Big uptake in South African companies using WhatsApp Business
The WhatsApp Business API (Application Programming Interface) has seen impressive adoption in South Africa, according to Infobip senior sales manager Andre Joubert.
Joubert said that the corporate communications environment is changing rapidly and customers are growing increasingly familiar with using WhatsApp to interact with companies.
“We have seen a huge uptake in the call centre environment and among organisations where customer service and technical support are a priority,” Joubert said.
“For these type of customers, WhatsApp Business API is a total client-facing solution.”
“What’s more, we’ve also seen huge adoption by IT support departments of large corporates that need to support high numbers of end-users with PCs or laptops and receive many calls a day about issues such as lost passwords.”
Popular among businesses
Joubert said that WhatsApp has also proven popular among HR departments of large companies that need to communicate with workers who do not have access to laptops or computers.
Infobip Enterprise pre-sales engineer Orediretse Molebaloa noted that the uptake of WhatsApp Business is also driven by the fact that it uses an existing application on end-users’ phones.
“That’s the value that our customers are seeing in using WhatsApp as a channel because it eliminates the development aspect of installing an app on a phone,” Molebaloa said.
A popular use for WhatsApp is process automation and self-service, Molebaloa said, which eliminates a lot of call traffic into a call centre.
Joubert said that he expects to see use cases for the WhatsApp Business API to proliferate within organisations.
“After they’ve launched the service, we will likely see other departments also find a use for it, so you will get a second, third and fourth use case following the initial uptake.”
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