How to use the WhatsApp Business solution in Telecoms

As per all other sectors dealing with customer queries in the Telecoms sector, you're likely to encounter many recurring questions throughout the day. For example, questions relating to new subscriptions or increasing or decreasing internet bundles. If you have to answer all these questions individually, you can imagine it to become very time-consuming for your customer support centre. Wouldn't it be easier to answer these questions before they are asked, with proactive notifications such as when a subscription expires, or a phone is about to be delivered? The WhatsApp Business API has a way to make things a bit easier on your customer support centre. 

How? With Message Templates.

What are Message Templates, you ask? Message Templates are pre-approved messages that you can send in both inbound and outbound communication with your customers. Companies can use these messages to send notifications to those customers with an active opt-in for WhatsApp notifications. To personalise the message, you can use the numbered placeholders {x} filled with letters, digits, special characters and spaces. Below we explain this process with some examples of how you can use these Message Templates to optimise customer care in the telecoms industry.

WhatsApp notifications in Telecoms 

Contract information: A common question in the telecoms industry is about the duration of a contract. Of course, consumers can call your customer service department about this. Still, wouldn't it be easier if the consumer could send a WhatsApp message from the mobile number in question, asking when the contract expires, and that this message would then be answered by a virtual assistant that would communicate the expiry date of the contract to that phone number? Fast response for the consumer, time saved for customer service. 

Hi {1}, your mobile subscription with <Telecomprovider> expires on {2} and can be renewed from {3}.  

Orders: Did the customer sign a new contract with the delivery of a new mobile phone? Or is a mechanic coming to connect to the internet? With WhatsApp, you give the opportunity to arrange a suitable time for delivery.

You have signed a contract for {1}. To connect with you as soon as possible, we would like to make an appointment for our mechanic to visit you. Select the period here. An appointment takes about 1 hour.

Change packages: Many telecom providers offer the possibility to change packages monthly. Isn't it useful if the customer can arrange it with your virtual assistant or customer service team? WhatsApp is a low-threshold way for consumers to contact you, and thanks to Message Templates, you can easily send a complete response to an incoming request.

Hello! Do you want to downgrade your subscription? By {1} we will change your subscription to {3}. You can change this at any time.

Payment problems: It is also possible that you may have to contact a customer yourself, for example, in the event of non-payment. You can use WhatsApp to solve this problem quickly and easily. For example, you can send a reminder e-mail, but you can also do this via WhatsApp once the customer has opted in. This way, customers can open the internet banking app directly from a mobile phone and make the payment online.

Dear {1}, we see that your payment for this month has not been received. Please check if there is a sufficient balance in your bank account. We will try again this week.

Opt-in

Important to note is that you will need an active opt-in from your customer to receive the specified information for outbound use of these Templates. There are various ways in which you can get opt-ins from your customers. Otherwise, they may be used only in the customer care window initiated by the customer. Suppose a customer has any questions after receiving your notifications. In that case, the customers can ask for more information by simply replying to your message, opening up such a customer care window in which you can communicate freely. So besides using Message Templates, of course, you can also have a spontaneous chat, where you can type your messages with rich media in response to a customer-initiated conversation. 

Get started with WhatsApp Business

Are you ready to take your customer care to the next level? Request a WhatsApp Business account today and explore the many other possibilities it holds for your business.