WhatsApp Business

2022: Detection of backdoors in the system section of a number of budget Android models

On August 22, 2022, the company Dr.Web"" announced the discovery of backdoors in the system section of a number of budget models - Androidsmartphones that are counterfeits of devices of well-known brands. These trojans are aimed at executing arbitrary code messengers WhatsApp in both WhatsApp Business and could potentially be used in a variety of scenarios. attacks Among them are the interception chats and theft of confidential information contained in them, the organization spam of the distribution, as well as the implementation of various fraudulent schemes. However, this is not the only risk factor for users. For these devices, manufacturers have declared the presence of a modern and secure version. In OS Android fact, they have a very outdated version installed on them, which is susceptible to numerous vulnerabilities. More. here

2021: Ability to send non-transactional personalized promo messages

Facebook, owner, messenger WhatsApp July 13, 2021 announced changes in the functionality of WhatsApp Business - API a digital solution with which you can implement almost any business task: from reducing the cost of a targeted action to increasing the NPS. the Russian Companies can now send their customers non-transactional personalized promo messages.

For a long time, WhatsApp allowed companies to send only transactional template messages to their customers in the messenger. Now, in a number of countries, including Russia, you can send not only service, but also personalized promo messages through the WhatsApp messenger. Companies can send the following types of messages:

• Personalized recommendations. Send promotional mailings offering relevant goods and services based on previous customer purchases.
• Informational alerts. Customers receive important personalized notifications.
• Relevant promos. These include mailings with information about reduced price of goods or services, purchase gifts or bonus offers for a limited period of time.
• Reminders for customers. Notify customers of the need to make an appointment with a doctor, reminders of an upcoming event, etc.

The global trend towards "conversational marketing" or "conversational commerce" continues to gain momentum, and more and more companies are using instant messengers to communicate with customers, giving them the opportunity to receive answers and recommendations from experts in real time. As for the WhatsApp messenger, it has a high level of open rate (the number of messages read) and response rate (response speed), which makes it a good marketing tool.

Possibilities that can be applied in different directions:

• E-commerceRetail/. Now in online sales, you can send notifications about the return of goods to the assortment and product recommendations based on the customer's purchase history. Also, companies will be able to work with the "abandoned basket," and customers will be able to receive information about relevant offers, promotions and news about new goods on sale;
• BFSI (Banking, financial services and insurance). In the banking sector, it was possible to send product recommendations based on the customer's purchase history (for example, connecting a credit card, credit line or opening an installment plan), relevant offers and promotions (for example, special conditions on a credit card or cashback news);
• Telecom. In the telecommunications area, you can send proactive notifications that the personal account is approaching zero balance, tariff renewal reminders, relevant offers, and promotions;
• Travel. The travel business can notify its customers about changes in ticket prices, send individual offers based on the client's tourist preferences, contextual upsell (for example, car rental).

Despite the emerging capabilities of the WhatsApp Business API, some conditions for its use remained unchanged.

• Restrict the distribution of non-personalized advertising messages. Companies are still prohibited from sending customers irrelevant marketing offers, news, and mass promotional mailings;
• Limit the number of messages. Limits on the number of messages sent remain for companies. Also, limits on algorithms sending a message continue to be lowered if customers complain;
• Need to register templates. Non-transactional messages can only be sent after the corresponding templates are registered;
• Preliminary confirmation. Before sending, the client must agree to receive relevant advertising messages;
• Re-communication designation. From the template, it should be clear that the recipient of the messages is already a customer of the company or has previously communicated with it.

Companies should also:

• Limit the sending time. Non-transactional marketing messages are prohibited from being sent at night, early morning and weekends;
• Generate customer expectations. Before obtaining the consent of customers to distribute, it is necessary to indicate the categories of messages that will be sent to them;
• Take care of the brand's reputation. For example, provide convenient instructions on unsubscribing from mailing, limit the number of messages per day, improve the quality of information in the template text (limit the number of emoticons, exclude grammatical errors);
• Indicate whether messages are relevant. The mailing list should indicate that the message is useful to the customer. This can be done with the phrase "Recently you were interested in the product...";
• Don't make the customer wait. When the company received a response from the recipient of the message, then feedback must be given immediately. If there is no free operator at this moment, then at the end of the message you should add information about how the client can independently contact the company;
• Do not send messages with negative context. This applies, for example, to the category of collection - collection of overdue debts;
• Use rich channel content. Add images, videos, and documents to the message text as needed.

A/B testing is also required before large-scale distribution of non-transactional messages. This will allow you to find messages that do not receive complaints from users, indicate the best frequency of sending and highlight mailings with the best marketing indicators. Every month, it is recommended to analyze the channel rating and message patterns, the best frequency of mailing and customer satisfaction.

2019

"Laboratory Nanosemantic" got the opportunity to make chatbots for WhatsApp

On July 29, 2019, the Skolkovo Foundation "" announced that the Laboratory company Nanosemantics had the opportunity to officially do chat boats for. messenger WhatsApp You can register a business account in it only by receiving technical documentation. The connection was provided by the company, Infobip which is the official provider WhatsApp Business. More. here

Access to WhatsApp Business API for Naumen Omni-Channel customers

On May 30, 2019 the Russian , the company NAUMEN announced the conclusion of a partnership agreement with the company - Infobip in provider WhatsApp. Russia Partnership with Infobip will simplify access to the WhatsApp Business application for API all companies using. NAUMEN Communication Solutions More. here

Audience - 5 million companies

On January 24, 2019, it became known that in the first year of WhatsApp Business, the audience of the corporate messenger amounted to 5 million companies. The service celebrated its first anniversary with the introduction of several new business features in web and desktop versions of the application.

So, support for shortcuts was added to help you better organize and find chats and messages faster. Users can create shortcuts in different colors and add a shortcut to an entire chat or to a specific message in correspondence.

Adding shortcuts to WhatsApp Business

Also in WhatsApp Business appeared filtering the list of chats (the ability to sort by groups, mailing lists and unread messages) and quick responses.

Quick answers are answers to popular questions that companies send to customers most often. You need to press the "/" key on the keyboard to select and send a quick response.

WhatsApp administration says the innovations are being introduced to make it easier for business owners to send bills, schedule appointments and be able to respond to customer requests using their own computer.

Using these features on a computer will give companies the opportunity to save time and quickly contact their customers. We will continue to develop the WhatsApp Business application and introduce new features that will help customers find companies of interest and communicate with them, the service's blog says.

WhatsApp notes that the corporate messenger has helped a large number of companies with business development. For example, Indian optics salon chain Glassic said that 30% of the company's sales came from the WhatsApp Business app. In India, by January 2019, there are more than 200 million WhatsApp users, in the world - over 1.5 billion.^[1]

2018

WhatsApp imposes fee on companies to send messages to customers

In early August 2018, the administration of the WhatsApp messenger announced that a fee was being introduced for companies to send messages to customers. The innovation, which will extend to messages from support services and advertising, should significantly reduce the mass sending of spam.

Since we launched the WhatsApp Business app, people have been telling us they are much quicker to chat companies than to call or email her. Today, we are expanding our support for businesses that require advanced tools to communicate with customers, according to the August 1 WhatsApp blog.

WhatsApp introduces paid business messaging service

WhatsApp did not name the rates for the companies. According to the Reuters news agency, the cost of advertising messages and messages from support services will be fixed at between 0.5 cents and 9 cents, depending on the country.

The messenger will provide an opportunity to request the necessary information from the company, leaving the phone number on the site or in the application, start a chat using the direct link icon on the company's website or in its advertising on Facebook, as well as contact the support service.

The services of sending some messages will be paid for companies, so companies will be selective in which messages to send, and in your chats there will be no disorder. In addition, your messages are still protected by end-to-end encryption, and you can block any company with one click, WhatsApp reported.

As in early August 2018, about 1.5 billion people around the world use the WhatsApp service.

The WhatsApp message also said that over time, the service will increase the number of companies represented on WhatsApp. To do this, it is planned to work directly with hundreds of companies, some of which specialize in managing communication with customers.^[2]

Going public

On January 18, 2018, the WhatsApp Business corporate messenger was released. At the time of launch, the service is completely free, but in the future the developers intend to monetize it.

At the first stage, a version of WhatsApp Business for Android devices is available. A little later, a version for the iPhone and iPad will appear.

WhatsApp has released a messenger for business

By January 19, 2018, the service is only available in five countries: the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico and the United States. Geography will expand in the coming weeks, the WhatsApp administration says.

The developers note the following main features of WhatsApp Business:

• Business profiles. Customers can find useful information with a business description, email address, website, and company address.
• Message management. You can configure quick answers to frequently asked questions, welcome messages (to familiarize customers with the company's business ), and "Out of Office" messages to notify customers of employment.
• Statistics. The service provides various indicators, for example, the number of messages read, helping companies understand which ways of communication bring the best result.
• WhatsApp Web. Working with WhatsApp Business on your computer.
• Account type. People will know that they are communicating with the company if a business account is specified. Over time, some companies will be able to get "verified business accounts" - after checking that the account's phone number matches the company's phone number.

WhatsApp Business can be used for free, but in the future the company will think about the possibilities of monetizing the service. It is too early to discuss this issue, WhatsApp Chief Operating Officer Matt Idema told Reuters. Earlier, WhatsApp refused to advertise, believing that this way of earning money would negatively affect the popularity of the^[3]

2017: Announcement

In September 2017, the WhatsApp administration announced the creation of a free WhatsApp Business app for small organizations. Large companies will pay for some of the messenger's functions.

The WhatsApp message says that air carriers, banks, online stores and other companies will be able to use the service in order to send useful notifications to their customers, for example, information about the departure time and notifications about the delivery of goods.

WhatsApp creates a version of the messenger for business

Although WhatsApp does not say directly about plans to charge large customers, TechCrunch writes that the company could monetize tools for business by taking money for bank transactions or for the services of a chatbot based on artificial intelligence technologies that could communicate with users.^[4]

In addition, WhatsApp COO Matt Idema in an interview with The Wall Street Journal confirmed the company's plans to make money on business clients.

We want to create a fundamental framework for people to be able to send messages to companies and get the answers they want. In the future, we intend to charge enterprises a fee, - said Idema.

He did not disclose details about the paid functions and the timing of their launch, noting that the monetization plan had not yet been invented. A WhatsApp spokesman did not rule out that someday the service will advertise.^[5]

In March 2017, Reuters reported that WhatsApp was testing features for corporate users. Then it was about tools that would help companies communicate directly with regular WhatsApp users.

According to the publication, the new service was tested in conjunction with several companies created using the Y Combinator startup incubator. A survey of users was also conducted about whether they communicate with companies via WhatsApp and whether they receive spam from them.

By September 6, 2017, WhatsApp Business is being tested. The launch dates for the product are not named.

Notes