There is no one in this digital world who does not use WhatsApp to correspond with friends, family, and co-workers. Thanks to the huge user base that includes more than 2 billion monthly active users, there are many positives and benefits that you may get from being on this platform. Therefore, we show you a detailed comparison that shows you the difference between regular WhatsApp and Business WhatsApp. Should you upgrade to the commercial version or not?
The difference between normal and commercial WhatsApp
But perhaps you do not have a comprehensive idea about the different services and accounts that WhatsApp provides to help companies promote products and communicate with the huge fan base of 2 billion users.
Read on the Review Plus website the comprehensive guide to learn how Using ChatGPT on WhatsApp In detail, in more than one way.
Since you are an experienced WhatsApp user, you must have at one time heard about the “WhatsApp Business” account, also known as “Whatsapp Business”.
Sure, you know everything about a regular WhatsApp account, but you may be wondering what the idea of having a WhatsApp business account is. The primary purpose of WhatsApp Business is to give business owners the ability to create a business and brand profile to communicate with customers and provide them with the information they may need about the nature of your business and the products, offers, and services you provide.
For example, you can add a brief description of the nature of your business, your company's official business hours, add a link that gives customers the ability to go directly to your website, and more.
In this article, we will try to clarify the difference between regular and business WhatsApp, the comprehensive benefits that the latter offers to business owners, and how they can benefit from it to improve their business strategy.
An overview of the main differences between regular and business WhatsApp
The main difference between regular and business WhatsApp is that the latter, “Business WhatsApp,” gives small and medium-sized businesses a free application to communicate with customers. While it also offers a paid API platform for large enterprises. As for regular WhatsApp, it is just an application for communicating between two individuals and chatting normally.
Regular WhatsApp is a standard application from Meta, formerly known as Facebook. It is a popular messaging application for communicating with friends and family members around the clock and completely free. You can install the regular WhatsApp application on your phone through official application stores.
As for companies, they have a business WhatsApp account and are responsible for managing this account. You can set up a WhatsApp Business account by creating your own branded and verified profile to use to chat and communicate with customers. There are two ways to create a business WhatsApp account and communicate with customers, which are as follows:
WhatsApp Business Application: You can create a WhatsApp business account for free by downloading the regular WhatsApp application through application stores. This application allows a limited number of employees and is a suitable option for small and emerging companies.
WhatsApp Business platform: These accounts are intended for large companies, and this version is not available on official application stores. It is not a free service, but rather a paid service. WhatsApp Business users enjoy countless add-ons for a comprehensive user experience.
Whether you choose which account depends on the nature of your business, your user base, and the size of your company. Now, let's delve into the features of each separately:
1. WhatsApp Business or Whatsapp Business
The WhatsApp Business account is dedicated to small, medium and emerging businesses. This is a free application that you can download via phone. The account can be installed on up to 4 different phones in order to have the same account available on the company employees’ phones or even use it via the browser.
However, it is worth noting that a WhatsApp Business account cannot be used on the same phone number that you use for your standard WhatsApp account. A business account needs its own unique phone number.
If you plan to use the same phone for both accounts, it is necessary for your phone to have two SIM cards so that there is no problem of conflict or confusion between the contacts, accounts, and phone numbers registered on both accounts.
If any customer tries to contact you via your WhatsApp business account, all employees' phones receive a notification that a new message has arrived, and any of them can reply to this message. However, there are some limitations to the WhatsApp business account, including the lack of the “account verification” feature, “no opportunity for integration,” and “no possibility of automating conversations.”
In short, WhatsApp Business is ideal for small and emerging businesses that want a free solution to communicate with customers to answer their inquiries. But what are the benefits for WhatsApp business users?
First: The ability to quickly chat with customers
WhatsApp Business allows business managers to provide short links or QR Codes so customers can quickly access conversations with the click of a button.
It is a simple and intuitive way for direct communication between customers, employees and business owners.
Secondly: Label conversations to categorize them
It is possible for business owners to separate different chats based on the chat type for all customers. For example, conversations can be categorized based on the nature of customers, whether they are new customers, regular customers, sales status, to respond to complaints, and much more.
This is a great advantage when you grow your business and have many types of conversations with a larger number of clients.
Third: Reach all customers at the same time
The WhatsApp business application has a feature known as “Broadcasts” which allows you the ability to communicate with a very large user base at the same time, which may reach 256 different accounts.
However, you can send your message to over 250 different accounts through Broadcast, but the accounts you collaborate with must have your phone number on their phone, otherwise they won't be able to see your broadcast.
Fourthly: Message automation
As your business grows and you build a larger client base, message automation will play into your hands significantly by helping you skip duplicate messages and focus on more important conversations.
Read also on Review Plus: Best WhatsApp alternative In 2023 - Top 10 alternative applications for WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
2. WhatsApp Business Platform API
There is another option available for businesses, known as Whatsapp Business API or also Whatsapp Business Platform. This option is available to large companies and popular software producers because it allows them to integrate their conversations into their own products.
The WhatsApp Business platform was developed specifically for large business owners who are looking to correspond with a much larger number of customers than WhatsApp Business allows.
On the WhatsApp Business platform, your brand and business are first verified. After that, you're allowed up to four different levels of conversations, each level allowing you more messages.
If you want to reach the largest possible number of supported messages on the WhatsApp Business platform, all of the following criteria must be met:
- You must always activate the “Online” status option and not hide your status.
- Your quality must be rated at an “average” level.
- Reaching half the number of allowed messages with new and unique customers and users within a period of time not exceeding 7 days.
If all previous conditions are verified, Meta will automatically update your business activity and account on the trading platform within 24 hours. It is worth noting that you cannot pay just to upgrade your activity level on the trading platform.
The WhatsApp Business Platform API integrates with your internal systems. You can also designate an independent call center to allow live agents to answer customer questions and inquiries without affecting your main business plan or workflow.
Read also: WhatsApp tricks - Best 21 WhatsApp tricks You hear about it for the first time
The WhatsApp Business API is designed for large companies and business owners to connect with the largest number of new and unique customers around the clock. However, there is a small fee that will be charged to your account for these features. Among the advantages of the Whatsapp Business API are the following:
First: Increased support with an unlimited number of users
One of the advantages of the Whatsapp Business API is that you will be able to connect your WhatsApp account to an unlimited number of devices at the same time, so you will not have to reduce customer support through your messaging channel.
The WhatsApp Business API allows up to 1,000 unique contacts on a daily basis. If you want to increase this number, you will have to reach this number of connections within a period of time not exceeding 7 days.
Secondly: Verify accounts to increase trust
While it is easy for anyone to create a Whatsapp Business API account, there are many benefits to launching a third-party company that manages access to the API separately.
When you start creating an account, and before you start dealing with customers, you will need to verify your work. This simply means that the WhatsApp platform must review your work in the first place, and if they approve your account, you will get the following features:
- Green tag your brand.
- Use the brand name instead of the phone number.
- Send a larger volume of messages at the same time.
Third: Improve contact management with CRM integration
When using the standard Whatsapp Business app, you will have to manage your contact list from within the app separately from any customer relationship management system also known as CRM. Through the Whatsapp Business API platform, you can integrate the two together so that you do not risk duplicating contacts or deleting them accidentally.
But of course, you'll first need to approve your messages with your contacts so they can see them on their accounts.
Fourthly: Help agents with automation
If you want to automate conversations, WhatsApp Business through API is the right choice for you.
You can connect your chatbots to answer customer inquiries and FAQs and give your support team more slack off time.
Fifth: Use several types of messages to attract different users
Of course, the WhatsApp Business API does not only give large companies the possibility of one-on-one messaging from customers.
There are many benefits by using this paid platform including the following capabilities:-
- Session chats that give the user control by allowing the chat to expire after 24 hours of inactivity.
- It broadcasts to multiple users who need to adhere to the WhatsApp template guidelines but don't require users to save your contact information beforehand, unlike a standard business app.
- Interactive messages with quick replies make answers convenient for users.
- Groups that you have the ability to create and moderate but cannot send messages in, and in which users have to accept an invitation instead of being able to add them.
3. Regular WhatsApp
The regular WhatsApp app is designed for single users to connect with people from all over the world for free. A standard WhatsApp account allows you to create an account with a phone number and get an account linked to the phone number.
Regular WhatsApp can be used to send messages, voice and video calls. In addition, it is also possible to send group messages.
Regular WhatsApp does not give business owners many benefits, unless this company is a startup in its infancy or if only one person is responsible for managing it.
In this case, regular WhatsApp may be more than enough for business requirements and small business needs. But as your business grows, you will need to expand the range of services you provide, and therefore you will need a business WhatsApp account.
■ The most prominent 3 advantages for business owners in using WhatsApp
WhatsApp is a great, very convenient and simple place to chat and communicate with others, whether they are individuals or clients.
It is clear that this platform gives business owners many invaluable benefits to grow their business. However, we can break these advantages down into three more obvious benefits:
First: All your customers use WhatsApp
Since WhatsApp is the most popular application in the world for communicating with others, there is a high chance that this application will be the main application for chatting on all the phones of customers associated with you.
There are many ways people can reach your business on WhatsApp including the ability to use QR Codes, inline buttons on social media platforms, Facebook Page links, and integration with Facebook Ads.
Many companies use WhatsApp alongside the brand's own standalone app so there is no need for customers to download a new app on their smartphones.
In addition, you will be able to provide your support, send new notifications, promote your marketing campaigns and many other benefits via the same platform that all customers use.
Second: More dynamic than standard messages
Without any doubt, the way of communicating with customers or ordinary people through instant messaging applications is much better compared to email messages.
WhatsApp is trying to be at the forefront of feature-rich messaging applications that give all people, regardless of their fields, a rich and convenient user experience.
For example, through automation options, corporate accounts can quickly communicate with customers and respond to their simple inquiries, allowing corporate employees to focus on big issues and pay attention to matters that require greater focus.
This is in addition to the rich media options of images, video clips, files of various formats, GIFs, quick reply buttons, and more, giving ordinary users a distinctive user experience that will make them prefer to continue using the same application permanently.
Third: Increase trust with customers
By instantly responding and interacting with customer problems, requests, and inquiries, WhatsApp allows everyone to confirm the identity of your business.
This feature enhances trust between the customer and the brand, especially since most customers do not prefer to deal with unknown brands that they do not trust. These features give WhatsApp channels the upper hand in the ability to gain customer satisfaction and maintain their loyalty.
Conclusion
It is a given that you are the most knowledgeable person about your customers' tendencies and how you can best improve your business strategy.
You should invest in tools that will extract different customer behaviors and thoughts and provide a dynamic service that is preferred by customers. That's why WhatsApp Business accounts and the WhatsApp Business platform were developed via API.
