WhatsApp Business: 10 ways to get more customers

Use the WhatsApp Business app, not regular WhatsApp

WhatsApp Business is a separate free app made for businesses. It adds a business profile, a catalogue, automatic messages and labels. You can move your existing number over to it without losing your chats. Install it from the Play Store or App Store.

The 10 tips

1. Complete your business profile. Add your logo, a description, address, hours, email and website link. Customers check it before they message.
2. Set up your catalogue. Add your products or services with photos and prices. Customers can browse and ask about a specific item instead of asking "what do you have?".
3. Turn on a greeting message. New customers get an automatic welcome, so nobody waits in silence.
4. Turn on an away message for when you are closed, with your hours and when you will reply.
5. Save quick replies for questions you answer every day, such as prices, location, payment options and delivery. Type "/" to use them.
6. Use labels such as "New enquiry", "Payment pending" and "Order complete" to track every customer, and follow up with anyone who went quiet.
7. Post on Status every day or two: new stock, finished work, offers, happy customers. Your contacts see it without you sending them anything.
8. Share your short link and QR code. The app gives you a wa.me link and a QR code. Put them on your bills, visiting cards, shop counter and social media bios.
9. Reply fast. The business that replies first usually gets the order. Keep notifications on during working hours.
10. Use broadcast lists carefully. Broadcasts only reach people who have saved your number, and too many promotional messages make people block you. Send useful updates, not daily ads.

Give customers somewhere to check you out

Before a new customer messages you, they want to know you are real: photos, reviews, an address, what you offer. A website answers all of that, and its WhatsApp button brings them straight into a chat with you.

Every Indiexis page has a WhatsApp button and an enquiry form that opens WhatsApp with the customer's message already typed in. Get your page and put the link in your WhatsApp Business profile.