Small firms find a friend in WhatsApp

For Sneha Sirivara, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur running Sambar Stories, popular messaging platform WhatsApp has been a great way to connect with customers.Even during the pandemic, the free-to-download app has been a boon for her as it enabled her to effectively tap into a broader customer base, particularly the older generation that isn't very comfortable placing orders online."WhatsApp has been our main channel of contact with our customers. The number of enquiries we have been receiving through WhatsApp during these times has increased tremendously. WhatsApp has been a great medium to connect with our customers about any queries or doubts they have about our business, products and delivery to their pin codes," says Sirivara.Samber Stories' growth has only been heading northwards and the young entrepreneur says she has bucked the trend during the pandemic with a rise of around 300% in the orders.Like Sirivara, thousands of entrepreneurs across the country are making the most of the world’s largest messaging platform to stay afloat through the current crisis. The latest wave of growth for the platform appears to be driven by a vast number of micro and SME entrepreneurs that have felt the need to go digital. Many, who operate in the margins of the informal economy, have been particularly hit by the nationwide lockdown. For them, WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business app, have emerged as a saviour, meeting all their day-to-day business communication needs.Numbers gameWhatsApp India user base today stands at 400 million. WhatsApp Business App, which comes with a host of business enabling features, boasts of over 50 million users globally. Of this, over 15 million or 30% are in India. Also, over 40 million users globally view a business catalogue on WhatsApp each month, and in India, more than 3 million users view a business catalogue on WhatsApp each month, says the company.So, what makes WhatsApp Business so popular among Indian SMEs?According to Abhishek D Sayam, Founder and Director of online bookstore Books by Kilo, it is the platform's various unique business enabling features that makes it helpful for small firms. The Mumbai-based entrepreneur underscores that WhatsApp Business audio and video call feature has helped the firm to reduce the cost of customer service and marketing by half in this critical phase.“We have been using WhatsApp video calls to give our customers a virtual tour of our book collection, which increased our customer interactions and generated more sales. Features such as instant messaging and group broadcasting of messages have helped us save time as we can promote our books to multiple contacts at once,” says Sayam. Incidentally, the firm has observed a 40% increase in sales ever since the lockdown was announced.Not just across commercial entities, WhatsApp enjoys popularity across a wide range of sectors. The country's social service sector could be cited as one of the platform’s key beneficiaries. The platform has been a great help during the pandemic by facilitating critical supplies to the needy.“Our groups on WhatsApp have helped us immensely in reaching out to the poor. We have created a WhatsApp group called Apni Roti Squad, which is mainly used to share the location of the roti-dispensing van so that anyone who wants to volunteer can come aboard,” says Bikash Agarwal, Founder of the social initiative, Apni Roti. The Kolkata based entrepreneur runs a mobile van that dishes out freshly made rotis (flatbread) to the needy. 78460556"Small businesses are the heart of local communities and the engine that makes the economy go. WhatsApp cares deeply about the small business community and is playing an instrumental role in helping those across the country connect with their customers, increase sales and grow their businesses. That's more important now than ever when digital tools can serve as a lifeline for businesses and customers to stay connected," says Abhijit Bose, Head of India, WhatsApp.Why WhatsApp clicks?Today, despite a plethora of messaging apps available, a majority of users prefer WhatsApp over its other alternatives. And users put forward a powerful reason for doing that so. One of the greatest advantages for WhatsApp has been the fact that it is ubiquitous and its UI is simple and well understood by the masses. People are comfortable dealing with the app and have found acceptance across the country."We're on all forms of social media to engage with our customers, but WhatsApp is the most direct and lightweight channel to directly deal with queries," reasons Sirivara. Her view is shared by many other SMBs that swear by the popular messaging platform.However, WhatsApp Business differs from the regular app that we use. Elaborating on some useful features now available on WhatsApp Business platform, Bose says creating a business profile lets a firm add important company details to their profile. This helps create a formal presence and gives a professional look. This also assures customers that they are interacting with a legitimate business.Also, with WhatsApp Catalog, businesses can create a free mobile storefront to showcase their goods or services, and customers can easily browse and discover things they might like to buy. There are then Catalog Links that make catalogs and individual items available to be shared as links on websites, Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere. Along with businesses, this also makes it easier for people to share a catalog or item they find with friends or family. 78460595Further, the platform's QR Codes are a digital front door that makes opening a chat with a business as easy as possible. People have to merely scan the QR code for a business to display its storefront, product packaging or to start a chat.Playing catch upThe biggest plus for WhatsApp is also one of its weak points–it cuts both ways. The simple user interface that everyone understands is not meant for business transactions. "One challenge that WhatsApp confronts is its desire to keep the UI uniform across geographies, whereas others like Google are more flexible around this issue. When you confront disparate payment architectures in different geographies, it is very challenging to build a one-size-fits-all UI. This has traditionally kept WhatsApp from innovating early in the payments space and still holds them back. For example, they still lack a seamless integration with UPI in India," says Utkarsh Sinha, MD of Bexley Advisors. Jayesh Chakravarthi, Co-founder and CEO, ReCast Technologies says that while WhatsApp as a general purpose communication app has done great, it has limitations. For doing business over WhatsApp one will realize that it was not explicitly designed for it. “For one, when consumers call a business on WhatsApp, they lose their confidentiality/privacy. Their mobile number is exposed & it can lead to unwanted, persistent return calls that can border on harassment,” says Chakravarthi.Chakravarthi adds that chat, voice & video communication is an important component of transacting business. However, there is more to business than just communication, such as scheduling meetings, keeping a record of items selected, order confirmation, payment, invoicing etc. “These activities that prefix & suffix a business conversation constitute the end-to-end workflow of a B2B or B2C transaction,” he says. WhatsApp was not designed for such transactions, and Chakravarthi points out that the platform has not made its APIs (Application Programming Interface) available to the technology community for it to innovate & extend the use of this tool for business. 78460607"Possibility of such an extension remains proprietary to the owner of the app - Facebook. When FB decides to add these appendages to WhatsApp, the million dollar question is what would it charge a business for its usage? Will this free-for-all, free-to-use App remain so, once they deploy it with business? We need to wait and watch,” he says.Jio impactIndia remains WhatsApp's biggest market. Several reasons ranging from many active internet users to being home to a young demographic, all have fueled the growth of the platform in the country.WhatsApp is the dominant instant messaging service in the country, but it has been quietly spreading its reach in the business community. Facebook Inc, the parent company of WhatsApp, has recently announced that it would invest $5.7-billion in Reliance Industries' Jio Platform. For WhatsApp, the key element of the deal with Jio includes being able to reach millions of SMEs in the country.“India has over 60 million small businesses and millions of people rely on them for jobs. With communities around the world in lockdown, many of these entrepreneurs need digital tools they can rely on to find and communicate with customers and grow their businesses. This is something we can help with - and that's why we're partnering with Jio to help people and businesses in India create new opportunities,” said Facebook Inc’s CEO Mark Mark Zuckerberg while announcing the mega deal with Reliance.Besides the mega deal, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail, and WhatsApp also inked a deal to support small businesses on WhatsApp. The move is aimed at mainstreaming the country’s largely untapped informal economy, particularly its massive Kirana (retail) economy.“Our recent collaboration with Jio has the potential to positively impact over 60 million micro, small and medium businesses. We will give them access to digital tools that will enable them to connect and interact with each other and their customers to grow and thrive in their business. We envision enabling people to browse the availability of shops, get answers from a business, and ultimately purchase a product right within WhatsApp chat with the business,” says Bose.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2SoBXML