WhatsApp for Business has, for a long time, underpinned the way businesses interact with customers and vice-versa.
It helps businesses across industries drive lead generation, sales, support, feedback collection, and campaigns to maximize ROI, increase revenue, and win customer loyalty.
Customer experience is at the heart of these use cases as businesses acquire customer consent to send marketing and promotional messages, transactional messages, account notifications, service updates, and much more. When customers provide consent to receive business messages, it leads to more streamlined and personalized communication that is a win-win for customers and businesses.
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Flows are among the latest WhatsApp Business features designed to further improve the quality of interactions between customers and businesses.
In this blog, let’s find out more about WhatsApp Flows, who’s it for, and its use cases.
What Are WhatsApp Flows?
It’s a WhatsApp Business platform feature allowing businesses to offer their services on WhatsApp. With Flows, businesses can build customized journeys to elevate customer experiences and unlock higher efficiency of AI Assistants and agent solutions.
In a blog article, WhatsApp explains: “We’re launching Flows so businesses can offer more experiences like quickly choosing your train seat, ordering a meal or booking an appointment – all without leaving your chat. With Flows, businesses will be able to provide rich menus and customizable forms that support different needs.”
Introducing WhatsApp Flows Features for More Versatility and Better Engagement
As of October 2024, Meta introduced exciting new capabilities for WhatsApp Flows, making it more versatile and user-friendly for businesses.
RichText component allows businesses to present information in richer formats, including product lists with images, links, and text styling like bold and italics. This makes it easier for customers to navigate and engage with detailed content directly within WhatsApp.
Additionally, businesses can now define Flows directly through the Template API, streamlining the process by removing the need for separate Flow creation, reducing development time.
The web preview feature has also been upgraded, allowing for interactive Flow previews and integration into websites via iframes, making testing and embedding much simpler.
These feature releases offer businesses a smoother, more efficient experience in building and managing interactive customer engagements for enhanced user interactions and seamless, real-time support across WhatsApp.
Several additional features are also being introduced on WhatsApp Flows, with Date Picker, Location Sharing, and Progress Indicator showing the steps remaining in the Flow, among those to be integrated.
Applications of Flows
Flows expand the range of functionalities for businesses using WhatsApp to engage with customers and power their day-to-day operations. Form fields can be seamlessly integrated into customer journeys for data collection for:
- Appointment booking
- Product launch announcement
- Account management
- Event registrations and promotions
- Feedback collection
This method of data collection not only improves accuracy and customer satisfaction but also helps glean valuable insights for personalized customer interactions and improving services.
Meta has launched the use case "Collect purchase interest" to allow businesses to capture user opt-in for festive promotions. Using WhatsApp Flows, businesses can get users to register to receive festive sale alerts based on the product categories of their interest. This allows for targeted promotions, enhancing the user experience, and boosting the rate of conversion during peak shopping seasons such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The use case can also be adapted to collect user interest for webinar registrations, newsletter opt-ins, event notifications, and more.
Use Cases of WhatsApp Flows
Businesses with an active WhatsApp Business account can set up Flows for various use cases and to unlock business value. In fact, Flows can be implemented as part of Meta’s various conversation categories to make campaigns more effective and streamline task completion.
|
Conversation category |
How Flows help |
Applications |
|
Marketing |
Automate and personalize marketing campaigns by providing targeted content directly to customers. |
|
|
Utility |
Streamline operations and transactional processes using automated WhatsApp messages. |
|
|
Service |
Offer personalized customer service and support through automated WhatsApp interactions. |
|
Product & Services Information
Businesses can use Flows to provide insurance quotes and coverage pertaining to health, two- and four-wheelers, finance, and more. They can also be leveraged to reduce customer churn by renewing deals, cross-selling products, and more to increase revenue and trigger loyalty.
Lead Generation & Conversion
According to success stories of Meta partners, brands have achieved higher rates of conversion and sales by using Flows compared to the results of chatbot-led engagement.
Businesses can collect high-quality leads that convert downstream with WhatsApp Flows. Whether it’s placing an order, scheduling a demo, or signing up for a service - businesses can use WhatsApp Flows to generate leads by proactively engaging with customers. WhatsApp's high open (98% on average) and response rates ensure that messages sent within WhatsApp Flows drive higher engagement and conversion. 
Customer Support
Customer support is key to not just acquiring customers but also driving retention. WhatsApp Flows help automate routine customer support tasks, such as FAQs, appointment scheduling, and query resolution. This automation ensures timely responses and consistent service, reducing customer wait times and improving satisfaction.
Customer Engagement
The ability to create customized journeys allows businesses to foster stronger customer relationships. Flows help with engaging customers and encouraging them to participate in their own journey by sharing preferences and concerns. This seamless flow of information between customers and businesses ensures that the latter don’t just respond to every customer’s needs and pain points but also deliver tailored solutions, which is the hallmark of phenomenal customer service.
The Power of WhatsApp Flows for Lead Generation - A Case Study
Kotak Life Insurance (KLI) is an industry leader serving a wide range of customers with insurance products for annuity, protection, retirement, savings, and more. The company had deployed an AI-powered conversational solution for customer engagement and lead generation. Insurance buyers interact seamlessly with the AI assistant to purchase insurance policies, receive claims, and get policy information, among other personalized services.
However, after WhatsApp introduced Flows, KLI collaborated with Haptik to integrate the feature on its AI conversational assistant. The insurance provider engaged insurance buyers with bulk WhatsApp notifications campaigns to drive users to interact with the Flows-enabled AI assistant..png?width=900&height=471&name=Kotak-case-study-130324(2).png)
When users initiate a conversation, Flows help KLI with collecting name, date of birth, email address, and other essential information that users provide via an interactive form for insurance purchase, policy claims, and document uploads.
This personalized experience helped KLI scale its lead generation by 400%, as well as reduce drop-offs by 75%.
Conclusion
As businesses seek meaningful and personalized ways to connect with customers, WhatsApp Flows help businesses to engage customers, drive customer satisfaction, and loyalty. The best part is Flows have been integrated with WhatsApp message templates, making it seamless for businesses to build Flows templates within a short turnaround time without developer knowledge. Flows allow businesses to build and refine their rich and unique journeys tailored for WhatsApp.
