WhatsApp Business: Creating and setting up a business account – Comprehensive Guide

WhatsApp has announced that it has launched a business service (WhatsApp Business) to create a business account. With this account, you, business owners, can create a business page for your business, add information about your business including hours of activity, address, and category, automated messages, and analytics.

WhatsApp launched the app in a few countries, but it seems that the app is now available in many countries. This is why we have decided to create a guide for you how to create a business account through WhatsApp Business. It is important to note that this is not the usual application of WhatsApp.

Ready? We start the guide.

What Is WhatsApp Business?

Before we talk and explain how to create a business account, it is important to know what a WhatsApp business account is. When you understand this, you will decide whether you need to download and install the application on your device.

WhatsApp Business is an application designed to help small business owners communicate with their customers, respond more quickly to messages, get analytical information and more. The application is very similar to the standard application you probably know.

Important: At this point, you can download the app for Android devices. In current usage, you can also use your computer via WhatsApp Web.

Some of the features that WhatsApp Business offers are:

• A business profile with information about your business, phone, address, website, email and more.
• Statistics include how many messages were sent, how many messages were received and how many messages were read by customers.
• Tagging customers to make it easy to know what a customer is and whether it’s just an interested customer.
• Automatic messages such as greeting messages, auto-reply messages, etc.

In addition, there are 3 verification levels of a business account:

1. Verified – WhatsApp verified that a trusted and official brand is the owner of this account. A verified account has a green markup in the profile.
2. Approved – WhatsApp has confirmed that the phone number of the account is compatible with the phone number of the business. An approved account has a gray markup in the profile.
3. Business account – WhatsApp did not approve or verify the account, but it is a business account. A business account has a gray question mark tag in the profile.

This information can be seen by the customer as soon as he enters a business account of a brand or business.

First requirements

In order to download the WhatsApp Business application, you must ensure that your system requirements meet the requirements of the application. These are the requirements:

Android

• The operating system version is 2.3.3 or later.
• Your device is capable of receiving phone calls or SMS messages.

These requirements are the standard application requirements, so if you have Android installed, there’s no problem installing the app for businesses.

iOS

• The operating system version is 8 or later.
• Your device is capable of receiving phone calls or SMS messages.

Windows Phone

• The operating system version is 8.1 or later.
• Your device is capable of receiving phone calls or SMS messages.

Download and install the application

The next step is to download the application to your mobile device. But before you download the app for business, you need to know a few things:

• If you have a standard WhatsApp account, you can transfer all call/chat history to a WhatsApp Business account. We recommend that you back up.
• You will not be able to transfer your call/chat history back to your regular WhatsApp account once you decide to stop using a business account.
• Both applications (WhatsApp Messenger and WhatsApp Business) can be used on the same mobile provided they have 2 different phone numbers. You can not use the same phone number for both.

Once you’ve decided to download and install the app, you’ll need to do the following:

Downloa for Android and iOS devices

• Download WhatsApp Business app via Google Play for Android devices or via AppStore for iPhone iOS devices.
• Verify your phone number with which you want to talk to customers.
• Restore call history if desired.
• Adding a name to your business (this step, you can not change your business name once you’ve set it up).
• Build a business page (next step).

Set up a business page

Now the part of setting up a business page remains.

To start the business page setting you must click the menu button (icon 3 points) at the top > then click Settings > then click on Business Settings > and then click on Profile.

Now you are on your business page, where your business information needs to be updated. To edit, click the pencil icon.

• Profile picture – The image must be of your business, a logo is recommended. The smallest size is 192 pixels by 192 pixels.
• Location – here you must specify your business address, you can also use the map that is there.
• Category – Choose the right category for your business.
• Business Description – Here is a description of your business, it is recommended to specify a description found on your site or on the Facebook page.
• Business hours – You can update the hours of your business.
• E-mail – Email where customers can contact you, we recommend using a business email.
• Website – Add your website here. It is recommended to add links to your social networks such as your Facebook page, the Instagram page, etc.

Then, check that everything is normal and correct. Then click the “Save” button.

Set up automatic messages

Using WhatsApp Business you can set up automated messages for your customers.

To start the business page setting, click on the menu button (icon 3) at the top > then click Settings > then click Business Settings > and then continue to the “Messaging Tools” section. Where you can edit these messages.

• Away Messages – Automatic messages can be set as soon as you are not available or out of the office. You can also schedule these messages automatically at certain times, for example when your business is closed.
• Greeting Messages – You can set a notification to be displayed to customers when they first call or after 14 days of inactivity.
• Quick Replies – You can create predefined messages and create keyboard shortcuts for them to save the time to send the message.

Sending messages to customers without saving the phone

If you want your customers to contact you without saving the WhatsApp Business phone in their contacts, or vice versa, you can contact customers without adding their phone in your contacts – then you can create a dedicated link and share it on other marketing channels and especially on your site.

For more information, you can read the guide to sending WhatsApp messages without saving your contacts.

In addition, it is possible to create such a link using a special tool developed by Netolink called a WhatsApp link generator.

What is WhatsApp Business API?

WhatsApp Business API This is a service that allows interfacing of external systems to your business WhatsApp account. These systems can offer additional solutions that make using WhatsApp more efficient. For example, it will be possible to connect from several computers on the same phone number without using WhatsApp Web (where everything is more limited).

At this time, the service is not available in many locations around the world, and we’ll keep you posted with changes. In addition, we are learning the system in order to offer a more efficient and quality solution to our customers – if you are interested, leave your details here below in the contact form.

How To Get An Official Business WhatsApp Account?

The Business Account of WhatsApp can be registered as an official business account or a regular business account. An official business account is given in a few cases where WhatsApp recognizes that this is a real account of the business and there are a variety of factors.

You can not apply for a formal account or even pay for it – it does not work. The change was made only according to the company’s decision.

Conclusion

That’s it on the topic of creating and setting up a WhatsApp Business account. We highly recommend using a dedicated phone for business and not using your private phone – it is best to avoid mixing friends and family with business customers.

The next step is to correspond with your customers, you can also tag them and get statistical information about them.