From complexity to clarity: our advice on unifying customer experiences with WhatsApp

The Modern Marketers dilemma is not unique.

If you're working in marketing at any consumer facing business right now, you're likely facing a familiar dilemma. Your customers expect increasingly personalized experiences, but your current communication channels aren't delivering the engagement you need. Email open rates are declining, traditional advertising costs are soaring, and customer acquisition costs keep climbing. Sound familiar?

Alongside these changes, as a marketing leader you're also juggling multiple other priorities:

• Your CEO wants better ROI on marketing spend
• Your customers demand more personalized experiences
• Your team struggles with fragmented communication tools
• Gathering customer consent and preferences is getting challenging

According to McKinsey's latest digital transformation insights, these are not just isolated challenges — but symptoms of a broader shift in how customers want to interact with brands. 

You're not alone. We speak daily to marketing teams faced with these same challenges. They have discovered what many business leaders are also slowly realizing: the future of customer engagement isn't just about sending one-way messages — it's about transforming entire customer journeys with direct communication touch points that are in line with what consumers prefer, how they behave and what they expect from the brands they like.

With almost 3 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp offers a direct and personal way to communicate with your subscribers and customers and higher open, engagement and conversion rates than traditional channels. A recent study by Statista found that businesses using WhatsApp for customer engagement experienced a 45% increase in response rates and a 30% improvement in customer retention. That's why our recommendation to our prospect showed them a way to integrate WhatsApp into their existing workflows and tech stack.

The challenge for our prospect: complexity of managing customer engagement

We recently spoke to the marketing and customer experience team at an award-winning global health and nutrition brand with a presence in over 4+ continents. The teams were wrestling with a familiar set of challenges impacting their bottom line and had not really managed to scale WhatsApp as a marketing channel due to:

• Multiple WhatsApp Business numbers and opt-in processes across regions creating confusion
• Disconnected service and shop systems leading to inefficient workflows
• Growing concerns about collecting customer consent and preferences in a GDPR-compliant way
• Inability to scale personalized customer communications
  
  

From fragmentation to integration: unifying marketing and service communication with whatsapp

Based on these challenges and the regional operational structure at the company, we proposed the following implementation strategy, focused on three areas:

1. Integration and unification of tech stack
   • Connect charles with Zendesk for their customer service integration
   • A direct Shopify integration for order tracking and abandoned cart recovery
   • Have at most two WhatsApp Business numbers covering regional needs
2. Automating customer journeys
   • Personalize interaction flows based on customer behavior using charles Journeys
   • Automate responses for common inquiries
   • Create Abandoned Cart flows, order status updates and tracking flows
3. Compliance and data management
   • Retaining GDPR-compliance of their marketing operations
   • Double opt-in management
   • How to establish separation between marketing and service communications
   • Automated data tagging and segmentation

Integrating charles with Zendesk allows brands to keep WhatsApp service questions in their existing service desk – so messages are easy to find and teams won't have to switch between platforms.

From ideas to concrete steps: the implementation plan

1. optimizing whatsapp business numbers

1. Integration and management:
   • Each WhatsApp Business number can be linked to specific Shopify instances or regions, allowing businesses to manage communications based on geography or product lines. While multiple numbers can be managed, it might be beneficial to unify them to simplify operations and maintain a single source of truth. In our experience, customers generally do not concern themselves with the origin of the number as long as it is trusted and recognized.
   • However our recommendation to brands depends on the number of countries they are present in, centralized vs. decentralized operations and the legal implications to see what works best for their setup. Our prospect decided to use two WhatsApp Business numbers to fulfill certain regional operational requirements and yet have a simplified login and management process. 
2. Transition and support:
   • Transitioning existing numbers to the charles platform could be done without losing any functionality, and our team assists customers in the process. This includes ensuring that numbers can handle calls and messages as needed.

2. WhatsApp popup on the website

1. Placement and accessibility:
   • The WhatsApp chat button should be prominently placed across the brand's website or as a pop up (if including a discount), ideally not below the fold, to ensure easy access for users. Placement should also include a clear call-to-action text like "Message us on WhatsApp" or the discount code.
2. Integration with existing customer service platform: 
   
   • The chat feature can be linked with existing systems like Zendesk to automatically create tickets for inquiries, making it easier to manage and respond to customer needs. Enabling automatic ticket creation from chat conversations and syncing customer data across platforms allows for more personalized interactions. Companies using WhatsApp Business report a 225% faster customer service response time.
3. Customization:
   • The chat button can be customized to trigger specific actions or flows based on user interactions. This includes using embedded links and call-to-action triggers that direct users to specific marketing or service journeys. Brands can set up automated responses based on user behavior, create conditional flows based on customer segments, and enable one-click actions for purchases.

Jack Wolfskin advertise their WhatsApp newsletter on their website, as well as through emails and in ads, offering a €10 discount for new subscribers. 

3. Filtering and managing customer interactions

1. Automation and tagging:
   • charles allows businesses to automate customer journeys and apply tags based on interactions. This helps in categorizing customer inquiries as either marketing or service-related, allowing for appropriate follow-up actions.
2. Separate flows for marketing and service: 
   • We recommended setting up distinct entry points on the website for marketing and service inquiries. Marketing interactions could be directed through specific opt-in flows, while service inquiries could trigger support tickets or be routed to the appropriate team.
3. Use of triggers and templates: 
   • By using predefined triggers and templates on charles, the brand could automate responses and manage large volumes of inquiries efficiently. This includes setting up out-of-office messages or directing inquiries to specific departments based on keywords. 
4. GPDR-compliance and opt-in management: 
   • charles ensures compliance with GDPR by managing double opt-ins for marketing communications. This helps in maintaining a clear distinction between users who have consented to marketing messages and those who are only interested in service updates.

This roadmap provided by charles will help the global health and nutrition brand with a way to streamline their customer interactions, ensuring that marketing and service inquiries are handled efficiently and compliantly – ultimately enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction.

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