Introduction
Meta’s WhatsApp Business Platform has been growing in prominence as a tool for companies to reach their customers in recent years. Its popularity amongst the population has woken businesses up to the potential it has as a communication tool. It’s not only a medium for businesses to get their message out to customers, but also provides the means for customers to converse with businesses - to both ask for and receive information that is relevant to them.
Ideally, businesses should treat this platform as an opportunity to start and continue meaningful dialogue with customers rather than a means to distribute promotional material. To do so, however, businesses need to have a solid strategy. Key points such as relevance, timeliness, and the appropriateness of context surrounding the message are key to building a high-quality customer experience. If the customer expects to receive a message from a business, they are more inclined to continue the conversation - which in turn is more likely to have a positive impact on achieving your business and marketing goals.
Conversely, just as in one’s personal day-to-day conversations, if a customer receives a message that is out of place - that bears no relevance to them, and is from a business that they have no interest in engaging with, they are less likely to engage and have the ability to block and report. This has the potential to impact both the quality rating and the reputation of a business user of WhatsApp.
The ETR Framework
So how do businesses ensure a consistent quality of interaction over WhatsApp? One method could be to use the ETR framework.
1. Ensure the message is expected.
Only send messages to customers who have opted in to receive messages over WhatsApp.
2. Ensure the message is timely.
Ensure your message feels connected to something time-bound such as:
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A seasonal or other recurring event related to previous purchases.
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A product recently browsed.
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Purchase or upgrade within a specific interval of time.
3. Make the message relevant.
Ensure that your messages are personalized to the customer's interests, this could include:
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Offers that are related to products or services they have browsed
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Tips to help them get more value out of their purchase
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Add-ons or upgrades related to their profile.
These three points can be thought of as the ETR framework (Expected, Timely, Relevant) and can be referred back to as a checklist each time you plan to send a campaign.
Conclusion
The WhatsApp Business Platform can be a powerful tool for businesses to interact in a meaningful way with their customers but in order to get the best value from the platform, conversations need to be relevant and useful to the customer not just another way to promote a company's latest promotion.
How Unifonic Can Help
Our WhatsApp Template creator enables you to easily create WhatsApp messages, and add personalized parameters, multimedia, buttons, and more, You can also submit content to Meta for same-day approval - directly from within the Unifonic Platform.
To speak to a Unifonic expert about how we can help get the most from your WhatsApp communications, contact us today
