention it one more time. Don’t send same lines over

and over again - even if it’s about a discount you just have to share with

your customers. Some campaigns or messages simply aren’t welcome on

WhatsApp because only a few people appreciate in-your-face commercial

activities on a channel this personal.

4 Messed up before?

If you got banned before, read the above guidelines once more, because if

you don’t, you might get blocked forever. Sure, you can just get a new phone

number and try all over again, but it’s a lot of hassle that’s just not worth it.


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03 /Stories of 5 early adopters

An NPS score of a whopping +27 – that’s how popular the new WhatsApp service is at ABN

AMRO, one of Holland’s biggest banks. ‘+27 is bizarrely high,’ confirms Andius Teijgeler, ABN

AMRO’s customer experience director. ‘Like most banks, our general NPS score is -20. That’s

about average for a financial institution. People don’t necessarily love a bank. But they love

WhatsApp, that’s for sure.’

Andius started looking into WhatsApp in the final months of 2014. Several of his colleagues had

suggested he’d look into this simple little messaging app. In the first quarter of 2015, quite a few

companies in the Netherlands bravely announced they were starting a trial offering WhatsApp as

a customer service channel.

ABN AMRO was one of these early adopters: in January 2015, Andius set the WhatsApp train

in motion. ‘I felt we were obliged to do so: companies that claim they take customer service

ABN AMRO:

‘Prepare yourself, launch softly and keep your teamhappy.’

About ABN AMRO ABN AMRO, a Dutch bank for retail, corporate and private banking

headquartered in Amsterdam, offers its clients a full range of products and

services as well as in- depth financial and industry expertise. Located in over

20 countries, it allows its clients to reach out through WhatsApp, Snapchat,Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, live chat, email and phone.


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seriously, can’t ignore a channel used by so many people. It’s simply not an option not to offer

WhatsApp customer service. Only if it turns out that this type of service doesn’t meet the clients’

wishes, would we consider giving up this service.’

In ABN AMRO’s case, it’s not about the number of customer queries received each day. It’s

about being there for customers, taking them by the hand when the world of finance gets too

complex. ‘Our clients should be able to get in touch with their bank as quickly and easily as

possible. WhatsApp is one of our extra services, just like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. And all

of these are just as important as the traditional communication channels.’

Based on ABN AMRO’s experience with WhatsApp, Andius has 3 golden tips to share: be

prepared before you take off, launch softly and sweetly, and keep your WhatsApp team happy at

all times!

So if you decide to run a so-called “test and learn” pilot, think it through and take it slow. You

don’t want to fail this test. What if there’s a crisis at your company, and your WhatsApp channel

is suddenly bombarded with an overload of queries? Would you be able to handle them all

quickly easily? Make sure you have enough people on your webcare team capable of responding

to the WhatsApp channel.

ABN AMRO – renowned for its high-quality social service – took a few months to do research.

‘We first gathered information about security, privacy and identification. Then we played around

a bit with a WhatsApp tool that would allow us to engage in lots of conversations at the same

time. We got a team of people ready to join the WhatsApp team. Only then did we go public

about the new service – and that was only on Facebook and Twitter, where our customers are

well-disposed towards us already.’

Tip #1: Prepare yourself


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On July 14th, 2015, ABN AMRO posted a status update on Twitter and Facebook about the new

WhatsApp service: “Today, we’re enabling the first group of clients to reach our customer service

desk 24/7 through WhatsApp. Would you like to ask us a question using WhatsApp? Send us a

private message.” Lots of people responded positively, and with this beloved and loving group,

ABN AMRO gently started experimenting.

After 2 months, ABN AMRO was certain enough to open up the doors: in September, a

newsletter to 240.000 clients contained a small post about the WhatsApp number the bank

now used for customer support. ‘We sent out a second newsletter to another 240.000 clients in

November,’ Andius says. ‘Both times the number of queries went sky-high.’

The bank, however, didn’t encounter any major problems. ‘We just kept on doing what we did:

managing both risks and customer expectations. We asked for feedback and listened to what

clients and our WhatsApp webcare team experienced.’

Tip #2: Launch softly

Don’t underestimate the importance of your webcare people. They should be a happy team,helping out customers in need with a big smiley. If they don’t enjoy dealing with WhatsApp

questions, your customers will notice and your company will pay. Appearing genuinely interested

is extremely important with a channel as personal as WhatsApp.

Thankfully WhatsApp is a rewarding channel for customer service representatives, because most

people love it (which is why the NPS is so high). If you play it well, both sides will be smiling.

Ideally, your WhatsApp team consists only of people who proactively said they wanted to join

the team. Whatever you do: don’t force anyone to be on the WhatsApp team.

AMRO now has a total of 34 webcare specialists responding to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, live

chat – and WhatsApp. They typically respond within 5 minutes. In the first 5 months of the trial,

over 5.000 conversations were conducted through WhatsApp – totalling up to 50.000 in- and

outbound messages about daily bank affairs, such as changing withdrawal limits, replacing

broken or stolen debit cards and applying for a credit card.

Tip #3: Keep your team happy


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ABN AMRO is one of the few companies that use a stand-alone tool to manage WhatsApp as a

customer service channel. It’s Andius’ conviction that a CRM-driven tool isn’t always necessary

or even better. ‘CRM isn’t a solution – it’s a tool that should serve a purpose. If information isn’t

relevant, why bother? With a channel like WhatsApp, speed is more important than an elaborate

customer profile. For us, WhatsApp is about dealing with messages in a way that makes our

clients feel heard.’


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The idea for Tep Wireless, a pocket wifi rental company, was born in 2009. Dennis Jorgensen

and Simone Rigoni were brainstorming about how annoying it was to have expensive (or no)

access to the internet whilst travelling. ‘Every single traveller should be able go online without

going broke,’ Dennis said. ‘It became our goal to make this happen.’

Two years after that initial chat, their company Tep Wireless was launched. It was an instant

hit. ‘Apparently we were right: almost everyone on earth wants to enjoy internet on the go. It’s

no wonder they love our pocket wifi devices.’ So far, Tep Wireless rented out its smart little

gadget to hundreds of thousands people, aged 18 to 60 years on average. Dennis’ and Simone’s

company now has 2 logistics hubs and 40 employees, 10 of whom work from South-East Asia,

where the customer service team is based.

Tep Wireless takes customer service pretty seriously indeed. Apart from email and phone,

(potential) customers can reach Tep through live chat, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram

and Pinterest. In 2015, WhatsApp was added to that list. ‘WhatsApp is one of the best

communication channels out there, period, for any type of interaction (business or pleasure),’

Dennis explains. ‘Ultimately, our service is all about making life easier for our customers, so why

not maintain the same ethos for our customer service? We want our customers to be able to

contact us in any way possible. WhatsApp is a perfect addition to the other channels. Especially

since it’s highly personal and has virtually replaced SMS for a lot of people.

Tep Wireless

‘Use good software, reply quickly, and cherish

each conversation.’

About Tep Wireless Tep Wireless, founded in 2011 and based in London, is a hotspot rental

company that provides today’s travellers with wireless internet access in

most of the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. Tep’s wifi device works

just like any other Wifi hotspot, but is yours only and fits in your pocket.

Customers can get in touch 24/7 through WhatsApp, live chat, email, phone

and SMS.


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Dennis tried a bunch of alternatives before nding Casengo, Tep’s current software provider. ‘It’s

very important to nd a tool that your team can use collaboratively to reply to customers quickly

and without fail. Only be happy with a solution that allows your customer service team to deal

with multiple chats simultaneously. Responding quickly to WhatsApp messages really pays o!’

Tep offers a 24/7 WhatsApp service that is staffed by 2 to 4 customer support agents at the

same time. So the company needed a scalable and structural solution to support this setup.

With a customer service team of 10 people, it’s just not workable to have a smartphone go from

hand to hand.

Tip #1: use good WhatsApp customer service software

If you send the Tep customer service team a question through WhatsApp, you’ll usually get a

reply within a minute. Four minutes is the absolute maximum, which is only easily achievable

when using good, intuitive software.

Tip #2: reply quickly and efficiently

With about a dozen WhatsApp conversations per day, the volumes aren’t particularly high

yet. ‘But it’s not about the numbers. If we’ve done our job, then our customers shouldn’t be

contacting us at all.’ If they do, however, have a question, customers should be able to get in

touch with a company through whatever channel they want – like WhatsApp. ‘Ultimately, our

service is all about making life easier for our customers,’

Tip #3: cherish each WhatsApp conversation

(even just one a day)


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Studystore is widely known amongst students and alumni in the Netherlands: when they were

at school or university, lots of people ordered textbooks from this brand or its parent company

Van Dijk (established in 1937). As the Dutch academic year starts in August or September,

Studystore is a major e-commerce player in the Netherlands from June until September, when

most students order their educational material.

Last summer, Studystore launched a new, fully responsive web store, allowing students to order

material quickly and easily on their smartphone or tablet. ‘We wanted to enrich the new store

with more communication channels,’ Simon Bosschieter, product manager at Studystore, says.

‘Students don’t function without their mobile phone or their laptop. That’s why we started with

both live chat and WhatsApp.’

Email, live chat and WhatsApp were all bundled in one software tool: Casengo. ‘That way,

our customer service team was able to respond even quicker and more directly to students,’

Simon explains. ‘It was rather scary to start using new software right before the summer peak.

But we’re happy we just went for it. We had a great summer revenue, with a more complete

customer view than before, and much shorter response times.’

Studystore

‘Enjoy the personal connection, mirror your customers

and don’t let fear spoil the party.’

About Studystore Studystore is one of Holland’s largest suppliers of higher education textbooks

and other educational material. Through 5 campus stores, hundreds of

student societies and an excellent website, Studystore sells, buys and resells

books to over 250.000 college students. They can get in touch using phone,

email, live chat and WhatsApp.


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‘Sure, the new WhatsApp, live chat and email tools help us to assist our customers from start

to finish much faster. We’d expected that. But something that happily surprised us, is how

wonderful it can be to be personally in touch with your customers. We got WhatsApp messages

right from the beach! We loved being able to respond to them right away.’

Tip #1: Enjoy the personal connection

‘For both live chat and WhatsApp, it’s important to get on the same wavelength as your

customers. Our customer base is young. We don’t react like college professors when a student

asks us: “Yo, where are my books? Should have received them two days ago!” A formal reply

would immediately make us lose the true connection with this customer.’

Tip #2 – Mirror your customers

‘If you start with a new customer communication channel like WhatsApp, it’s easy to be a bitanxious about negative reactions. Our experience is that this is a false fear. Don’t worry too

much. Sure, you’ll get unpleasant messages once in a while, but remain open and calm. At the

end of the day, customers are happy you are willing to listen!’

Tip #3: Don’t let fear spoil the party


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Offering advice through good old SMS. That seems like a great idea – one-on-one yet very

accessible communication – until your customers receive the monthly phone bill�

Using Whatsapp for Customer Service

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