Amid technological developments, marketing activities are one aspect of business that is affected. AI tools are impacting every industry from healthcare to education and marketing is no different. This technological wave is rapidly turning any business effort into digital, for instance, combining both elements of conversation and messaging apps –such as WhatsApp chatbots– as marketing tools.
Before the increasingly widespread use of chatbots, WhatsApp itself had been part of a marketing tool since 2018. The emergence of WhatsApp Business has become a cheap alternative marketing tool to reach potential customers from various regions. Apart from that, the number of WhatsApp users reaching 2 billion people makes this application promising.
Until now, the use of WhatsApp has grown and varied. For the rest, let’s discuss the use of WhatsApp as part of a CRM and digital marketing strategy in this article. Keep reading!
WhatsApp Marketing: The Reason Behind It
Before we talk further about CRM strategy and Whatsapp Chatbot in digital marketing, let’s start this discussion with whatsapp marketing.
WhatsApp is a messaging application that has the most users in the world. This means that many WhatsApp users use this application as the primary communication tool in their daily lives. This is a strong reason why this application is suitable for use as a medium for marketing.
As the primary communication tool, potential buyers are undoubtedly familiar with the WhatsApp interface. This is an opportunity for businesses to send campaign messages and use WhatsApp as the contact for the help center.
Two kinds of whatsapp as a marketing channel
However, the widespread use of WhatsApp as a marketing tool also opens up opportunities for WhatsApp to provide two different types of business applications that suit its use. It is a WhatsApp Business App and WhatsApp Business API.
Here are the differences between the two:
- Whatsapp Business App:
- It is designed to accommodate a few questions, making it more suitable for small-scale businesses.
- It already has a built-in interface model, so business owners can easily install and use it.
- Its features, such as simple automated responses and catalogs, make the marketing process more manageable.
- Whatsapp Business API:
- WhatsApp Business API has no built-in interface, so it needs a third-party application to create an interface that meets business needs.
- It is more suitable for medium to large-scale businesses because the API is designed to receive thousands of messages daily.
- Because it is supported by third parties –such as Kommo, Hubspot, and Salesforce–the WhatsApp Business API can be equipped with complex custom features tailored to a company’s needs.
- It is easier to integrate, such as whatsapp chatbot integration, so businesses can provide the power of using WhatsApp for a better customer experience.
In a nutshell, using WhatsApp as WhatsApp marketing is a solution for businesses to provide interaction in the form of interactive conversations. In this way, customers and leads can ask questions and get information quickly and more personally. In this way, business relationships with customers become stronger.
However, WhatsApp marketing continues beyond here. As we have discussed, a third party is needed to run the WhatsApp Business API, namely CRM. Starting from here, we will discuss how CRM strategies can develop existing features in the WhatsApp application.
Whatsapp Chatbot as Part of CRM Strategies
CRM is an abbreviation for customer relationship management, so CRM strategy is an effort made by a company to manage leads, buyers, and loyal customers. In order to create a strong business relationship between the business and its customers.
In a CRM strategy, many approaches can be made, such as:
- Strategies for automation: automating mundane tasks with chatbot
- Data-centric strategy: organizing and centralizing data through a holistic view
- Customer service improvement strategy: give a new customer experience, such as using whatsapp chatbot.
- Streamlined communication strategy: queries and messages can be centralized using shared inbox software.
- Sales optimization strategy: streamlining sales pipeline based on sales funnel or customer journey.
In this case, WhatsApp chatbot is a tool that is able to cover these approaches thoroughly. Businesses can use their magic tool by relying on third parties in the form of business solution providers.
Redefining CRM strategies with Whatsapp Chatbot
Combining the artificial intelligence of chatbots with the popularity of WhatsApp is a visionary step to create a transformation in CRM strategy. With these steps, businesses can quickly provide smooth and engaging customer experiences. So, lead generation and conversion rates will also experience positive changes.
Apart from that, utilizing the WhatsApp chatbot can streamline the data collection process. The collected data can also be routed directly into the pipeline, so teams don’t need to enter customer data manually because they can record data through conversations with customers and store it seamlessly in the CRM system.
Apart from that, many business solution providers (BSP) have also offered convenience in providing WhatsApp chatbots. Instead of building chatbots manually by coding, BSP has provided a no-code chatbot platform option. So, businesses can use well-designed chatbots to increase customer satisfaction.
You can learn more about how to build a whatsapp chatbot here:
Successful digital marketing with WhatsApp chatbots
The use of WhatsApp chatbots has been widely used, here are several companies that have successfully implemented it as a digital marketing strategy.
- Tokopedia
Tokopedia is one of the largest e-commerce sites in Indonesia. Apart from utilizing whatsapp chatbot to send OTP (one-time password), Tokopedia uses it as a marketing channel. In addition, Tokopedia also utilizes this technology as a channel for customer service and notification of customer transaction status.
In their campaigns, they insert attractive images to increase conversion rates. Reporting from several sources, Tokopedia experienced a 58% increase in delivery rate when using WhatsApp rather than SMS.
- OYO Hotels
Whatsapp chatbot is reliable for a variety of industries. OYO Hotels is one of the hotels that implement this technology in their system. Through the chatbot, customers can find the availability of hotels in the area they will visit and make room reservations.
When a customer wants to make a booking, the chatbot will ask in detail about the check-in and check-out dates, the number of people staying, the location of the hotel, and the type of room desired. This method certainly provides a good experience to customers because customers do not need to search for hotel locations and do marketing manually on the website.
Providing the best customer experience as well as ensuring satisfied customers are obligations for the company. When these two things are well maintained and preserved, gaining customer trust is not impossible. In this case, applying a whatsapp chatbot is one of the efforts that businesses can make to achieve success in the midst of intense competition. So make sure to keep up-to-date with current technological developments!
