How to create a WhatsApp Chatbot for your business in Singapore? Step-by-step guide & tutorial [2023]

With the widespread use of WhatsApp in Singapore, WhatsApp marketing is now an essential part of every business's digital marketing strategy. Almost every brand, even governmental organisations, has a certain percentage of its budget dedicated to this strategy.

On WhatsApp for Business, companies can interact with customers via greeting messages, quick replies and business profiles. Some may even partner with one of the WhatsApp Business API providers to access bonus features such as chatbots, interactive chat buttons and CRM integrations.

Further reading: A quick read for understanding the WhatsApp Business API

Interested in creating a WhatsApp Chatbot but don’t know where to start? In this tutorial, we are going to show you how easy it is.

WhatsApp has a penetration rate of up to 83.2% as the top social network in Singapore. - Statista, 2022

What is a WhatsApp Chatbot?

A WhatsApp Chatbot or Live Chat is a software program automated by artificial intelligence and baked-in data. It is specifically designed for businesses that are interested in adopting conversational commerce on the encrypted WhatsApp Business Platform.

Other than being able to realistically mimic human conversational patterns, the chatbot WhatsApp is also capable of keeping a consistent tone and brand identity throughout the conversation. This is especially important for the retail and e-commerce industry as the WhatsApp bot can effectively engage customers and save a lot of hassle in terms of customer support, marketing and sales.

Find out more about what you can do with our ultimate guide to the WhatsApp Business Platform.

Why do you need your own WhatsApp Chatbot?

1. Enhance customer service

A chatbot using WhatsApp Business can help simplify the customer support process as it can automatically take over repetitive tasks such as answering FAQs while transferring complicated questions to human agents smoothly. It can also ensure that customer inquiries get resolved outside of office hours without burdening your customer support team. Since chatbots can save up to 30% in customer support costs, they will also help scale your business internationally across timezones while saving costs.

2. Establish a strong brand identity

The WhatsApp Chatbot is in fact very flexible for customization. Businesses can design greeting messages, quick replies and icons according to their unique persona. Unlike humans, a WhatsApp bot doesn’t have any emotion or personality, meaning they can always stick to the brand personality under whatever circumstances. 

By adding colour and tone to the scripts, your WhatsApp Livechat bot will be able to leave customers with a positive impression, improving their loyalty towards your brand. More importantly, Emerald’s research discovered a clearly distinguishable brand identity can remarkably accelerate customer engagement as well as sales. 

3. Improve marketing campaigns

With a “more leads, more sales” mindset, today’s businesses are all about lead generation. However, to be blunt, driving prospective audiences to follow you on social media and sign up for your email list is a tough game. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for businesses to optimise each customer touchpoint of the target audience in the conversion funnel.

For example, when launching a “Click-to-Messenger” campaign, you should never leave the customers hanging. According to ringDNA, the optimal lead response time is 5 minutes or less. In other words, businesses should get back to the customers as soon as possible. Still, an instant response might be a bit difficult for a single person to handle or too pricey for live chat agents to achieve.

Fortunately, the WhatsApp Chatbot can shoot the senders a quick note easily, offering solutions to their queries in a flash, resulting in higher conversion rates.

55% of businesses use chatbots to increase high-quality leads.

WhatsApp Chatbot examples in Singapore

OneService Chatbot on WhatsApp

OneService WhatsApp Chatbot is an AI-powered chatbot introduced by Singapore's Municipal Services Office (MSO) and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG). This WhatsApp bot is created to help citizens "report municipal issues on the go". Launched in 2021, the Singapore government aims to make reporting or feedback-giving about cleanliness, illegal parking or animal issues in the neighbourhood easy for all using a WhatsApp Chatbot.

Bosch Singapore uses WhatsApp Chatbot to assist staff

Bosch Singapore achieved a 90% user retention rate when they used the WhatsApp Chatbot as a digital assistant for people in their office. When someone sends an enquiry, their WhatsApp bot will answer with text and images to help the staff members interact with the building’s sensors, facilities, and building management software. By using this chatbot for WhatsApp, they also reached:

• 3X increase in speed at which issues in the building were reported

• 2X increase in the number of building issues reported via WhatsApp (as compared to other channels)

Read the complete success story for Bosch Singapore.

The ultimate WhatsApp Live Chat step-by-step guide

Step 1: Apply for WhatsApp Business API

The very first thing you need is to apply for the Official WhatsApp Business API.

You have to submit your company name and website URL, together with the name and contact details of a company representative. The verification process might take up to 4 weeks, but once your application is approved, you can start to dig deeper into various functions of the Official WhatsApp Business.

Step 2: Think about the dialogues in the live chat

To make sure the WhatsApp Chatbot can address your business needs, you then need to customise the conversation flow. Since a WhatsApp bot is supposed to give quick replies, it is recommended to include a list of responses to the frequently asked questions that are brief and cut to the chase. Don’t forget to prepare a smooth transition message in case a human agent needs to jump in and carry on the conversation thread.

There is no recipe for a chatbot with WhatsApp design as every business has its own style, so just keep your customer’s journey in mind when you map out your conversation elements and diagram.

Step 3: Find a chatbot application

For inexperienced users, creating a WhatsApp chatbot from scratch can be quite troublesome. Thus, to avoid unnecessary blockers, it is highly suggested to get help from a bot builder.

For instance, SleekFlow offers simple automation rules that allow you to quickly set up the most effective conversation flows for your live chatbot. Even with no programming skills, you can still manage to draw up a comprehensive roadmap for your customers. While automation is the ultimate goal, SleekFlow is also programmed to qualify leads and centralise information without the need for human staff.

Step 4: Test your WhatsApp chatbot

Never roll out a new feature until you have confirmed that everything works. 

Test your bot to check if it behaves well in WhatsApp. Remember to review it carefully as it affects your final customer experience, you can check up on integrations and catch possible errors before the official launch.

Of course, there is no such thing as the perfect chatbot. Thanks to useful tools like SleekFlow, editing and modifying your WhatsApp Business chatbot is no longer a daunting task. So let’s get your head down and keep exploring!

WhatsApp Chatbot limitations

While WhatsApp Chatbot has been a great messaging solution for businesses in many countries across the world, it also has its limitations. For instance, WhatsApp for business is not recommended in certain countries such as Germany. Based on the data protection act being implemented in Germany, businesses must refrain from using Whatsapp Business Chatbot for transactions. Thus, if you are planning to extend your business there, you must assign a backup messaging solution.

Moreover, WhatsApp can be a good messaging app for small businesses and that has been proven for years. With business communication being accessible through your phone, every reply is a click away. However, for larger corporations with a whole department of customer service employees, using a single account can be difficult.

Summary: WhatsApp Chatbot in 2023

WhatsApp Chatbot and live chat solutions can do wonders for your online business. It helps many startups and small business owners to provide customer engagement even with a small company size. Therefore, understanding this software as well as learning its features and how to use it effectively will level up your online business in the long run.