WhatsApp is now one of the preferred communication media for businesses to stay connected with their consumers. As their service grows in popularity among business users, WhatsApp continues to add new features and services to meet the needs of its users.
Director of Business Messaging Meta Kyle Jenke said today there are one billion people who send messages to businesses every week. In addition, Kantar survey results also found that 65% of consumers prefer to send messages to businesses rather than email or telephone.
"This has increased 50% in the past year. And we continue to see rapid growth," Jenke said in a virtual press briefing, Thursday (2/6/2022).
"We see big businesses using it, we see small businesses using it, because it drives consumer satisfaction and loyalty to brands when they can send messages like this. We see this all over the world, and we see this especially in Southeast Asia," he added.
WhatsApp itself has three main services that business people can use to develop their business. For MSMEs, there is the WhatsApp Business application and ads directed to WhatsApp.
The WhatsApp Business application is certainly no stranger to MSMEs and business people in Indonesia. Apart from being a communication tool, the WhatsApp Business application also now has features such as Catalogs and Baskets that make it easier for customers to shop.
"For a lot of people, the WhatsApp Business app is their business. It's their website, it's their store, it's their livelihood," Jenke said.
Not only that, WhatsApp is also preparing two premium features that are optional. The two features are the option to manage one account across 10 devices, and change the click-to-chat link to whatever you want.
For large-scale businesses such as e-commerce, banks, to airlines, which handle larger conversation volumes, WhatsApp Business Platform is available.
Through this platform, businesses can provide customer service more quickly, for example by sharing information about the status of delivery of goods to boarding passes via WhatsApp. To use the service, businesses can register directly or through WhatsApp's third-party partners.
WhatsApp also recently launched a new service for the WhatsApp Business Platform, namely the WhatsApp Cloud API. This service offers free cloud-based hosting solutions from Meta available for any business worldwide.
Currently businesses using the WhatsApp Business Platform are using local or third-party storage solutions. With the WhatsApp Cloud API, the process is expected to be smoother because everything is under one roof.
"This is important because Meta will act as the hosting provider, which means we will take care of maintenance, networking, computing costs, storage, etc., making it easier for businesses to join the WhatsApp Business Platform," explained Jenke.
