While earlier WhatsApp was only known to connect people, nowadays it is popular for connecting businesses to their potential customers. From trading products and services to providing customer assistance, WhatsApp stands out as the best of all. Businesses often use the WhatsApp chatbot feature to provide excellent customer support. It ensures that your customers build trust in your business. Wondering how to build a WhatsApp chatbot for your business? Read this detailed guide to find out!
What is a WhatsApp Chatbot?
WhatsApp Chatbot is a digital version of a dedicated, always available assistant that ensures that your clients never feel ignored. This is no ordinary chatbot—it’s been embedded into one of the world’s most popular messaging apps.
According to the worldwide chatbot market reports, the industry is expected to grow at USD 1.25 billion in 2025. Doesn’t sound fascinating? What could be the possible reason behind the evolution of the chatbot market? Undoubtedly, it’s benefits!
The WhatsApp bot creates a seamless connection between businesses and customers. It provides leads to businesses and real-time automated customer support to customers. Chatbots for WhatsApp can either be rule-based or NLP-based. Rule-based chatbots are designed through decision-tree-type interactions and provide more structured experiences. But NLP-based chatbots, also known as natural language processing bots, provide more human-friendly experiences. Thus, to deploy a bot to your WhatsApp messaging app, you must use the WhatsApp Business API.
Types of WhatsApp Chatbots
Regardless of day and night, weekday or end, the WhatsApp chatbot provides 24/7 assistance and immediate support to your customers. WhatsApp offers a range of chatbots to help businesses improve their customer experience. Let’s discuss the various types of WhatsApp bots in the section below!
Rule-Based Chatbots
Consider a situation where your customer support executive manually asks for the order number to look at the status of the delivery. Will it not consume time? Thus, rule-based WhatsApp chatbots can speed up the customer support process. Businesses can create this type of bot within minutes. All you need to do is select from a list of options, such as choosing interactive buttons in the UI or creating a checklist. Though rule-based chatbots for WhatsApp are easy to create but aren’t incredibly useful for businesses.
Intent-Based Chatbots
Intent-based WhatsApp chatbots are more advanced than rule-based bots. They use natural language processing (NLP) to know the exact intent of the person.
For instance, if the customer commands “Delivery Update,” the following phrases will be recognized to provide the same answer: “What is the status of my delivery?” “When will I receive my product?” “What is the update on my delivery?”
This is because the intent-based chatbots are trained to comprehend human language with all its complexities and variances. You might need time and resources to train your bot. But you can mitigate this challenge either by providing crowdsourcing intentions or by asking your team to create them. The more intents users write for your chatbot, the more proficient it will get at recognizing and appropriately answering the various customer queries.
Secured Chatbots
It is likely to be a feature of the chatbot for WhatsApp. We already know that WhatsApp is safe because all its media and communications are encrypted. But you can add an extra degree of security when working with sensitive data by requiring users to authenticate themselves. Most importantly, it is required when customers call agents or provide their security essentials.
Even better, you can use biometric authentication with face scan technology, which streamlines and expedites the security check process to the level of a fast selfie.
Step-by-Step Guide to Build a Chatbot for WhatsApp
Businesses can create a WhatsApp chatbot in a few easy steps. Here’s a comprehensive guide for you:
Apply For WhatsApp Business API
Follow the specific guidelines and apply on the WhatsApp business API website. You might need approvals, which are usually given to medium to large enterprises.
Set Up Your WhatsApp Business Profile
Download the WhatsApp Business application and set up your profile. Fill in your basic details, verify your business number, and provide critical business information.
Choose a Service Provider
Select a WhatsApp business solution provider to integrate the API. These providers facilitate communication between your system and WhatsApp.
Create a Chatbot for WhatsApp
Create a chatbot using programming language and a framework that supports WhatsApp API. Customize your bot by adding a profile picture and welcome message. Additionally, use the visual interface of the platform to create conversational flows that your bot will follow.
Integrate With a WhatsApp API
Connect your chatbot to the WhatsApp business API through your chosen WhatsApp business solution provider. This involves configuring webhooks, managing message templates, and ensuring compliance with WhatsApp policies. You can hire developers to integrate it.
Test Your Chatbot
Ensure that you test your chatbot thoroughly to ensure it functions as expected and adheres to WhatsApp guidelines.
Get Ready to Launch and Monitor Your Chatbot
Finally, launch your WhatsApp chatbot. Make sure you monitor its performance regularly, collect user feedback, and make improvements as required.
Benefits of Using WhatsApp Chatbot for Business
WhatsApp chatbots stand out as a transformative tool for businesses. Why? Here’s a breakdown of various benefits offered by chatbots for businesses:
Offers Anytime Customer Support
Unlike old-school customer support avenues, WhatsApp bots don’t punch out. They work all round the clock to provide quick and prompt customer service.
Boost Customer Interactions
Let’s be honest, whether it is our product or service, we love smooth and efficient delivery. Isn’t it? A WhatsApp chatbot enables you to address basic queries through messaging. When concerns become technical, they seamlessly transfer the conversation to human customer service providers.
Better Engagement
WhatsApp chatbots promote engagement with customers. They follow a flow in conversation, which makes customer interactions feel less transactional. This conversational flow strengthens the bond between businesses and their customers.
Increased ROI
The most critical reason to invest in a chatbot for WhatsApp is that it helps increase profitability. How? It provides excellent and quick customer service, enabling customers to build trust. Thus, the bot also helps in fostering long-term relationships with customers.
Trustworthy and Secure
In a realm of digital threats, WhatsApp stands tall with its commitment to user security. The features like two-step authentication and end-to-end encryption in the WhatsApp chatbot for businesses ensure that customers data is secured.
Final Words
WhatsApp chatbots for businesses are a critical tool that digitalizes customer service. You can select from three different types of WhatsApp bots that best suit your business needs. Chatbot offers a range of benefits for businesses, such as anytime support, enhanced customer interactions, increased ROI, better engagement, and more. Lastly, you can build a WhatsApp chatbot for your business by implementing the guide discussed in this article.