New Features for WhatsApp Business Announced

Meta co-founder, executive chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced new features for WhatsApp businesses.

The social media giant announced the latest features during Meta Conversations in Mumbai, India. These features are envisioned to benefit people and businesses using the social media platform.

According to the tech business magnate, one of the new features is WhatsApp flows. WhatsApp flows will allow WhatsApp business users to create customized experiences right within chats.

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Mark Zuckerberg also commented on WhatsApp payments which is currently in limited availability in the countries of Singapore and Brazil.

In the announcement, WhatsApp Payments was extended officially to India making it the third country with the revolutionary feature. 

WhatsApp Payments is a feature that allows users to transfer money between friends and family as well as pay registered businesses on the platform. The feature is currently not available in Africa.

Meta verified for businesses

Separately, Meta announced that they are going to offer Meta verified to businesses, starting with Instagram and Facebook. WhatsApp will follow over time.

“Meta Verified will include business authentication with a verified badge, proactive impersonation protection, access to account support and features to help businesses get more discovery,” the announcement by Mark Zuckerberg pointed out.

Meta added, “The green badge next to the contact’s name confirms that this is an authentic and notable business account.”

WhatsApp however noted that customers should contact businesses directly for support on issues having to do with order status, transactions, refunds and returns.

In the second edition of Meta Conversation, Meta noted that a billion people across the globe message with a business each week on the Meta messaging apps. Globally, this behavior is accelerating, Meta remarked.

WhatsApp focusses on business

“As a company, we are looking to monetize WhatsApp. We are seeing a pretty big difference in terms of not just people messaging each other, but also people messaging businesses. About 90% of people that we surveyed said they were talking to a business,” India’s Meta head, Sandya Devanathan said.

WhatsApp has been a welcome reprieve to small business owners who can now circumvent the costs of setting up websites.

Instead, business owners can meet their customers where they are by using the social media platform as their primary business platform.

 With about 22.2 million people using WhatsApp daily in Kenya, it is a plus for businesses to meet their customers where they spend most of their time online.

Meta has been expanding WhatsApp with a series of new features including group video calling. It also launched Channels globally on September 13.

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WhatsApp channels can be used to follow celebrities and people of note. As of current, the most followed channel with 14.3 million followers is WhatsApp, a testament to the immense number of people who have taken to Channels.

In recent times, Mark Zuckerberg has been under fire for his idea to encrypt messages on the Meta platforms. Concerned stakeholders have argued that this will help hide child abusers and groomers “in the dark.”