- whatsapp
Company has now become a survival tool forsolopreneurs who cannot afford to hire staff to take care of customers. - Features in WhatsApp Business allow solopreneurs to expand customer networks by spending just 1,000 to market their goods and services on Meta’s other social platforms.
- Features like “Away” and “Auto Answer” help solopreneurs handle a larger number of customers with ease.
Ghosting is rude, but not answering a customer on time can cost your business a lot of money. Shikha Yadav, a beautician in Lucknow, learned this the hard way when she couldn’t answer her regular customer’s phone call. For solopreneurs – who don’t have full customer service – WhatsApp Business is a lifeline because it allows them to answer questions when they’re busy. In fact, WA Business is now a shortcode for success when it comes to small and even medium-sized businesses as this app has solved many problems of such entities and given them affordable tools to expand their reach and attract new customers to their offerings. Pull.
Automation and bots aren’t just for the big companies. Yadav served her clients in Lucknow by visiting their homes but started losing her regulars because she couldn’t take their calls while taking care of others. Soon, one of her customers, frustrated, advised her to download the WhatsApp Business app to avoid customer outages with the “auto-answer” and “out of office” features. Yadav explains: “The Out of Office Message feature has made my life easier. My clients now get a timely response from me, which has helped me maintain my relationship with them.”
The pandemic hurt small and large businesses alike, but for solopreneurs like Yadav, life came to a halt and connecting with her existing and new customer base was a huge challenge. Many solopreneurs – mainly self-employed service providers such as beauticians, educators, tailors, craft manufacturers and even small farmers – who have lost their existing customer base as a result of the disruptions and lockdowns during the pandemic have now begun to use technological tools to rebuild their customer networks. build by presenting their products and services via WhatsApp.
Social trade is the new kid in town
In recent years, even grandparents have used social platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Now, these social platforms are used by housewives and solopreneurs to generate an income from their social networks by selling them unique products and services. The seamless interface between the three social platforms also helps these small businesses market their products and services.
Beautician Yadav explains, “I’m not very well trained, but I can still use the WhatsApp Business app with ease.”
Just as chatting with friends and family on WhatsApp is easy, doing business is easier with it. The social platform has become a tool that many housewives use to resell products they buy from other e-commerce platforms in smaller towns and villages. The seamless access to Facebook and Instagram, where they can boost their posts to help more customers discover their products and services, has also greatly helped solopreneurs.
Yadav says, “For a small fee I can boost my post and promote my services on Facebook and Instagram. I can now even showcase my services through my own videos and that really helped me get more clients.”
Technology tools generate new businesses
In many cases, the WhatsApp Business app has even spawned new businesses that didn’t even exist before the pandemic.
Rajeev Khera’s Chakki Peesing is a company that grinds and supplies freshly ground pulses, grains and wheat to consumers in Gurugram. Khera’s family is from Madhya Pradesh and it was during the pandemic, while he was providing grains to migrant workers camped in his society, the idea of starting his own business was born.
The best variety of wheat called
Sharbati is from Madhya Pradesh and Khera wanted to bring the flour made from that wheat to its customers all over Delhi NCR. In 2020, Khera decided to start a hyper-local business for supplying freshly ground flour to customers in Gurugram.
Chakki Peeing started with one chakki – Khera insists it’s not a flour mill, but a traditional way of grinding flour at a low intensity to keep its goodness.
Khera started with 100 customers and now serves 5,000 across Delhi NCR. He explains: “Our fundamental proposal is against packaged atta (flour) because preservatives are added to it to extend shelf life. Our promise is to serve freshly ground flour from the best wheat. When we started in 2020, the challenge was to to reach our customers, who are mainly women who do their shopping. WhatsApp Business allowed us to connect with our customers.”
The pitch to eat healthy influences consumers’ choices in different categories and Khera has found a sweet spot with its offerings. His offer now includes flours of different types and even mixes. He offers advice and custom atta mixes to his clients with different needs.
How does the WhatsApp Business app work?
With the WhatsApp Business app, entrepreneurs can present their offer through a catalog and with the shopping cart function, consumers can choose multiple products and send the order as one message. Khera explains: “The messages come to us in the form of a cart. We also used the quick-reply feature to answer frequently asked questions about the products.” This has helped many solopreneurs like Khera save time and manpower in the form of automated responses.
WhatsApp Business also allows multiple groups to be managed by the same entrepreneur – Khera uses it to manage customers in different locations of NCR. Now Chakki Peesing wants to go national with its offering by connecting with smaller entrepreneurs across India.
Making it easy for customers to connect
WhatsApp Business allows users to automatically greet new customers with a customary welcome message, which can be automated. It also allows users to use shortcuts to quickly respond to frequently asked questions and respond to customers instantly, even when they are unavailable. The app also helps users stay organized by keeping business and personal conversations separate.
Marketing their businesses is also easy – the app has simple tools that help them promote their posts on Instagram and Facebook. A school teacher or a saree seller in Indore can now reach a much wider audience through the
When the whole world was shut down because of the pandemic, Jeevan Handicrafts in Rajasthan found no buyers for its handicrafts that it used to sell to tourists.
Explains Deepak Badaria, who runs the small handicraft business in Rajasthan: “During the pandemic we were also discovering new things and after the lockdown I heard about the WhatsApp Business app. I quickly organized my products into a catalog and started sharing them with friends and other groups. Before my company Jeevan Handicrafts launched its business on WhatsApp, it only handled 2-3 clients per day, but nowadays we can manage 150-200 clients per day with this feature.”
Jeevan Handicrafts even has clients from the UK and US as he promotes his wares on Facebook and Instagram using his laptop. Most of his customers are wholesalers and they get his WhatsApp Business number directly from Facebook and contact him.
Transparency and better prices
The quest for better prices brought Mechanic Guru founder Gaurav to WhatsApp Business after starting his business that wanted to connect car owners with garages that could repair and service all kinds of cars. He contacted garages in Gurugram to give car owners the convenience of booking slots to repair their cars. However, building a customer network was not easy even after hiring a team to promote his business on digital platforms.
He switched to the app and brought his existing customers to the app to provide them with live updates. The goal was to provide transparency in pricing. Gaurav says, “I spend 1,000 a week on promotions and it gets me 25 questions.” He manages to get customer leads from social platforms and serves them on WhatsApp by sharing his catalog. Car owners can also reserve their car service slots using a QR code or by simply sending a message to the Mechanic Guru’s business WhatsApp account number.
WhatsApp Business has a
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