Marketing Automation
Mar 19, 2020
Pau Klein
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All About the Finally-Launched Salesforce to WhatsApp Integration

Home > Marketing Automation > All About the Finally-Launched Salesforce to WhatsApp Integration
Salesforce recently announced one of its most long-anticipated integrations: that of WhatsApp as a customer service channel. Brands now have even more ways to communicate with their customers to offer a more comprehensive experience.

 Salesforce WhatsApp

Source: UMS Tech Labs

Salesforce and Whatsapp gave us the good news that the world’s Number 1 CRM has official authorization from Facebook to offer its customers the ability to communicate with customers using their messaging app. The move turns Salesforce into one of the first global enterprises to enable this integration that has long been on the wishlist for many brands. What gives WhatsApp such potential? With more than 1.6 billion users in 180 countries, many firms have long seen WhatsApp as a critical piece of their marketing, customer loyalty, and customer service strategies. 

Salesforce and WhatsApp shake up customer service 

The CRM firm took advantage of the launch of its Spring Release to announce that customers can now set up WhatsApp as another customer service channel. This new functionality gives customer service agents the power to talk to customers over WhatsApp just as they already could via email, over the phone, text (SMS) messages, or Facebook Messenger. Brands can also send out a series of pre-approved notifications.

According to Salesforce, this change applies to Lightning Experience for the Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions. As we’ll show you, you’ll need a Facebook Business Manager account to activate the integration. 

You can learn more about some of the essential components of WhatsApp’s integration with Salesforce in this video: 

 

Critical details about the WhatsApp Salesforce connector 

We have to make clear that the goal of this integration is to attend to customers and provide them service through a new channel when they need it. Therefore, we won’t be able to deploy large-scale Marketing Automation campaigns nor indiscriminate spam over WhatsApp.

We can, however, communicate with customers when they request it, whether it be about topics that Facebook (WhatsApp’s parent company) already authorized or with the templates you already have pre-approved. The control measures seek to avoid turning WhatsApp into a constant fountain of promotional and sales messaging. 

To ensure that it remains this way, brands can only carry out conversations with users in two ways

1. Customer-company communication over WhatsApp:

If the customer contacts the company directly over WhatsApp, the customer service agents can attend to their queries directly in Service Cloud Console. They’ll also be able to automate a series of prior messages using Einstein Bots (we’ll show you how to do that down below). 

Salesforce WhatsApp chat console 

Source: Salesforce App Exchange

2. Company-client communication over WhatsApp:

A brand can start a conversation with a customer on WhatsApp but only using pre-approved notifications. Salesforce published a list of what you can send and their permitted uses. They are: 

Salesforce customers must receive prior approval for their messages to send out these notifications. Every brand can create up to 250 templates that WhatsApp will review in a maximum period of four business days. All you’ll have to do is send the information over email and wait for the messaging app to give you the green light to upload the notification onto Salesforce. 

How to connect WhatsApp to Salesforce 

Before your customers can send you WhatsApps and you can reply from Sales Console, you have to have a Salesforce account. Along with that, there are some other requirements to fulfill: 

  • Have Lightning Experience or Salesforce Classic in the Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, or Developer editions.

  • Have a Digital Engagement, Service Cloud, and Chat user license. 

  • Have an approved WhatsApp Business account, as well as a verified Facebook Business Manager account. 

 

1. Set up your WhatsApp account on Facebook Business Manager by sending an email to  [email protected] with the subject “WhatsApp Number Setup.” Include the following information in the body of your message: 

  • Salesforce Org ID.

  • Facebook Business Manager ID.

  • The name attached to your Facebook Business Manager ID.

  • The WhatsApp number along with the name and email address to validate the ownership of the phone number, the company name you want to show up on WhatsApp, and if the phone number is a cellphone or landline.

  • You can also send a company description, logo, and website URL. 

2. Going into your WhatsApp channel from the Lightning Experience settings. Write “Messaging” in the search bar and select “Messaging Settings.” Once you go into “Channels,” you should automatically see WhatsApp. 

The WhatsApp Salesforce API integration is another Salesforce solution focused on creating integrated, connected, omnichannel experiences. The introduction of WhatsApp as a customer service channel will give brands the chance to boost their customer service, and in turn, increase their reputation and loyalty. 

 

Customer support automation with Einstein Bots

Salesforce’s Einstein Bots will also be available for WhatsApp. Brands will be able to program or automate messages on WhatsApp just like they’ve been doing on Facebook Messenger or with standard text (SMS) messages.  

Einstein Bots is a tool designed from creating and administering bots that help customer service teams manage customer queries and complaints. This technology can answer typical questions or routine cases, freeing up agents to work on more complex cases. 

You can see all the possibilities stemming from this tool in this video:

You’ll need to have installed your company’s WhatsApp within Einstein Bots. Once that step’s complete, go into the main “Bot Builder” page, click “Add” in the “Channel menu,” then select WhatsApp as the channel and the channel name in the “Deployment field.”

This functionality will make automating specific answers very straightforward to try to help users before they have to speak with an agent. Users can then make queries over WhatsApp while receiving automated responses in real-time, all with significant time-savings for the customer support teams. 

Our customers spend more time than ever on their smartphones, and they want to talk to us using one of the world’s most popular messaging apps: WhatsApp. If we’re already doing it with most self-employed professionals, why not do it with medium-sized and large corporations? 

You could only carry out these communications without the official backing of WhatsApp nor any traceability. Now we can communicate with our customers over WhatsApp with these benefits: 

  • In real-time.

  • In any organized manner. 

  • With official backing from WhatsApp (Facebook Inc.).

  • With performance analytics. 

  • With a history of communications. 

  • With contact center agent traceability. 

  • Greater efficiency in carrying out cases and boosting productivity. 

  • Improving the SLA (Service Level Agreement).

  • Automating responses, alerts, and notifications (Einstein Bots).

What’s most important is that we’ll improve customer satisfaction through their ability to communicate with us over WhatsApp by also receiving relevant communications without the risk of us turning into spam.

Therefore, as a result of the agreement between Salesforce.com Inc. and Facebook, Inc., customer service over WhatsApp is now a reality. There’s only one question left to ask yourself: do you want us to help you open up this channel with 1.6 billion customers? 



 

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