Let’s understand how you can make use of WhatsApp & Facebook Messenger for your Retail or E-commerce business, we have prepared the use-case based on the customer journey
- Lead Generation
- Pre Sales Quires
- Order Placement
- Payment Collection
- Shipping & Delivery
- Refunds & Returns
- Feedback Collection
- Abandon Carts
- Referrals & Re-Order
- Offer Broadcasting
Lead Generation
A customer journey starts when they have landed your webpage, opened your mobile app, visited your retail store or seen your offline ads like banners, flyers, posters, etc.
There are plenty of tools available now to generate leads as below;
- Social Media Advertisements
- Affiliative & Referral Marketing
- Hoardings, Banners & Flyers
- Sponsored TV & Radio Ads
- Co-Sponsored Programs
- Events & Exhibitions
WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger alone can’t generate any leads for your business but it is capable to engage a lead which leads to sales. You need to include your WhatsApp or Messenger Links in all of your marketing contents
- Include your WhatsApp / Messenger Click 2 Chat Links in Social Media Advertisement to immediately engage a lead with your business.
- Run a Contest through TV or Radio and request the audience to send their entries to your WhatsApp.
- Include Your WhatsApp Number along with QR Code in all offline marketing methods like Hoardings, Banners & Flyers
- Include a WhatsApp / Messenger Click 2 Chat buttons in your Website / Blog / Mobile App so that potential customers and directly ask a pre-sales question with you.
Advantages for Businesses & Customers
| Businesses | Customers |
| Auto Captures Name & Phone Number which allows contacting the lead in later stages | No need to type & Save WhatsApp number or search for messenger bot |
| Opt-In by the customer so that can make use of 24 hours session window effectively | Feels more secure when they see a number is there to be contacted |
Pre Sales Quires
Young shoppers don’t like frictions, they need instant response and solutions, they can’t wait for an email or comment to be answered about your product or services.
Include a WhatsApp / Messenger Direct Click 2 Chat button against each of your product in your Website / App so that customers can simply ask a question about the product and get real time answers from the Chatbot. Our Smart Replies feature is best suited for handling automated Q&A.
Type of Pre-Sales Quires you can Automate
- Product Finder & Availability Check
- Size & Color Options of a Product
- Special offers & discounts
- Average Shipment Timings & Costs
- Refund & Cancellation policies
- Similar Product Search by just sharing a Photo or Link
Advantages for Businesses & Customers
| Businesses | Customers |
| Increased Conversion Ratio | Instant Answers |
| 24 x 7 Engagements | No Waiting Time |
| No or Less Manpower Required | |
| Reduce Support Tickets |
Order Placement
It’s time to fine-tune the order placement experience through chat, there are few UI / UX challenges when it comes to placing an order especially when a customer wants to order multiple items together and deliver it into multiple addresses, apply coupons etc.
If you have a front end website or app then you can redirect the customer into the relevant order page so that they can easily place the order, still, if you wish to make the order happens within the messaging app then consider the below guidelines
Order Flow
To full fill order businesses need one or more information from the customer as below;
- Brand
- Color
- Size or Variants
- Quantity
- Shipping Address
We highly recommend to create a conversation flow here to handle it more effectively as below ;
Which color did you like?
What size did you need?
How much Quantity did you need?
To which address we should ship?
Try to remember these choices including the shipping address into an attribute that increases the customer experience when they do shopping again.
Make Use of NLP
Make use of NLP (Nature Language Processing) technology to directly place the order when the customer is clear what they needed.
| Conversation | Entities Extracted |
| Please place my order for an iphone11 64GB yellow color | product = iphone variant = 64gb color = silver quantity = 1 |
| Get me a large cup of vanilla flavor cappuccino | drink = cappuccino flavour = vanilla size = large quantity = 1 |
Payment Collection
Collect payments from customers within the messaging app, when the customer is ready to place an order generate a custom link and sends to the customers as messages, the link should redirect to a payment gateway page, customers can also share or forward the link to a friend or businesses to complete the payment.
Shipping & Delivery
Once an order is placed customers are very keen to know when their order will be shipped and estimated arriving date. Send Shipping Alert & Tracking Notification through WhatsApp & Messenger.
You can make this section more interactive which allows customers to track the delivery status by sending a message.
When the item is shipped or out for delivery give an option for the customer to reschedule the delivery date or update the delivery address by just sending a message to your WhatsApp or Messenger bot.
Advantages for Businesses & Customers
| Businesses | Customers |
| Reduce Calls & Support Tickets | Customers are keep informed when their items are arriving |
| Avoid Door Lock Scenarios | Customers can easily reschedule the delivery or update another address without opening the app or calling customer care |
Refunds & Returns
After-sales support is very important to win customer loyalty and which leads to repeat purchases and high customer retention. Ease of return and refund process creates a positive impact on brand building. Allow customers to place return and refund by just sending a message.
- Ask the customer for the reason of replacement or cancellation of an order
- Receive images or videos of a defected product
- Schedule a pickup the order
- Confirmation of replacement or refund of order
Feedback Collection
Feedback is the best process that helps any business to realign the business and priority. Feedback is the process by which you understand your customers and can build your customer loyalty metrics. It is very useful but at the same time very difficult to get feedback because conventional methods are time-consuming. On the other hand, WhatsApp can be very useful as they can give personalised feedback on the go
- Get feedback of products on WhatsApp
- Chat sequences of feedback questionnaire
Abandon Carts
Abandon cart is an unrealized business that can turn around the fortune of business because in some cases its up to 70 % of your carts. In many instances people add in the cart but leave without checkout and purchase. Whatsapp messaging script of retargeting those customers will increase your ROI
- Surprise and feel them valued by customized and personalized content on messaging app
- Conversation helps to understand the customer and took him to closure
- Send content related to the items in their cart like offers or features which motivate them to purchase
- Close purchase on the chat itself
Referrals & Re Order
Your satisfied customer is your biggest asset and brand ambassador. No marketing has more impact than mouth to mouth publicity. So it becomes more important to engage with your customers in a timely manner for referrals and re-order
- Send referral codes
- Incentives of sharing referral codes among there family and friends
- Send them offers and suggestions according to the search history.
- Engage them in a contest to earn rewards
- Send them greetings on various occasions
Offer Broadcasting
Offers are tools to convert site visitors into leads and then customers. It can compel the visitor to make a purchase. Offer broadcast on season sales or festive discount can shoot up your monthly or yearly business
- Sent messages to an available opt-in database of customers.
- offers on the basis of customer purchase history.
- Complete the transaction on WhatsApp from sending offers to purchase a product by the help AI and ML-enabled chatbots.
