The main reason that makes WhatsApp a hot platform for many businesses is its user base. In 2020 the WhatsApp is now being used by more than 2 billion users worldwide. This is an amazing feat considering the fact that just 3 years ago WhatsApp had only 450 million users and now it is increasing at a rate of 15.5%.

It's not just about the massive number of users it consists but also about the amount of engagement happening on this platform. According to a recent report, WhatsApp users send about 65 billion messages per day, which is about 750,000 messages per second! In addition, with read and receipt indicators WhatsApp users have developed a psychological pressure to respond to people who are messaging them. Although it's early to say that the result will be the same from the business point of view but definitively it can bring higher engagement rates compared to other channels.

According to TechCrunch, over 3 million businesses have already adopted the WhatsApp for Business app and escalating towards exponential growth. In addition to that, it was even reported that messages got a 99% open rate & 40% response rate in use cases when WhatsApp was used by businesses to talk with their customers.

All this sounds great for connecting with existing customers or even acquiring users. But what if your customers can also pay you directly through WhatsApp without the requirement of using a third party application?

WhatsApp will soon launch Payments feature in its application which will be used for transactional payments. WhatsApp is also rolling out Business Catalog features for businesses to showcase their product listings. Some more amazing features will be rolled out sooner with the intention of making the business process much simpler.

These are some key questions to consider when choosing WhatsApp as a platform for your business.

• What type of WhatsApp account will best suit your messaging needs?
• Which WhatsApp Business type will fit within your desired budget?

Let's begin with understanding the basics of WhatsApp Business different types and their features.

This is where things will get a bit complicated but don’t worry, we will make it clear for you. Basically, WhatsApp created two different types of business accounts- One for small businesses and the other for bigger companies.

With WhatsApp Business App small businesses, that are mostly run by individuals can separate their personal and their business WhatsApp conversations. With the app, they can have a live conversation with local customers and can also quickly respond to their messages. The app even has some automated messages for guiding your customers just in case you are not available.

To create a WhatsApp Business App account you need to download the official WhatsApp Business application from the play store. But for the purpose, you will need to use a new sim card for the WhatsApp business app as you cannot use the previous sim card because it is linked with your personal account.

The main problem with the feature is that you will only have a single user to use it at one time and it cannot be used by multiple persons at the same time.

WhatsApp Business API is especially useful for medium scale or large scale companies to interact with a larger customer base present globally at the same time. When WhatsApp rolled out its API services it was first accessed by enterprise-level companies. For example, KLM Airlines used the API services for booking and sending notifications through WhatsApp and that turned out to be really successful for their business.

Recently, other large and medium-sized companies have started adopting the API services to automate and simplify use cases like customer support.

But getting access to the WhatsApp Business API account you will require pre-approval from an official WhatsApp partner ( Tyntec ).

Since your account is just an access to the API service, the full potential of your account will depend on the WhatsApp Solution Provider ( BotsNext ). The API also comes with fixed pricing and limitations to messages which are specifically developed to prevent spam and encourage swift responses.

WhatsApp Business App Pricing is pretty simple to understand. You will not get charged by WhatsApp for using their business app, but there are some associated costs which do require some investment. You'll need a dedicated phone number to either use it for personal or business on WhatsApp because both cannot be used at the same time.

If you have a dual sim phone then you can just purchase a new sim card and get the job done if only you will be handling the customer interaction by yourself, and if the requirement of your business need multiple people to have access, then WhatsApp Business App will be of no use to you and the best option, in that case, is to go for an API account.

Unlike WhatsApp Business App the API services provided by WhatsApp expect fixed charges per message. The one good thing about it is that if you respond to your designated contact within 24 hours, WhatsApp won’t charge you for messaging.

If you want to access WhatsApp API accounts then it can be only availed through their official partners. BotsNext has partnered with one such WhatsApp official partner Tyntec and also has access to Twilio as a solution provider.

The parameters set by WhatsApp depends on the destination of the country you want to access the API service and the type of message you will be sending. There are two types of messages you can send to your customers, session messages and template messages.

When you respond to the incoming messages within 24 hours it will count as a session message. Session messages are free to send but sending template messages will incur a fee. A very important thing you would like to know, WhatsApp never charges for incoming messages.

If you are satisfied with WhatsApp's pricing and have decided which type of account you will go for then keep reading further to find out how you can send all the different kinds of available message types on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp has developed highly engaging messaging features for businesses. But there are key differences to watch for, like what you can do with features such as messages, broadcasts, automation and using WhatsApp as a CRM, based on the type of account - WhatsApp Business App or API account.

The following section will clear you in understanding how you can use WhatsApp Business to its full messaging and CRM potential, based on the type of business account you will use.

WhatsApp Business App messaging is specifically designed in order to get small businesses on WhatsApp Business. There are no limitations to messaging from the account as long as you have your customer’s contact number, you can send a message. You can even initiate the first message on the app as a business or can expect the customer to get in touch with you.

WhatsApp has not put any limit to the Business App and you can send any number of messages to your receiver. Make sure you do not spam your customers with loads of messages because if they block you then you no longer will be able to send them any messages.

WhatsApp Business API messaging is designed to let companies pay to the service provider in order to access their customers over their preferred channel. There is one opt-in rule which is you should know, for outside specific cases, you'll need to make your contact send you a message first before you can message them back.

Once you've promoted your WhatsApp Business account among the targeted audience and managed to get your prospects or customers in chatting with you over WhatsApp, you'll need a way to manage all those contacts.

WhatsApp will work as a simple contact management platform to show your customers details. If your customer’s contact is saved in your phone, the app will show them using the name you have saved and if you have not saved it then the contact will just be shown as a regular phone number.

There is one additional feature in the app called labels. Labels are more like tags that are used in CRM. When you're chatting, you can add labels to the contact based on their preference and then you'll be able to create groups and broadcast messages to groups based on the labels you've assigned to your contacts.

WhatsApp API does not have a built-in contact manager or CRM but it can be integrated with a third party CRM like Zendesk, Salesforce, Hubspot, etc. Using our dashboard you can fetch the information of your contacts stored in CRM and better handle the conversation based on their details.

Broadcasting messages are quite important for small businesses. There are no set limitations on the type of content you can send. However, you can only send broadcast messages to 256 people at a time.

Although this seems to be like a restricted WhatsApp Business use in terms of broadcasting as long as you keep it organized, this feature is quite powerful. Using labels provided in the App, you can organize people into specific groups based on their preference and requirement and then can send compelling, targeted messages to the right audience.

WhatsApp API is not much reliable in broadcasting messages as compared to Business APP. As of now the only way to send a WhatsApp API broadcast would be using template messages. WhatsApp has put some restrictions for the API broadcast but will continue to ease it as per the future demand.

One restriction WhatsApp has put up now is by limiting template messaging to non-marketing content meaning you cannot send content that directly markets about your product and the second restriction they have put is limiting template messages rate to 15 messages per second. But this will be soon adjusted in the future in sending template messages which will revolve around the cases for relevant content.

Automation in the App version consists of some features that can be very useful for small business owners. With the Greeting Message, you can send a quick response to anyone who messages you first.

With the Away Message, you can let your customers know that you are not around to have a conversation and what time of the day you will be available to schedule a talk.

Automation with API can be made intelligent with the use of AI and the responses can be given based on the customer input. The WhatsApp API can be connected with an NLP engine like Google Dialogflow or Rasa.ai that automatically searches for the best response to be given for the specific customer input.

The best part is that it can be hover over to a customer representative on a custom made dashboard of WhatsApp partner where the personnel can better understand the customer’s requirement based on the conversation held between the conversational bot and take the right action based on it.

We hope that you understood the difference between WhatsApp Business APP and WhatsApp Business API and have decided what will work best for your business.

With an ever-increasing user base of WhatsApp, we can surely expect a greater rise in the business-customer experience and establish a better relationship through this platform.

We also are very eager to know what WhatsApp will bring us in the future that will revolutionize the whole process of the business itself.