There is a very high number of businesses that use WhatsApp every day to get in touch with their customers. WhatsApp provides users with three different channels: The personal profile (the one we all have), the business profile (WhatsApp Business), and direct access to the channel via API (WhatsApp’s official API).
WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business Cloud API are both solutions offered by WhatsApp for businesses that want to use the messaging platform as a communication channel with their customers. However, there are some important differences between the two options that it is important to consider when choosing which one to use for your business.
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WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp Business is a free application available for mobile devices that allows companies to create a business profile on WhatsApp, use automation tools such as predefined responses and welcome messages, and manage customer conversations efficiently. With this option, companies can use WhatsApp as a kind of digital “toll-free number,” allowing customers to contact them directly through the messaging platform.
Features such as the product catalog, automated messages, and labels can be used to organize and manage contacts, create announcements and usage statistics, and use a professional phone number to communicate with customers.
WhatsApp Business is a very valuable tool for small businesses that have the ability to manually manage contacts and activities in the app. Beyond manual management it has other limitations, such as:
- the inability to integrate with other tools, CRM or CMS. This does not allow the creation of integrated communication.
- Limited Broadcast Lists: it is possible to create lists containing a maximum of 256 contacts.
- Message reception: the message sent to contacts in broadcast lists will be received ONLY by users who have stored the number in the address book.
- Inability to create automatic custom messages with fields that vary by recipient, e.g., name.
- Inability to include buttons with CTAs in the message.
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WhatsApp Business Cloud API
WhatsApp Business Cloud API is a paid solution offered by WhatsApp that allows companies to integrate WhatsApp with their business systems, such as CRM or order management system. With the API, businesses can send and receive automated messages, manage mass conversations with customers, and track conversation metrics. This option is ideal for medium and large companies that want to automate and integrate their communication on WhatsApp with their business systems.
The main benefits of the WhatsApp API are:
- Message automation and conversation management: with the API, companies can automate welcome messages and predefined responses, enabling them to respond quickly to customers without having to devote human resources to conversation management.
- Integration with business systems: the API allows companies to integrate WhatsApp with their existing business systems, such as CRM or order management system, enabling them to easily manage conversations with customers and collect data on them.
- Tracking conversation metrics: with the API, companies can track conversation metrics, such as the number of messages sent and received, response rate, and duration of conversations, enabling them to evaluate the effectiveness of their communication on WhatsApp.
Although WhatsApp Business Cloud API is a strongly performing product, not all companies have the ability to integrate it.
To integrate the API, companies, must invest in development thus creating systems and software that can internalize the API and integrate it with their own tools.
There is a solution, however: the possibility of using conversational platforms such as Spoki.
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The Spoki platform
Spoki is a WhatsApp-based conversational marketing platform that enables users to automate and manage customer conversations on the world’s most widely used channel.
Spoki integrates the official WhatsApp API so it allows you to break down all the limitations of WhatsApp Business and benefit from the advantages of using the API. Using the Spoki platform it is possible to:
- Create automated conversation flows (chatbot-like) to automatically manage the conversation with the customer.
- Create and schedule promotional campaigns by lowering the limit of 256 contacts to be included in the list.
- Security in message reception: the message will be received by ALL contacts in the list.
- Ability to insert multimedia content, text and chat buttons within the message to make the user take a next action.
- Integrate WhatsApp with major marketing, CRM and CMS tools.
It also offers an API (Application Programming Interface) that allows developers to integrate the Spoki platform with their own systems.
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