WhatsApp Business Account – what’s the difference?

I’m tending to use WhatsApp more frequently to offer support or just chat with clients and potential clients – I just have a normal WA account…. should I make it a business account?

Is there really much of an advantage?

If you are only using the messaging I don’t see any difference using one or the other. I use it because I have personal and business numbers on the same phone (dual SIM) and it allows me to have two whatsapps (regular and business) on the same phone.

I think the main benefit is that it allows you to run two instances of whatsapp an a  phone that otherwise might not have dual messaging app install capabilities.  Also, the fact you’re using the business app is made clear to other users so they can differentiate that chat from perhaps your personal one.

Do people engage with you because they have a personal contact with you or is your business itself the brand?  If the former then you’d probably do more harm than good.   There are some features in whats app business that are quite handy and address reasons we don’t like whatsapp for work purposes: you can set it to politely tell people you will reply in the morning; you can have pre-prepared (canned) replies to common questions, you can tag conversations you need to find again.  If you were selling standard “catalogue” type stuff or doing special offers (e.g. a mobile hair dresser with a cancellation) you can do some quite good sales stuff.  But probably the most important difference is they you can have one account that’s shared between multiple users/devices.  Not relevant to one-man-bands but probably good for anyone thats slightly bigger.

@poly.  Interesting features I didn’t know about.

never heard of it before but will research – as stated above, this

you can set it to politely tell people you will reply in the morning

and this

you can have one account that’s shared between multiple users/devices

actually sound like really handy features!

This is revelatory. Thank you @poly

Do people engage with you because they have a personal contact with you or is your business itself the brand? If the former then you’d probably do more harm than good.

If you ever want to be able to hand over to someone else for holiday, illness or whatever it is pretty essential and you don’t have to lose the personal contact the rest of the time depending on how you arrange things