The success of the WhatsApp messaging app worldwide has been unquestionable. The vast majority of people with internet access use this mobile app to communicate on a day-to-day basis. Until now, the use had been mostly personal and every day but more recently, WhatsApp has wanted to create a space for professionals and companies that want to communicate with their customers through this channel.

It arrived in Spain at the end of January 2018 and since then only a few companies have made use of it. If you still do not use WhatsApp Business for your online travel agency, this article will convince you. Do not stop reading!

How to create an account in WhatsApp Business

The process of creating the WhatsApp Business account is really simple. The first thing you should do is download the app to your mobile. Once downloaded, you have to verify your number and register. Then you can access the application, which is very similar to WhatsApp but has some distinctive features.

To start with, you can optimise your profile with the company information that you think might be most useful to your customers. This information can include not only a description of your business but you can also mark the location of your travel agency on a map and indicate your business hours as well as the different ways in which you can be contacted. In the latter, you can add both your email and your website, really relevant data for users who wish to contact you.

How to optimise your WhatsApp Business account

As well as filling in the relevant information as we mentioned previously (location, website, opening and closing hours, email or company description), there are also other aspects that we can optimise from our account such as automated messages.

With a limit of 200 characters, we can create predefined welcome messages which greatly facilitates the management of this messaging app. You can also create automatic messages for customers who message us after more than 14 days without having maintained contact with them.

There is the same character limit for absence messages. We can mark our availability schedule on WhatsApp Business and the absence message will be sent to all users who contact us outside of it. Finally, we can also define some quick answers that will be included with the autofill system.

Advantages of using WhatsApp Business in your online travel agency

• Direct communication with the client and the immediacy that comes with it. It is a way to streamline and facilitate communication between the parties.
• Message automation: You can prepare your absence and welcome messages, as well as automatic responses that save you time.
• Account verification: The risk of some people posing as companies and causing more or less serious deception was a cause for concern. However, with the app verification system, this has been fixed. Customers will know if the user who speaks to them is the company’s official account or not.
• Statistics: We can obtain relevant data about our activity in the app. At the moment, the number of messages sent, received and read by our audience is shown. All this allows us to improve our strategy on this channel. Although at the moment this is very basic data, in the future, new data can be expected in these statistics.

Due to the recent creation and implementation of the app, it is still being tested. The best is still to come. If you still do not use WhatsApp My Business in your online travel agency, do not hesitate and start taking advantage of it. You will be able to approach your clients to answer their questions and you will facilitate contact with your company through this channel.