Last Updated: April 2025
When hearing WhatsApp, what comes to your mind first? The common answer is a chatting app. But, many people use it as a customer service to scale their support to the next level.
WhatsApp is one of the most used social media apps and it currently has almost 2 billion active users. So, using WhatsApp as customer support can help you to engage your customers in an easy-to-use and secure manner.
It can help you in various manners from handling customer queries to supporting them with the necessary assistance, showcasing your product catalog, and sending product notifications without any side hustle.
Let’s quickly see how-
Benefits of using WhatsApp for your customer service
Efficient Communication
Nowadays, customers prefer multiple communication types to reach support rather than traditional means like email or phone. They wanted fast reply services such as live chats, social media chats, instant messaging, etc.
That’s where WhatsApp customer service plays a vital role. It allows your customer support team to connect global consumers via social media apps, they already love to use. WhatsApp live chat can help you establish a one-to-one conversation, so that, your customers can solve their problems, and register without any side hustle within the app itself.
Reach out to customers in multiple ways
Instead of sending a traditional message to your customers, you can send them rich media files like images, videos, PDFs, GIFs, emojis, and many more. This way you can enhance customer satisfaction and share your services more fluently.
Helps in Internal communication
Your customer support can also use it to reach out to the team if needed. Your agents can use it for help and to share the necessary information without breaking the process.
Use chatbots to reply
The core feature of WhatsApp customer support is its chatbot feature. You can effectively use it by configuring the chatbot to the frequently asked questions so that your team can use their energy in other productive work.
Integrate with multiple apps via API
You can easily integrate WhatsApp with third-party platforms to make customer communications easier.
How to actually use WhatsApp for customer service
1. Completion of WhatsApp Business profile
You can easily add your business credibility and information to your WhatsApp business profile. This makes it easier for your customers to reach you on and off WhatsApp.
Here’s an example. Look at the profile, it tells necessary information about virtual assistance and business hours.
2. Inform your customers about WhatsApp customer support
Your customers can’t reach you on WhatsApp until and unless they know about it. So, make sure you add proper navigations for your customers. You can add a “click to connect” link anywhere while sharing your customer service information. QR codes can also be a great option for communication. Your customers just need to scan the code and they will get redirected to the chat option directly in WhatsApp.
3. Setting Response time expectations and messages.
If you run a global business, it becomes difficult for you to serve your customers. That’s where autoresponders can help you by informing your customers of reply time expectations.
4. Use chatbots for repetitive tasks
You can set automation for repetitive tasks such as FAQs, order tracking, product information, etc. So that, you can use your team energy only on requests that need a human touch.
5. Integrate WhatsApp with other platforms and your CRM can
You can easily integrate WhatsApp with your CRM and other channels to get a full understanding of who you’re chatting with. You’ll have a sense of what they’re most likely to want and need from your customer care team.
When a customer reaches you on WhatsApp, it will be recognized by name. This way you can reach them back in a more personalized way.
6. Approach customers with proactive messages
In case, if customers request service updates, you can instantly reach them with updates such as parcel ticket information, shipping notifications, and ticket status.
7. Use WhatsApp’s rich media feature
The main advantage of the WhatsApp support feature is it allows you to share rich media formats like PDFs, images, videos, GIFs, audio, and many more.
For example, if a customer asks for any information about the issue, you can share a pdf containing instructions.
8. Product Catalog feature
A product catalog feature plays a vital role in the WhatsApp marketing strategy.
Here’s how it works-
A product catalog can help you provide context for customer questions. They can easily surf through your products and services and ask about whatever they like. You can share quick information about the product and assist them more effectively.
Why Is WhatsApp Not the Best option for customer service?
Not an omnichannel platform
Providing WhatsApp messaging and notification support is indeed a great idea. However you can’t simply rely on it, you have to switch to an omnichannel platform for better customer support.
Creates more confusion and chaos
Today, people prefer WhatsApp as a private social media messaging app, so they find it a little confusing and insecure to make any support conversations within the app itself. Also, the conversations can get messed up as there are a lot of groups.
Use Reviews
Akash J., Senior Engineer reports-
Sometimes the message doesn’t appear on the customer screen which is a drawback.
An Anonymous user, says-
Sometimes it takes too long to get an actual agent and my issue isn’t one of the auto-answer questions that pop up as an option.
Meet Saufter, The Best Alternative
If you’re looking for an all-in-one platform for improving your customer service, quickly resolving issues, and improving the buyer experience, Saufter might just be the tool for you.
When you connect your store to Saufter, you get not only a live chat tool for your business, but also AI-drafted emails, insights to help out agents handling similar cases, and an eCommerce expert marketplace to ensure a seamless buying experience for your customers. With Saufter, you can set up automation for repetitive tasks and leave it to the system without worrying to keep using manpower to perform the same tasks.
Not only that it lets you –
- Handle unlimited tickets,
- Provide basic client support across channels such as email, SMS, chat, and phone.
- Create self-help services for your users,
- Social media, eCommerce, and other app integrations.
- Automation services including marketing and detecting issues.
- Hiring experienced agents and testing and training them.
Conclusion:
So far in this article, we have seen that using WhatsApp for customer service could be a great option for you to reach back to your customers and convert the visitors into potential buyers.
But you need to be very careful as you can see WhatsApp customer support is not omnichannel customer support.
In case you wish to offer satisfactory support to your users that efficiently integrates with Slack, then you can employ Saufter. With it, you do not have to worry about the Slack integration feature ruining your team coordination as shown above.
