Business Partner | 
Conversational platforms such as WhatsApp provide businesses with the opportunity to leverage existing technology and use it to serve customers more effectively.
WhatsApp Business is proving to be a versatile CPaaS solution. It has emerged as a user-friendly medium for business communication and more sectors are starting to pay attention, including banking.
Could WhatsApp Business be the future of banking services?
WhatsApp Business possesses all the advantages that define CPaaS, such as:
- Presenting banks and other fintech services with a tested and robust IT infrastructure on which they can run their apps.
- Technology to accommodate large and small clients that can scale up or down according to their objectives.
- Savings on infrastructure and human resources costs to manage the infrastructure for customers leveraging this cloud-based service.
- Customers quickly availing services marketed by the bank through WhatsApp.
In the highly competitive banking sector where customers demand timely and appropriate services, WhatsApp Business provides benefits that will soon make it a crucial element of banking services.
How does WhatsApp Business help banks serve customers better?
With more than two billion users, WhatsApp is the most widely used messaging platform in the world. There are over 115 million WhatsApp users in just five countries in the Middle East. In the MENA region, adoption rates have crossed 77 percent. End-to-end encrypted, mobile-centric customer service through WhatsApp Business is already enabling banks to deliver a more satisfying customer experience to a wider base.
I. Updates and Notifications
WhatsApp chatbots can provide real-time responses to customer queries. Users can automate replies to questions regarding the dispatch of a checkbook, a transaction status, etc. New customers can receive a welcoming or onboarding message with directions to the nearest bank/ATM, appropriate services for them, and other information. Bank statements, the status of loan applications, payment reminders, offers, discounts, and wealth portfolio performance analyses are other examples of notifications through WhatsApp. WhatsApp registers a message delivery rate of 100 percent and an open rate of 97 percent. It enables efficient messaging and record-keeping for banks.II. Payments and Money Transfers
This CPaaS solution facilitates quick and secure payments and money transfers to the bank and other recipients. Timely bill payments for power, water, groceries, cable TV, credit card debts, etc. let users avoid penalties for late payments and improve their credit scores. This feature is useful for small businesses and their clients anywhere in the world. It also gives banks rich data on transaction patterns, leading to higher conversions and insights for targeted marketing.III. Feedback
Instant customer feedback requested through the chatbot provides banks with information that they can use for course correction, if required, with a high degree of granularity. Banks can smoothly collect and track NPS, CSAT, CES, and other metrics to measure customer satisfaction and work on issues leading to drop-offs. Feedback through WhatsApp Business is one of the most valuable features of this CPaaS as it improves customer retention rates and enables banks to deliver better service.IV. Financial Advice
A WhatsApp chatbot provides actionable investment advice to customers. It saves valuable time for all involved parties by resolving doubts and providing solutions. In these times, as people are learning to live with the pandemic and combat it, this CPaaS offers a useful service by eliminating unnecessary trips to the bank for personal financial advice. The historical performance of a customer’s portfolio gives the bot data to deliver sound advice.V. Document Submission and Customer Onboarding
Initial impressions are lasting impressions. Through chat banking via WhatsApp Business, banks and fintech services can create a great first impression about their focus on customers’ smooth experience. Easy uploads of high-resolution images or scans of documents facilitate validation and the KYC process. Awkward and hard-to-execute document upload systems leading to customer drop-offs have been a long-standing grouse with banks. WhatsApp Business addresses this issue. It’s an easy resource to upload and send multiple documents required for sanctioning loans or clearing insurance claims.IV. Lead Generation
By using chatbots, banking services can generate quality leads through WhatsApp Business, a CPaaS with 24/7 availability. This application automatically records a prospect’s name and number during a conversation. The prospect is nudged ahead smoothly in the sales funnel by the quick replies via chatbot. Chatbots also save time and expense associated with manually typing responses. Interactive chat provides answers or guides the prospect to the appropriate resource and facilitates customer acquisition at a lower cost. Re-initiating abandoned chats and following up with prospects costs hardly a fraction of what traditional remarketing does.Clear benefits of WhatsApp Business for banks
- Automation of low-level queries with easy handover to humans for the all-important high-level queries.
- Multilingual service for more transparent communication in the customer’s native language.
- Keyword-based information is available on demand.
- Verification of a bank’s profile by WhatsApp Business contributes to branding and shares information such as website URL and company address with the viewer.
WhatsApp Business complies with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policies and businesses can configure it to meet regional security requirements.
Conclusion
WhatsApp Business enables banks to improve the standards of customer service and stay connected with their customers. It is a powerful tool for business communication, capable of delivering a comprehensive banking experience remotely.
CEQUENS can help
Digital age customers are bound to experience the personalized, end-to-end experiences they seek, while businesses can experience a new dimension of availability with CEQUENS Chat*.
Whichever method appeals to you to engage your customers is the one you should follow. We recommend taking a multichannel approach and incorporating several ways. To learn more about the product or how we can help, contact our Sales team.
*Get CEQUENS Chat for 3 free months if you register before January 31, 2021. The offer includes unlimited chat agent seats with no setup fees, in addition to free registration for WhatsApp Business and optional chatbot deployment.
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