Gone are the days when you tell your customers to send an email or fill out a contact form. With the massive growth in the eCommerce experience, customers want to get things done fast.

As per Hubspot research, 90% of consumers rated receiving a response within 10 minutes as important and very important.

To provide smooth and swift communication, you need to use the most popular messaging app, WhatsApp. Learn about the reasons to use WhatsApp in eCommerce and then dive in more to know the ways to integrate it.

Reasons To Use WhatsApp for eCommerce 

WhatsApp has revolutionized the messaging industry by making texting convenient, accessible, and interactive with media content such as gifs, stickers, videos, audio, etc.

While a decade ago, messaging platforms are distributed among multiple contenders. However, after 2009, WhatsApp became a global leader. Now, WhatsApp has 2 billion+ users while 5 million+ businesses are using the WhatsApp Business application.

The benefits of WhatsApp in eCommerce are as follows.

1) Earn Trust and Confidence

WhatsApp creates an opportunity for you to connect with customers on a platform they already feel at home. It helps you to gain trust.

Moreover, by creating a business profile with all the necessary information, you can make a great first impression. 

Also, after delivery is made, you can do post-purchase check-in, build templates, and send messages that are helpful and product specific. This is especially useful with items that need how-to instructions such as furniture.

Offering such post-purchase services build confidence in your store.

2) Provide a Personalized Experience

When a customer agrees to connect with you on WhatsApp, you mostly receive the following data.

• Phone number,
• Country (based on the country code in the phone number),
• User name (sometimes).

You can also ask for other details such as their actual name, city, etc. if you need to know when the customers choose to opt in.

By using these variables, you can personalize the conversation instantly. For example, greet them by their name, display the menu in their language, or adjust the options as per their region.

3) Resolve User Queries

Since consumers expect fast responses, chatbots became popular in eCommerce. With WhatsApp chatbots, you can take a step further. Even when a customer leaves their desk, they can continue their conversation on mobile conveniently. 

Just like a normal chatbot, it suggests knowledge-based articles based on user queries and answers common FAQs. Your agent can join the conversation if the chatbot cannot resolve the issue.

4) Engage With Customers

WhatsApp gives you an opportunity to capture prospects more naturally than ever. You can do this in several ways. Some of them are as follows.

• You can send the buyers coupons, discounts, and loyalty points. Also, track whether they are using your vouchers or not. 
• Create interactive quizzes for entertainment and to collect data.
• With the catalog feature, you may showcase your products and services.
• Share important updates such as order confirmation, shipment updates, and so on.
• Make upsell and cross-sell promotions, recover abandoned carts, and send campaign ads with interactive CTAs. 
• Let your prospects browse and place orders within WhatsApp.
• Even collect feedback and reviews.

In this way, you can engage with your users right away in their familiar environment.

Recommended: How to Send Bulk Messages on Whatsapp?

Ways To Do WhatsApp eCommerce Integration

1. Chat Widget/ Chatbot

One of the most basic ways to add WhatsApp to your website is through a chat widget. All the conversations initiated by the visitor are directed to WhatsApp instead of continuing on your website.

With the chatbot, the added advantage is that it carries out the conversation without any need for an agent.

How to Integrate WhatsApp Via Chat Widget/ Chatbot?

There are 2 ways to add a chat widget or chatbot:

1. After generating a personalized widget and chatbot, you can copy and paste the code into your website. 
2. Some of the websites allow you to add the widget in drag and drop style. For the chatbot, you need to create conversation flows through drag and drop editor. Here, you don’t have to interact with the code.

Therefore, if you have zero coding knowledge, it is best to go for the second option.

Recommended: 7 Best WhatsApp Chatbot Tools In 2022 [Tried & Tested]

2. Opt-in Form

When a user visits your store, they may not have a question for your agent or chatbot, right away. But when they are interested in a product that is out of stock or beyond their budget, they might just look for it on other websites.

So, to get them back on your website, you need to encourage the visitor to communicate with you. This way you can send them stock updates, price drops, and sale notifications. It helps to entice the user to re-visit your store.

How to Integrate WhatsApp Via Opt-in Form?

You can do this in various ways.

1. Build an opt-in landing page with a form to fill in the necessary details.
2. Add a pop-up on your homepage so the customers can sign up.
3. Ask the users to opt-in when they converse with you on WhatsApp. This applies only when they take the initiative to contact you.
4. Incorporate the opt-in form into the account registration process. Inform your customers that by agreeing to WhatsApp as a communication channel they can receive important notifications.
5. Simply add a WhatsApp button on your website. By clicking it customers can directly contact you.

3. Redirect Through Ads

In case you are using Facebook Shop or Facebook Business page to sell your products/ services and do not have any website, then you can integrate WhatsApp into your store by setting up click-to-WhatsApp ads.

Note that it also applies to Instagram stores as well.

This is a good way to convert Facebook/ Instagram ads traffic to WhatsApp conversations where you can engage with your customers on a deeper level.

How to Integrate WhatsApp Via Facebook/ Instagram Ads?

Facebook’s process for Ad creation varies as per the Ad objectives. So, the WhatsApp integration process is also different for types of Ads. On the other hand, Instagram’s Ad creation process is simple and same for all types of advertisements. 

Mostly, you can add the WhatsApp through messaging apps option that you will come across during Ad creation on both Facebook and Instagram.

You can find out the exact steps to connect to WhatsApp via Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads by clicking here.

Note: Read the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy before you proceed with WhatsApp eCommerce integration.

Recommended: How to Set Up Auto Reply in Whatsapp?

Meet Saufter, The Best Software To Integrate WhatsApp

Now that you know the different ways by which you can let your customers contact you on WhatsApp, it is time to learn about the software that allows you to add WhatsApp to your website with one click.

Saufter is one such software that not only integrates with WhatsApp but also assists you in providing the best customer service. After connecting with WhatsApp, you can send personalized and marketing messages. In fact, perform all the following functions.

• Offer 24/7 support through AI chatbot,
• Manage your orders through a 24/7 order monitoring system,
• Automate returns center and other eCommerce workflows,
• Social proof by automatically gathering UGC and displaying them on your store,
• Measure key performance metrics and get real-time reports.
• Integrate with social media, eCommerce, collaboration, and messaging platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Shopify, Facebook Messenger, Slack, etc.

On top of that, it enables you to offer customer support via live chat, phone, SMS, and email.

Recommended: How To Get WhatsApp Business Verification Done?

Last Words

Do you know that the open rate for WhatsApp is 98%? So, through WhatsApp eCommerce integration you can improve your customer engagement rate and increase your sales conversions.

Based on your business needs and marketing strategies, you can pick any of the mentioned ways to connect with your consumers on WhatsApp.

After that, you can use Saufter to integrate Whatsapp into your website with one click. 

The added advantage is that you can provide customer support services along with scaling your business with marketing and automation features. Also, improve your agent’s performance by testing and training them. Or simply hire professionals from Saufter marketplace.

So, without waiting, start your free trial here!