WhatsApp Business API Now Supports More Types of Business Notifications

WhatsApp, the world’s leading messaging chat app with more than 2 billion monthly active users, is transforming the way businesses engage with customers. The popular messaging service has now just got a whole lot better, supporting more types of notifications!

Businesses use WhatsApp message templates to reach customers with time-critical and transactional notifications at scale. These notifications build stronger relationships with customers and provide consistent, relevant, and engaging customer experiences. From account updates letting customers know of any changes to their accounts to appointment updates reminding customers of upcoming appointments, customers are informed every step of the way on their favorite messaging channel.

In October 2020, WhatsApp decided to expand the list of notification types and tested non-transactional messages in Indonesia and Mexico. After a successful trial period, we are now excited to announce that WhatsApp has extended its support for non-transactional notifications to the following countries: Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Germany, Nigeria, Egypt, Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, U.S.

What are non-transactional messages?  

Non-transactional message notifications are messages businesses send to customers on WhatsApp. These can be product recommendations related to a customer’s previous purchase, helpful informational alerts, relevant offers, and other reminders of appointments or the abandonment of a shopping cart. 

Non-transactional messages cannot be marketing or broadcast messages, and customers need to explicitly opt-in for these notifications. This ensures a high quality of messaging and prevents irrelevant or spam messages from reaching customers.

Why send non-transactional messages?

Non-transactional notifications will let businesses support their customers better across the entire buyer journey as customers want to transact and hear more from their favorite businesses on WhatsApp. According to our Chat Commerce Trend Report, 88% of U.S. consumers use chat apps on their mobile devices, and 54% are already transacting with businesses via chat apps! As consumers’ behavior changes to interacting more on chat for a better and engaging customer experience, non-transactional messages on WhatsApp provide timely notifications to personalize the customer experience and offer the convenience to opt-out at any time.

Popular use cases per industry  

Businesses across verticals are now using non-transactional notifications to interact with and support their customers. Examples include:

• Financial Services: Product recommendations based on recent purchases (e.g., signing up for a new credit card, line of credit, or installment plan), relevant offers, and deals (e.g., credit card discounts and/or partnerships). 

• Telecommunications: A proactive reminder for top-ups before minutes run out, reminders about plan renewals before expiration, relevant offers and deals. 

• Ecommerce/Retail: Back in stock notifications, product recommendations based on recent purchases, relevant offers and deals, cart abandonment reminders for products not yet purchased, relevant new product introductions. 

• Travel: Price alerts for flights the customer is tracking, custom deals based on travel preferences, upsell offers in context (e.g. car booking), cart abandonment reminders for flights not yet purchased.

Is my WhatsApp business account eligible?

WhatsApp is extending the new notification capability to businesses registered in one of the countries listed above. If you are in one of these regions, you are good to go!

To check your business address in the FB Business Manager account that was used to register with WhatsApp, go to:

FB Business Manager  >> Settings  >> Business Info

Getting Started with non-transactional WhatsApp messages 

If your business is eligible to send proactive, non-transactional messages to your customers, you can get started immediately! As a Clickatell customer, you will not need any additional integration work on your API – simply create your template as you would before. 

Your messaging templates will still need to go through a review process for Commerce and Business Policy violations and to ensure that the formatting is correct. See here for additional details. 

To learn more on how to apply for Templates, check out our instruction guide.

The Clickatell team has more than 20 years of messaging experience and is here to help you implement the best practices for non-transactional notification messaging on WhatsApp.

Reach out to us today, so we can help you navigate the complexities of Chat Commerce on WhatsApp and get you closer to your customers than ever before!