WhatsApp is a family app that brings people close to each other. For years, Facebook has been working on its messaging apps platforms that will become ubiquitous to every user’s daily communication. In the last few months, we have seen Facebook trying hard no its DevOps to create the best messaging and social media integration for Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. In the first break of sorts, WhatsApp Business has managed to achieve a feat that puts it in the league of pioneers in omnichannel messaging, a triumph no other social media marketing and advertising company could boast of so far.

So, what’s Facebook doing with WhatsApp for Business in 2020?

WhatsApp Business has been under serious upgrade for the last 12-18 months, bringing a new leash of automation, CX and AI-based messaging recommendations to connect businesses of all sizes and activities with their customers. Recently, the Business user group reached a big milestone — acquiring 50 million registered users, a steep growth since its launch in 2018.

In order to further improve the existing features and capabilities, WhatsApp Business DevOps teams is now focusing on the new-normal trends that have emerged during the pandemic.

These are:

Product Experiences and Shopping Optimization

Users would be able to check out available products and make purchases right from a chat. These could be linked to existing e-commerce sites and customer support solutions such s phone call, chats, email or landing pages.

Facebook Hosting Services

Facebook is now offering unique hosting services to SMBs and enterprises so that they can meet customer communications demands with a customized technology suite. It will offer special WhatsApp business plans to partners and vendors who have worked on the hosting idea for the last 2 years. These would entail users to leverage and consolidate WhatsApp Business technology crafted for them and hosted on Facebook that the company plans to offer soon. These would open new opportunities for users with optimized real-time and accurate inventory management, in addition to hosting employee collaboration platforms on the WhatsApp Business platform itself.

Business Sales

WhatsApp for Sales teams is a real thing. More and more business groups are leveraging WhatsApp group features to communicate with their Field Sales and Account reps.

Facebook, therefore, will charge business customers for some of the services that are built uniquely for the user groups. These would enable WhatsApp DevOps to continue building a business of its own while the technology continues to support and expand free end-to-end encrypted text, video, and voice calling to its existing free-to-use community.

Will WhatsApp Business in 2021 Become what Email has been in MarTech Stacks?

In my honest opinion, yes, it will – especially when it comes to per messaging costs and subsequent ROI are calculated.

Currently, more than 175 million people every day message a WhatsApp Business account. Users prefer to message a business to get help and they’re more likely to make a purchase when they can do so. The leading user groups leveraging WhatsApp Business belong to high traction consumers from retail, real estate, banking and insurance, medical and healthcare, education and media publishing. Gaming, online dating and community building apps are also fast catching up with the trends of using WhatsApp for business.

According to Facebook, there has been a seismic shift in its users’ group’s behavior toward social messaging apps for business and community interactions. In such a scenario, where business groups are looking for an agile medium to communicate with their prospects, customers and vendors / channel partners, WhatsApp Business is a reliable tool to offset a part of messaging activities that was otherwise heavily dominated by SMS, Phone calls, Emails, and chats. When marketing budgets for communications are getting slashed, social media messaging apps and chats offer a higher ROI to marketing teams, especially when we compare email marketing performance metrics to that of social media messaging.

With the Business app, WhatsApp is continuing to get closer to customers who would pay them to improve features, services, and technologies for a better UI UX, Customer experience, and security. In short, WhatsApp Business is everything an SMB or Enterprise needs today to deliver that “personal” touch to every customer with a sense of accountability–if we focus on security alone, it’sa big step considering the way users are worried about sharing their personal data and information with business callers. In 2021, security would no longer be at the backseat of the modern CX-maniac marketing technology stacks. WhatsApp shows how.