WhatsApp is one of the world’s most popular messaging apps. Over 2 billion users across 180 countries use WhatsApp to communicate with people or businesses.

Today, over 50 million businesses worldwide offer services and products using the WhatsApp Business platform. WhatsApp Business makes interacting with customers easy by providing tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages, Labels to organize and easily find chats and messages.

Since the release of WhatsApp Business, chatbots have become strong and effective customer service tools for brands across sectors. They allow businesses to increase customer engagement while providing a seamless messaging experience. 

So the question remains; How exactly do you create a great WhatsApp business chatbot for your business? Read on, and we’ll provide you with ten essential tips. 

Before we dive in, it’s vital to understand how WhatsApp chatbots work, and the ways businesses can use them.

What is a WhatsApp Business Chatbot?  

A WhatsApp business chatbot is an AI-powered conversational assistant created to engage customers automatically via the WhatsApp messaging app. Powered by machine learning capabilities, the WhatsApp business chatbot understands human behavior and communicates more naturally, just like speaking with a person.

Brands can engage more customers using chatbots. They can use messaging, voice or video, send files and images, all in one app. With chatbots, your can automate your customer communication on WhatsApp. 

WhatsApp API?

WhatsApp includes an API (“Application Programming Interface”) that allows service providers to adopt artificial intelligence into WhatsApp. You can create a WhatsApp business chatbot using a designated platform and connect them with the WhatsApp API. Then, you can automate your customer service on WhatsApp using your chatbot.

How WhatsApp Chatbots Empower Customer Support and Sales Teams 

1. 24/7 Support – With WhatsApp business chatbots, you can communicate and service customers worldwide via WhatsApp 24/7. You can provide immediate responses, and solve problems around the clock without on-site human support agents.
2. Improved Customer Communication – WhatsApp chatbots understand customer intentions and respond accordingly. You can utilize WhatsApp to automatically solve common customer problems while providing the same tone and friendly voice that suits your brand.
3. Free of Language Barriers – WhatsApp is available in over 40 languages on iPhone and up to 60 on Android. You can configure your WhatsApp chatbots to engage customers on English, French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, and more languages of your choosing.
4. Vast service capabilities – WhatsApp chatbots are capable of fulfilling multiple tasks simultaneously. They don’t need unique training to be knowledgeable in areas such as insurance or banking; AI does all the work. 
5. Automation – WhatsApp chatbots automate repetitive assignments and processes such as signing forms, answering common questions, conducting customer satisfaction analysis, and providing insights. 

10 Reasons to Use WhatsApp Business Chatbots 

1. 98% penetration rate for WhatsApp! Over 90% of messages sent via WhatsApp are opened within 3 seconds!
2. Multi-directional communication channel
3. Multiple service channels – video, voice, images, forms, and more
4. Unified messaging requiring no human intervention
5. Exceptional customer experience
6. Faster response to customers
7. Stronger customer relationships
8. Saves customer service costs 
9. Secured easy-to-use platform
10. Convenient service rates

So how can you build a perfect WhatsApp business chatbot? Here are Commbox’s 10 tips.

How to Create a Great WhatsApp Business Chatbot: 10 Winning Tips 

1. Define Goals and Build a Strategy

Before creating a WhatsApp business chatbot, define your business needs, goals, and objectives. Determine which issues you want your WhatsApp chatbot to solve and develop a suitable strategy that includes:

• Business needs, goals and objectives.
• The chatbot’s part in your organization – customer service, process automation, internal communications, lead generation, and more.
• Ways that WhatsApp solves existing problems and communication gaps. 
• A step-by-step plan for adopting a chatbot and your future expectations.
• KPI’s for measuring the chatbot’s contribution to business performance.

2. Choose Your WhatsApp API Chatbot Provider 

Before building your chatbots for WhatsApp, you first need to go through a verification process for your business from WhatsApp API. Choose an official WhatsApp partner like Commbox to Apply to WhatsApp API. Once your company is registered, you can start building your chatbots. 

The easiest way to build a fully operational chatbot for WhatsApp is to use a platform designed for this specific purpose and is an official WhatsApp partner, like Commbox. Commbox is an omnichannel customer communication platform that allows SMB’s and large organizations to easily build smart chatbots on various platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Twitter, e-mail and more. 

Find out more about the CommBox smart customer communication solution

3. Write a Conversation Flow

Once you have a chatbot creation platform along with guidelines from your provider, you can write possible conversation flows. 

• Think about which questions customers often ask you. 
• Provide possible answers to each question

Whatsapp Messenger © syifa5610 Freepik

4. Utilize AI Capabilities – Superpower Your Chatbot 

Bots need to understand human intents and constantly evolve as humans do. That’s why you need to equip your chatbots with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. Once you have API approval, you can connect external software to your WhatsApp business account and build a chatbot. 

Implement an AI-powered platform such as Commbox to evolve your chatbot: 

• Create self-learning chatbots for WhatsApp and more digital channels. 
• Automate recurring tasks.
• Send forms and sign customers remotely. 
• Answer questions (FAQ).
• Receive feedback through customer satisfaction surveys.

5. Give Your WhatsApp Chatbot a Unique Name and Personality

Conversational chatbots should sound like humans, not like robots. That’s why you need to give your WhatsApp business chatbot a name that meets your brand’s values and defines how it will communicate with customers.  

• Name your WhatsApp business chatbot to reflect your brand’s identity through specific wording, phrases and style. 
• Decide your bot’s personality – is the bot serious or funny? Professional or super-friendly?
• Determine your bot’s tone, voice, wording and phrases it will engage your customers.  
• know your target audience, how they speak, and adjust your bot’s messaging accordingly. 

6. Focus Your WhatsApp Chatbot on Specific Expertise 

A general chatbot can’t provide professional advice for every type of issue. 

However, a chatbot created with specific expertise will definitely do. Focus your chatbot on particular expertise to solve complex problems faster.

• Define your chatbot’s desired areas of expertise (finance, real estate, eCommerce, etc.) fill it with data and equip it with the right set of skills t
• Focus your chatbot on 1-2 goals to ensure every conversation will be accurate. 
• Adjust your chatbot’s tone and voice according to specific areas of knowledge.
• Stay up-to-date by constantly enhancing your chatbot with the latest data and professional knowledge required.    
• Include an option to ask for live human assistance.

Chatbot © Nicoelnino | Dreamstime.com

7. Make Your Chatbot Approachable 

Chatbots need to feel like humans, be clear and easy to understand. Make your chatbot as simple as possible for any WhatsApp user.

• Use clear wording while keeping a friendly tone and voice.
• Provide vital information according to specific keywords.  
• Allow users to ask questions on common problems.  
• Offer Buttons for quick answers.
• Avoid slang to keep a clean tone.

8. Detect Customer Frustration and Divert conversations to Live Agents

Some users, such as the elderly, might find your bot frustrating to handle. To solve this problem, you need to detect the struggling customers and offer assistance.

• Include a “Go Live” button in your conversation with a bot to allow users to ask for human assistance.
• Measure the duration of your conversations, identify exceptionally long conversations, and offer live assistance.

© Ruslan Galiullin | Dreamstime.com

9. Get Feedback via WhatsApp to Improve Your Customer Service

Feedback is essential for your business’s success – 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review. How can you make them better if you don’t know what your customers think about your products and services? Well, the answer is, of course – WhatsApp chatbots! 

Use WhatsApp chatbots to receive fast customer feedback and achieve more significant results with no extra costs.

• Include a feedback button in your conversation with a bot. 
• Encourage customers to provide feedback by sending customer satisfaction surveys. 
• Analyze customer reviews and optimize your messaging accordingly. 

10. Test Your Chatbots’ Success and Optimize Regularly 

WhatsApp business chatbots are great at solving problems and engaging customers. However, they do not always get the job done. Small details can make a huge difference, so always measure which style works the best for you on WhatsApp. 

• Identify the messaging and phrasing your customers like on WhatsApp. 
• See which voice, tone, and style successful chatbots use. 
• Test your WhatsApp chatbots with different wording and style to find the best for your business. 
• Track your competitors’ latest updates to ensure your chatbots are always better.

Now you have all the information you need, so what’s next?

• Get your WhatsApp API approval.
• Create your WhatsApp business chatbot.

How to get a WhatsApp Business API approval?

WhatsApp has strict limitations regarding the types of businesses that can use WhatsApp API. WhatsApp considers three main factors: 

• Company Size –  WhatsApp API is mainly used for medium and large companies but may also be suitable for small businesses. Joining forces with an official WhatsApp partner such as Commbox, might help your business to adopt  WhatsApp chatbots. 
• Industries – Getting API access from WhatsApp is generally easy for telecom, finance, retail, real estate, and education brands. However, Getting API access may be difficult for some industries such as alcohol or tobacco companies, gambling, political groups or governmental organizations. Despite WhatsApp’s strict limitations, an official WhatsApp partner might be able to make your business an exception.
• Purpose of use – WhatsApp forbids using its app for promoting tobacco items, alcohol, drugs, Illegal products or services, weaponry, animals, adults products or services and more. You can read more about WhatsApp’s business policy. 

How to Get Approved for WhatsApp API in 4 steps

1. Purchase a unique phone number or use an existing one. 
2. Verify your business works according to WhatsApp policy. 
3. Verify your account and official FB number, and get approved for messaging. 
4. Get your API key and connect your business software to WhatsApp. 

If your business meets all these conditions, you can go ahead and set up your chatbot.

Build Your WhatsApp Business Chatbots with Commbox

Meet Commbox – an omnichannel customer communication platform and an official partner of WhatsApp! Powered by AI, Commbox allows businesses to build customizable chatbots in minutes and automatically communicate with customers via WhatsApp chatbots.

• Build a WhatsApp chatbot in minutes using Commbox – be available 24/7!
• Manage all customers interactions from a smart central inbox
• Automate repetitive tasks
• Improve customer experience while keeping a unified brand tone and voice
• Increase sales
• Quickly respond to customers while tracking any conversation
• Get updates directly to your CRM
• Optimize your call centers and reduce customer service costs

Commbox WhatsApp Chatbots: 

• Learn from every interaction with your customers and get smarter over time.
• Communicate with other bots and transfer conversations from one Bot to another according to the flow of the conversation while keeping complete transparency from the customer’s point of view.
• Identify types of conversations (sales, customer service, etc) and route a specific conversation to suitable departments or agents.

5 Reasons to use Commbox Customer Communication Platform  

1. Omnichannel customer communication solution managed from a single interface
2. Build Smart and friendly WhatsApp Chatbots
3. AI and process automation capabilities
4. GDPR security compliance
5. Proven success in enhancing customer communication for companies across sectors

Get Started With The WhatsApp Business API

How Commbox’s Chatbots Transformed Brands Across Sectors

Commbox’s WhatsApp chatbots successfully scaled up customer communication for leading brands in various industries such as telecom, finance, retail, healthcare and more.

Clarks, an international shoe retailer, used Commbox to create a unique chatbot named “CAI”.

“CAI” helped Clarks:

• Resolve more than 30% of customer interactions
• Produced a 99% improvement in SLA, reducing response time from 5 days to one hour
• Solve 25% of inquiries using Commbox conversational chatbots

Create your unique and personalized bots in just a few minutes using Commbox. No coding skills are required. Offer 24/7 support on multiple languages and communication channels such as Websites, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Instagram and more. The chatbots are implemented in your website or application, providing a seamless customer experience.

As an official partner of WhatsApp, Commbox also offers a unique self-service WhatsApp chatbot, allowing customers to solve their queries instantly, using an encrypted and simple platform.

In Conclusion 

Creating great WhatsApp business chatbots requires you to determine your business goals and build a strategy while considering your target audience and competition.  Once your strategy is in place, move forward to choosing your WhatsApp business chatbot Provider. 

Your Provider will help with the WhatsApp API application. Once your business is approved, you can go ahead and write your conversation flows and ask your provider to build your WhatsApp business chatbot based on your guidelines. Give your chatbot a name that meets your brand’s values and focus on specific expertise. Equip the bot with AI to transform it into a self-learning service tool that will engage users, learn how they speak, and communicate better over time. Test your bot regularly to improve how you engage your customers. 

Join forces with Commbox – the official WhatsApp partner to build the best WhatsApp chatbots possible. Generate more sales, achieve higher customer satisfaction, and lower churn rates over time, while you provide an exceptional customer experience.

© Prykhodov | Dreamstime.com