INTRODUCTION
According to Statista, WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messenger app worldwide, with approximately 2 billion monthly active users. It was acquired by Meta in 2014 and integrates with some of Meta’s other products.
WhatsApp Business can be particularly useful for hospitality and recreation businesses, as it allows them to attract new customers, drive sales, engage with their guests and build long-lasting customer relationships.
Following are some ways your hospitality or recreation business can use WhatsApp Business.
USE WHATSAPP MESSAGING TOOLS
While you can interact with your guests or potential customers in real-time, WhatsApp Business has a variety of messaging tools that hospitality and recreation businesses can use to help manage conversations.
Greeting Messages
Greeting messages are customizable automated messages that are delivered to individuals who message you for the first time or after 14 days of inactivity. Use them to create a welcoming introduction and encourage conversation with new guests or customers. You can also use them to set expectations for when they can expect a response.
For instance, if you are able to respond immediately, your message could be: “Thank you for reaching out to [name of your business]. How can we help you?”
If you are not as responsive on WhatsApp, consider a greeting like: “Thank you for your message. A member of our team will reach out to you in [timeframe].”
Away Messages
Activate your automated away message to inform guests or customers when you are truly unavailable. Like a greeting message, you can add custom language and be transparent about when you will respond. You can also set up recipient preferences and set up a schedule for your away messages.
Select “always” if you want your message to be active whenever it’s enabled. Create a custom schedule, which could match staff availability, to automatically enable your away message at specific times or set your away messages to activate outside of business hours. The latter will only work if your hours are listed in your business profile.
Quick Replies
Use quick replies to help save time when answering frequently asked questions. Hotels, for example, may often answer questions related to booking a room, using amenities or check-in/check-out times, while recreation businesses may see frequent inquiries about ticket or activity costs or hours of operation. You also can use quick replies to save messages you’d like to proactively send in the future.
To create a quick reply, write the body of your message and/or select a photo or video. Then create a shortcut by typing “/” and adding a recognizable word or phrase (e.g. /reservation, /tickets). Add up to three keywords that relate to your reply, such as room, reservation and book for a room reservation reply, and save your quick reply for later. You can store up to 50 quick replies at a time.
USE LABELS AND MAKE BROADCAST LISTS
Create labels to help organize important chats and messages and make them easier to find later. For instance, you can label a contact as a new customer or a frequent visitor, or you could label individual messages based on the topic. You can create up to 20 labels for your account.
Use those labels to create broadcast lists, which you can use to send relevant mass messages. Send welcome offers to new customers, for example, or promote your loyalty or membership program to people who have visited your establishment in the past to drive repeat business. You also can use your preset quick replies to share information with your lists.
Of note, only contacts who have added your number to their phone’s address book will receive broadcast messages. Make sure to communicate the benefits of saving your business as a contact during initial conversations — e.g., “Add us to your address book to receive exclusive offers.”
CREATE A CATALOG
Promote your products, services or special offers with a WhatsApp catalog, which is visible from your business profile. Hotels, for example, can add their room types (e.g., suites, single rooms, etc.), services such as in-house spa treatment options or other add-on amenities. Recreation businesses, on the other hand, can include different ticket packages, cafe items or merchandise, like branded clothing.
Go to “business tools” and click “catalog” to get started. From there, add a new item by including an image (640×640 pixels is recommended) and a title. Both of these fields are required. Provide more information in the optional fields, such as a description of your product or service, the corresponding price, a website URL and a product code.
Add up to 500 items to your catalog and organize them into different collections, or categories, to make them easier for guests and customers to find. For example, your hotel can group all room types into one collection and amenities into another.
SEND MARKETING MESSAGES
Create marketing messages to help drive bookings, boost foot traffic or increase sales. Go to Business tools and select “marketing messages” to get started. Then select an image from your media library, a product or service image from your catalog, a previous status update or a photo or video you recently shared.
Compose your message and select the “receiver name” field to customize your message with the recipient’s name. For example, you could create an offer to drive repeat bookings from guests, such as: “Hi {receiver name}. As a thank you for staying with us, we’d like to offer you 10% off your next visit.” If you run a recreation business, you could offer a freebie in your message, like: “Would you like to receive a free refreshment next time you come in, {recipient name}? Enter the code FreeRef on the checkout screen next time you purchase tickets.”
Marketing messages require a payment method for your account, as you must pay for each message that is delivered within five days of being sent.