WhatsApp Business + Salesforce + Chat on go

The need for customer interaction and management has been realized by businesses for a long time. The game has really changed with the advent of technology. Customers want to connect with businesses on readily available platforms that they are familiar with. And what easier way to fulfill this demand other than WhatsApp. With more than 1.5 billion users across 180 countries, WhatsApp is the leading messenger app in the world. So, it is no surprise that they launched WhatsApp Business to take advantage of the wide user base that they have. Another giant in the tech industry is the Salesforce CRM platform. It is a dominator in CRM with more than 150,000 users and 83% of market share among Fortune 500 companies. It is but natural to wonder how these two can be combined to create even more business value with better CRM.

In this blog, I will share my experience and findings for the implementation of WhatsApp business with Salesforce. 

Client Use Case

My client was a car dealership owner based in Italy. His company was selling cars of various brands from different store locations. They have a lot of inbound leads generated through WhatsApp from the website and we're looking for a solution to manage these contacts for their sales team. The issue was that the team was mostly in the stores busy with customer engagement and had limited accessibility to Salesforce on PC. The need was for a better way to connect with their customers through their mobile phones and simultaneously sync their chats with Salesforce.

My research  

After spending a lot of time in an attempt to find a solution like an application or API development services. I ended up reviewing lots of apps and attending 8 demos from different service providers like Screen Magic, SMS360, ValueText, and others. Here it would be good to state that the client was looking for a ready to use service. As a result, API integration service providers like Twilio and Nexmo were out of the question. This is because API integration has to be built from a scratch and takes a lot of time and investment which the client wasn’t ready for.

The Solutions and Findings

What is WhatsApp Business API

We are all familiar with WhatsApp personal and WhatsApp for Small Businesses. These are easily available on iOS and Android app stores. But they cannot be integrated with other business systems like Salesforce and other platforms.

Only WhatsApp business API is capable of integrating with the systems like Salesforce and any other platforms. The limitation of using WhatsApp Business API is that you can only configure one number with one WhatsApp service. This means that if you are already a WhatsApp Personal user, you cannot use the same number for WhatsApp Business.   

The Findings

After much effort, I narrowed down the ready-to-use application by ValueText.

ValueText has a functionality where you can chat from the phone and all chats can sync with Salesforce. This option helps sales teams to serve from their phones and sync chats with Salesforce. ValueText application is available on Android and iOS. Their ready-to-use application integrates WhatsApp with Salesforce, to allow business on the go! This lets you send WhatsApp messages to your customers directly from your phone.

ValueText was the clear winner in this case and here is some more information to prove that their application goes beyond mere integration. 

The ValueText Advantage

ValueText application brings a lot to the table in terms of features and functionality to provide a single platform for global messaging. 

1.       Easy to use

The app is extremely user friendly and easy to use. It has only two tabs that give all the functionality you need. One tab is for chats and the other one is for accessing Salesforce features. The chatting interface is similar to WhatsApp so it needs little time for the sales team to get familiar with it.

Find their website - https://valuetext.io/

Find them at AppExchange: https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000EFoedUAD

Figure 2 – ValueText’s Simple User Interface

2       Accessibility

The chat window seamlessly connects with the Salesforce tab giving easy access to existing object data like contacts, leads, case, and other objects. This helps in searching Salesforce records and initiating chat on the go. 

3.    Multi-language support and International Messaging

With technology, the world has become a smaller place. Realizing the global needs of businesses, ValueText offers Multi-language support for messaging. It also lets you integrate with the messaging service of any country at local prices.

4.    Dynamic  Templates

ValueText offers mobile apps having dynamic templates. This allows users to access real-time data from Salesforce and helps them to create custom message templates to communicate with their customers. These templates can be easily accessed to initiate sessions.

5.     Powerful Salesforce app

The ValueText app has many features for Salesforce like one conversation on detailed record, WhatsApp web-like chat console, automation texting (workflow/process builder/flow/apex), texting from reports, appointment reminders, bots, inbound leads capture and creation, case management with WA, omnichannel support & drip campaigns. This ensures successful integration and robust functionality.

Conclusion

Needless to say, I successfully implemented the ValueText solution for my client across their different stores. ValueText enabled the use of its advanced features for quick and easy communication with customers. It is a single platform automated solution that leverages the advantages of messaging with the power of Salesforce to give you the best of both worlds.