WhatsApp Business & Aircall: A Winning Combination for Customer Communications

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The customer support landscape is far from what it was several years ago. Where once the expectation was limited availability, phone-based service with long wait times, it is now a multi-channel, always-on, fast-response support machine.

These customer expectations are growing in line with increasing competition, resulting in heightened pressure for customer support teams to impress and retain customers using innovative communication methods.

In an effort to provide top-quality support and integrate seamlessly into the lives of their customers, many companies are tapping into WhatsApp as a support channel.

But how can businesses use WhatsApp for customer support? And how can you pair WhatsApp with Aircall’s cloud-based phone solution to provide first-class customer care?

This article explores exactly this and it will support you on your journey toward better efficiency, enhanced productivity, and, importantly, improved customer satisfaction.

What is WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is a free messaging platform that can be used to send messages and files, make voice and video calls, and send group and broadcast messages. Worldwide, WhatsApp is ranked as the most used mobile messenger app, with 2 billion daily active users, according to Meta.

WhatsApp is particularly popular in Southeast Asia, and its popularity is only growing; so much so that in Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia, WhatsApp was rated as each country’s favorite social media platform in 2021. 

In Q1 2020, the three countries with the highest growth of WhatsApp downloads from the Google Play store were Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Moreover, the highest number of active users per month can be found in India, with 390.1 million monthly active WhatsApp users.

WhatsApp is also the second most preferred platform for receiving customer support, thanks to the WhatsApp Business app, a free-to-download app developed with small businesses in mind.

This app can be used by businesses to build a business profile and catalog that can be accessed by customers and to manage customer relationships through quick replies and away messages, as well as labels that can be used to sort messages.

It also offers Click-to-WhatsApp, whereby customers that click on certain ads, social media links, or even links within live chat, are directed straight to a two-way conversation with your business on WhatsApp. Statistics released by WhatsApp in 2020 suggest that WhatsApp Business is being used by more than 50 million businesses worldwide.

Using WhatsApp for customer communication

WhatsApp can be a great tool for businesses that wish to communicate with their customers, owing to the great features that WhatsApp Business offers. It must be noted that only up to four linked devices and one phone can use WhatsApp Business at any one time, or up to 10 devices with a premium plan. When it comes to managing and communicating with multiple customers through WhatsApp, WhatsApp Business is generally only suited to the simplest of business use cases. 

However, by utilizing other tools that integrate with WhatsApp, businesses can reach out to, respond to, and keep track of a much higher number of contacts while remaining available on a channel of communication that consumers love. 

Here are some examples of tools that integrate with both WhatsApp and Aircall to create more efficient workflows and better customer experiences:

Kustomer

Kustomer, which was recently acquired by Meta, is a CRM designed for omnichannel customer service. Its integration with WhatsApp allows WhatsApp to be used as one of the many channels customers can use to reach support agents, appearing on the individual customer’s timeline. Kustomer’s chatbots even work with WhatsApp, which helps to accelerate the resolution of customer queries. 

See Aircall’s integration with Kustomer here.

Heymarket

Heymarket is a customer engagement messaging platform that provides shared inboxes for teams drawing from your customers’ preferred channels, including both Aircall and WhatsApp. Heymarket’s WhatsApp integration allows users to send and receive messages within the Heymarket inbox. 

See Aircall’s integration with Heymarket here.

Kommo (f.k.a. AmoCRM)

Kommo is another customer engagement messaging platform that provides a unified inbox for all channels of communication, including phone, SMS, email, and, of course, WhatsApp. With Kommo, all teams share a single WhatsApp account, but individual agents will only be notified about leads that are assigned to them.

Salesforce

WhatsApp’s recent partnership with Salesforce made their Cloud API available to all Salesforce users globally. This enables businesses to create personalized messaging experiences within WhatsApp, straight from the Salesforce console. Businesses can run marketing campaigns, answer customer queries, and even make sales directly in the WhatsApp chat.

See Aircall’s integration with Salesforce here.

HubSpot

HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration is now available to Marketing Hub and Service Hub customers at the Professional tier and above. This allows HubSpot users to see all WhatsApp communications in one place, showing up on your customer’s timeline right alongside other channels of communication like phone calls made through Aircall.

HubSpot can also be used to set up workflows whereby WhatsApp messages are automatically sent out following forms being submitted (such as NPS surveys).

See Aircall’s integration with HubSpot here.

Using WhatsApp with Aircall 

Many businesses are using Aircall’s cloud-based phone solution to better serve their customers while also improving productivity. There are two ways that Aircall customers can use Aircall in conjunction with WhatsApp. 

First, Aircall users can use their own phone numbers to send and receive messages via the WhatsApp Business app.

Just like mobile numbers obtained outside of Aircall, mobile numbers purchased through the platform can be used to set up a WhatsApp Business account (provided that the verification message is received via phone call, rather than via SMS). This enables users to provide their Aircall numbers to customers with the intention of being contactable either by phone or WhatsApp—whichever is most convenient for the customer.

While this method does not in and of itself store messages outside of WhatsApp Business, this enables Aircall users to make and receive both calls and WhatsApp messages from the same number, making it even easier for our users to provide enhanced customer support. 

Interested in exploring how your business could combine WhatsApp and Aircall to deliver top-class customer service? Please get in touch and our team will be happy to help.

Published on December 1, 2022.