Whether your aim is to grow your business by increasing conversion rates, improving client retention, optimising your customer support resources, or even boosting your brand image, effective use of WhatsApp Business templates can help you achieve those goals by streamlining your communication.
Structure messages to optimise your processes, send faster responses and track the results to have continued process improvement.
What are WhatsApp Business API templates?
WhatsApp Business templates are pre-approved messages your sales representative or support agents can send to a lead or a customer via WhatsApp Business API.
These messages are text messages that can be accompanied by emojis, images, video, links, and even documents like a pdf. The number of characters is restricted, it is possible to set parameters to create automation with variable information, and they can be multilingual. Moreover, each template will have a category associated with it based on the WhatsApp list, such as payment updates, shipping updates, and issue resolution.
WhatsApp Business templates can be used to either initiate -or re-open- a conversation with a lead or customer that has not sent you a message within 24h from their last message. After the session is closed, it is only possible to communicate with your lead or customer using templates.
Additionally, they can be used as a quick response to save time for customer service personnel when replying to common queries.
You can even set up automated rules to send template messages as reminders or notifications to customers.
Learn more about message types https://support.woztell.com/portal/en/kb/articles/faqs-13-4-2020
What Whatsapp Business templates are not…
They are not a method by which to do bulk or direct promotions, pushy sales communication, or “cold call” sales. The guidelines against such usage are there in order to protect all of us, WhatsApp users from the type of spam many of us have come to expect in our email inbox, and the guidelines are strongly enforced.
Always think about what would you like to receive in your personal WhatsApp, if you think this would disturb you, it will probably disturb your contact.
Use the power of the almost 100% open rate that WhatsApp offers you to create engaging experiences for your leads and customers by always providing value in each message you send to them, based on their need, not your sales goals.
Further information on Template Message Guidelines can be found here:
You can read our article about 10 types of Whatsapp Business templates or check the official guidelines here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/message-templates/guidelines
How can you use the WhatsApp Business template?
WhatsApp Message templates can make it easier for companies to provide the highest levels of customer support, streamline operations, increase revenue through sales, or even improve brand image. Let’s go through all of the options.
Operations
You could be a doctor’s office, or a shipping company, or a company that provides training; you will find that effective use of WhatsApp Message Templates is a great way to streamline operations. You can create appointment reminders, a class reminder to increase attendance, shipping updates to help your customer track their delivery, and so on. Let’s take a look at some examples of WhatsApp business templates that have already been approved by WhatApp and are currently in use:
| Goal | Template category | Template message |
| Send an appointment reminder the day before. | APPOINTMENT UPDATE | Dear {{1}}, we remind you that your upcoming appointment is on {{2}} |
| Confirm receipt of payment from a customer. | PAYMENT UPDATE | Dear {{1}}, we have received the payment associated with your invoice {{2}} |
| Keep them up to date on appointment status. | APPOINTMENT_UPDATE | Your appointment has been canceled. Please contact us to request a new appointment. |
| Send booking confirmations straight to their phone | RESERVATION_UPDATE | Hello {{1}}, Your Booking for {{2}} with {{3}} is now confirmed. Please {{4}}. The payment link for the booking is now available in your app – we request you complete the payment. (company name) ensures fully secure & refundable payments. Please let me know if you need any assistance! |
Customer Support
Make it easier for your customer service representatives to reply to your customers in a quicker and easy way. Message templates are the way to go! With a set of templates, replying to a standard customer query with a standard greeting or questions is easy. Let’s see some examples of Templates that have been approved by WhatsApp and are in use for this very purpose:
| Standardised your customer service greetings | ALERT_UPDATE | Hello there! Thank you for contacting (company name). My name is Monique, how can I help you today? |
| Direct the customers to open a help desk ticket | ALERT_UPDATE | I will direct you to a form to create a support ticket. Please include all details about the issue, with screenshots or recordings to help our team understand it. |
| Customer Satisfaction surveys made easy! | ACCOUNT_UPDATE | Thank you very much for using (company name) services for {{1}}. We would like to take a moment of your time to rate your experience with us. Your feedback is important to us and will help us improve further. Please click on the following link for feedback: https://link.com. Stay Safe! |
Sales
We all know that time to nurture a hot lead in a systematic way is critical to close a sale. With WhatsApp templates, you can do just that. Imagine having the reach of WhatsApp at your fingertips to keep warm leads warm and convert more sales. From scheduling follow-up meetings to finalizing sales, here are some examples currently approved by WhatsApp and in use now:
| Start a live chat with a warm sales lead | ALERT UPDATE | Dear {{1}}, after your inquiry on our website, I’d like to contact you to provide further information about our services. |
| Set up a final meeting to close the sale | ACCOUNT UPDATE | Thank you for your time. I’ll make sure one of our Business Setup Advisors will contact you shortly to discuss the best solutions for your company setup. Let me know if you haven’t received a call back within 4 business hours. Good luck setting up your business! |
Keep in mind that templates cannot be over “salesy” or promotional, because it goes against WhatsApp policy, but you can always provide information and value in a sales conversation to move the deal and close it.
Marketing
Want to grow your brand image and generate buzz about your company? You can set up campaigns through Zoho CRM with WhatsApp to automatically contact customers in certain situations.
Furthermore, you can include media like a photo, such as a logo or branding, or a multimedia file like a video, or even send a PDF. Want to remind customers of an upcoming event they signed up for? Send them a video teaser with a reminder of the event. Want to follow-up after a conference? Have your attendees sign-up to receive the presentation or a leaflet by PDF after the event. Keep your customers engaged with Woztell and WhatsApp.Keep in mind that templates can not be over “salesy” or promotional, because it goes against WhatsApp policy, but you can design campaigns for engagement and branding with valuable information to nurture your leads and customers.
Do you want to communicate with your customers in their favorite channel and boost your results?
With Woztell you can automate tasks, work with multiple agents and phone numbers and measure your marketing, sales, operations and customer service efforts in their favourite channel: WhatsApp.
