WhatsApp for Sales: How to drive sales with WhatsApp?
Instant messaging is a vital part of our daily lives, and WhatsApp is definitely at the forefront of it.
Besides communications, WhatsApp is also a vital tool for many businesses. Many retail stores are using it to better connect with their customers and aid their commercial activities. If you want to forge deeper relationships with your customers more efficiently as a business owner, using WhatsApp for sales is something you should consider.
Why should you use WhatsApp for sales?
100 billion messages or more are sent every single day. Integrating WhatsApp for sales and commercial activities helps build a personal connection with customers. When customers reach out to a shop for information, they usually encounter a customer-service email or hotline, which may take hours or even days to answer their questions. But with instant messaging systems like Whatsapp, they can communicate with the business in the same way they would talk to a friend.
Let’s put yourself into your customers’ shoes for one second. Imagine you’ve found a very nice pair of shoes in an online store, or you’ve found a shop you’d really like to visit. Naturally, you’d want to ask more about the offers. Without instant messaging, you’d probably need to email them or find the “contact us” page and perhaps wait for a few days.
Here comes WhatsApp messaging. With that, you can now send a text to your shop of choice instantly, and you can expect an answer in hours or even minutes. What’s even better is having chatbots. Simply by typing in the store’s or product’s name, you might even get an answer instantly. And for business owners, you can know that someone has contacted you straight away, so you can reach out to them easier than ever.
Given that people spend three and a half hours on their mobile phones on a daily average, integrating WhatsApp as a sales communication channel is a great way to sell.
What are the benefits of using WhatsApp for sales?
Cross-team collaboration at a time
Sales team members may often have only one set of login details, meaning only one person can log in at one time. However, with the WhatsApp Business API, multiple salespeople can access the businesses’ WhatsApp phone numbers at the same time.
Hence, this not only allows more agents to serve more customers at a time but also allows cross-functional team collaboration.
Automate campaigns with WhatsApp Lead Generation
WhatsApp lead generation is like a secret shortcut because as long as you get the prospects to send you the first message, you already have their phone number and name! And with a few more interactions to understand their interests, you can save this information in your database to craft messages that truly resonate with them.
Mastering WhatsApp lead generation helps you cut through the noise and chaos of social media and overstuffed email inboxes. For an even more advanced approach, you can leverage SleekFlow’s Flow Builder for WhatsApp lead generation.
How to drive sales with WhatsApp?
Despite the challenges, using WhatsApp for sales activities can help you communicate your promotion and offer plans, list out service options and increase your visibility. The level of clarity from segmentation and bulk broadcasting will be a great addition to your sales and engagement. In fact, platform integrations like WhatsApp Salesforce and WhatsApp Hubspot have profoundly impacted small businesses.
To make WhatsApp for sales viable, companies need an all-in-one platform to handle their customer base and messages. SleekFlow can do just that by helping businesses manage conversation workflows with an AI flow builder. With our platform, your sales teams send and manage messages from all your channels in one place and automate your marketing and sales so you can create personalized touchpoints and grow revenue more easily.
Automated messaging rules using SleekFlow Flow Builder
Flow Builder can help you recover lost sales and boost conversions by setting time-sensitive automation to send messages and update customer details. You can create a series of WhatsApp message templates that are automatically triggered when a customer abandons their cart. These messages could include a reminder of the items in the cart, a discount or limited-time offer, and a call-to-action to complete the purchase, along with a payment link.
Additionally, you can segment your audience based on their browsing and purchasing history on your e-commerce website and suggest related or complementary products that they may be interested in. This increases the chances of converting leads into loyal customers.
Automate your business growth with Flow Builder
Streamline sales, marketing, support, and operation workflows in the era of hyper-personalization.
Sell effectively with WhatsApp catalog
With WhatsApp Business API, businesses can create WhatsApp catalogs to showcase their products or services to potential customers on WhatsApp. It provides businesses with a platform to upload detailed information about their products or services, including the product name or title, price, description, website link, and product code.
This feature can encourage impulse shopping and, on top of that, offer consumers a faster, more efficient, and coherent buyer's journey. As they share their positive experience with others, you'll get marketing for free too!
Nurturing your WhatsApp leads afterwards
With leads generated, you would want to initiate a strategic lead-nurturing process. The first crucial step is to obtain their consent to receive further communications.
For example, you can create a new Send Message action asking, 'Would you like to receive updates, newsletters, and promotional offers via WhatsApp?' with 'Yes' and 'No' options.
Enable Button as branch. For those who click 'Yes,' set a waiting period of, let's say, 7 days. This interval allows leads the time they need to absorb the initial information and engage with your brand at their convenience.
Subsequent messages should be carefully crafted to provide value, offering insights, special offers, and relevant updates that cater to the lead's specific interests.
Learn more about how satisfying companies use WhatsApp to sell their products
How can SleekFlow help you in selling on WhatsApp?
SleekFlow has user-friendly web and mobile versions that integrate well with the WhatsApp Business API and other messaging apps. In addition, SleekFlow also has added capabilities of integrating with your existing CRM stacks to ensure a smooth onboarding process and experience. There will be more amazing features to come too!
Seemless integration with other platforms
You can integrate SleekFlow’s WhatsApp sales function with a range of existing CRM and e-commerce platforms. Information from various programs like HubSpot, Salesforce, Calendly, and Google Sheets is fully compatible with our platform, so you can capture all the customer information you need.
Once you add a new contact on these platforms, it will also be added to your WhatsApp list. You can then send welcome messages to these customers from different platforms, assign them to tiers, and start interacting with them. You also access information and analytics, such as response times and conversion trends, so you can always have a clear view of your performances and find ways to improve your services.
Internal collaboration
A sales platform will not be effective without supporting collaboration. SleekFlow helps you add internal notes on WhatsApp conversations to give heads-ups to other team members managing these accounts. This feature allows multiple team members working on the same accounts to have the necessary clarity and respond with the same ideas and tone.
SleekFlow can also help you with team administration. Staff can indicate their availability on the platform, and if one team member is not available, the platform can automatically reroute the account to other members. Or, if today is a customer’s birthday, you can blast a note to all team members so they will be aware when they are following up.
Combined with the integration with other platforms, you can create a seamless WhatsApp for sales experience that no other businesses can produce.
Want to outcompete your peers with SleekFlow's help?
Book your personalized demo with SleekFlow today and unlock the potential of seamless communication
Further reading - Social CRM
Social CRM is a shortened form of Social Customer Relationship Management, meaning the integration of social media and instant messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat. Since customers can interact with businesses in whatever way they like, you open the door for them to initiate conversations with you, thus, boosting the customer base.
Compared with traditional email marketing, Social CRM outperforms in terms of engagement rate – social media and instant messaging gain 6x more open rates and 8x more click rates. Not to mention that customers are more willing to reply to messages directed to their phones.
Examples of successful CRM marketing
1. Automated customer support – Hello Chatbot
It is a chatbot created by Hipmunk, a travel site that helps users find deals on flights, hotels, and more.
With an aim to reduce response times, Hello Chatbot is capable of answering general FAQs 24/7, preventing the loss of customers due to delayed customer service. Moreover, the bot can be integrated with various applications like Facebook and Skype, making it more convenient for customers.
2. Continuous engagement – Sephora
Maintaining seamless engagement with your customers can be a bit overwhelming. Still, it is crucial to customer satisfaction.
Sephora has, therefore, introduced a marketing CRM to handle this daunting task. Not only can the software automatically send a thank you email and an invitation to review, but it can also cross-sell or even upsell the products via personalized content. The program is a huge success in that Sephora has acquired 17 million more loyal members, and members account for almost 80% of its annual sales.
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