WhatsApp for business help

[VEIGHT]

We have recently setup WhatsApp for business as people always ask for our personal WhatsApp for quickly sending images and asking questions.

We have it integrated into Zendesk which is all working fine. However I need to decide what to do about the 24 rule where we have 24 hours to reply to a message otherwise we cannot reply after that.

That’s fine for Monday to Friday but we do not work on weekends.

How do others get around this ? A simple auto response saying our opening hours are mon - fri please reply back then - I think sounds a bit strange! I’ve never heard of this rule before setting it up so unsure people would resend their messages?

Must be a simple solution I’m missing?

[Scabutz]

Could you use a simple AI bot to respond to the messages and ask some questions and then raise a Zendesk ticket for someone to pick up Monday and then the bit respond that the request needs to be dealt with by a member of the team and they work these hours?

Just gives a bit of a flow without turning them away and telling the try again Monday

[Simpo Two]

VEIGHT said:

Must be a simple solution I’m missing?

Yes. What's wrong with e-mail for sending images and asking questions? You can even use a telephone (thing that you talk into) to ask questions as if you were actually talking to them...

I did some commercial photography last week and the client said I could 'Whatsapp it to them'.

Quite how I was supposed to get large image files from my camera to a phone - even if my phone was smart which it isn't - I had no idea.

So there is e-mail - attach the file, send, done. Fabulous. But now you have Whatsapp, Zendesk (whatever that is) and a 24-hour limit. Why?

[Scabutz]

Simpo Two said:

Yes. What's wrong with e-mail for sending images and asking questions? You can even use a telephone (thing that you talk into) to ask questions as if you were actually talking to them...

I did some commercial photography last week and the client said I could 'Whatsapp it to them'.

Quite how I was supposed to get large image files from my camera to a phone - even if my phone was smart which it isn't - I had no idea.

So there is e-mail - attach the file, send, done. Fabulous. But now you have Whatsapp, Zendesk (whatever that is) and a 24-hour limit. Why?

Depends on your demographic. Younger generation a lot just don't do email.

[Simpo Two]

Scabutz said:

Depends on your demographic. Younger generation a lot just don't do email.

It's the smartphone obsession I suppose, and the Must-Have-New-Stuff! condition.

I walked down to the shops this afternoon and there was a boy about 9 in front of me with a phone jammed to his ear. I thought 'You poor bd, you'll spend the rest of your life welded to that'.

[VEIGHT]

Scabutz said:

Could you use a simple AI bot to respond to the messages and ask some questions and then raise a Zendesk ticket for someone to pick up Monday and then the bit respond that the request needs to be dealt with by a member of the team and they work these hours?

Just gives a bit of a flow without turning them away and telling the try again Monday

Yes I think this might be the only option!

[VEIGHT]

Simpo Two said:

Yes. What's wrong with e-mail for sending images and asking questions? You can even use a telephone (thing that you talk into) to ask questions as if you were actually talking to them...

I did some commercial photography last week and the client said I could 'Whatsapp it to them'.

Quite how I was supposed to get large image files from my camera to a phone - even if my phone was smart which it isn't - I had no idea.

So there is e-mail - attach the file, send, done. Fabulous. But now you have Whatsapp, Zendesk (whatever that is) and a 24-hour limit. Why?

As mentioned people are moving away from email for 'instant' replies. If someone wants to send us a picture of a product and say 'can you supply this in blue' then its slightly quicker than taking a picture and emailing it. They also know they can expect a reply much quicker than emails.

If we didn't move forward with new things we would still just get hand written orders posted to us 2nd class with 'Urgent' written at the bottom! (which we still do a few times a year!) we even had to contact half a dozen customers recently to say we wont accept faxes anymore!!

[Simpo Two]

VEIGHT said:

If someone wants to send us a picture of a product and say 'can you supply this in blue' then its slightly quicker than taking a picture and emailing it. They also know they can expect a reply much quicker than emails.

How many seconds quicker is it to use Whatsapp than e-mail?

I had a sales lead from Bark this afternoon. Generally low grade stuff but I pick carefully. This one looked up my street so rather than use the Bark pre-populated 'Hi I'd love to reach out...' trite American bks I picked the phone up and rang the lady. We discussed the project in full detail and I was able to sell myself much better than by e-mail or anything else. She looked at my website, liked what she saw and I was able to come up with some original ideas for a quite complicated project. That way I got ahead of the pack.

You really can't beat the dog and bone IMHO. Short of face to face, it's the best way to communicate. But I agree it's horses for courses, and if your prospects demand Zendesk tickets, well you can have them

Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 6th June 22:08

[VEIGHT]

100% agree i'm just like you in that regard - can't beat it. However plenty of people are not

[thebraketester]

Not to mention WhatsApp image quality is shocking.