How WhatsApp Business Helps You Connect With Clients

Essentials to know

• WhatsApp Business is designed specifically for small businesses, offering a fast, secure and familiar way to communicate with clients via messages, calls and video.
• It provides professional tools you don’t get with WhatsApp Messenger, including business profiles, quick replies, labels, catalogues and basic message statistics.
• Automation features like greeting and away messages improve responsiveness, helping you manage customer expectations even outside business hours.
• WhatsApp makes it easier for clients to contact you quickly, with features like click-to-chat links and QR codes that turn website visitors and walk-ins into conversations.
• Using WhatsApp Business with a separate phone number keeps work and personal chats apart, protecting your privacy and making it easier to stay organised.

WhatsApp Business is the perfect way to keep in touch with your customers. It’s a fast, reliable, and secure way to stay connected with your clients. You can use it to send messages, make calls, and even video call your customers, and best of all WhatsApp Business is available for free on Android and iOS devices.

Can WhatsApp be used for business purposes?

Absolutely. WhatsApp Business is a powerful communication tool that allows companies to interact with their customers in a variety of ways, from handling enquiries and bookings to sharing updates and supporting customers after a purchase.

WhatsApp is one of the most-used messaging apps globally, so it’s no surprise that many UK small businesses are using it to connect with customers where they already spend time. WhatsApp Business is a separate app designed specifically for small businesses. It includes all the features of the regular WhatsApp app, plus some extras designed to help businesses communicate with their customers more effectively.

There are alternative messaging apps, but WhatsApp’s popularity makes it a good choice if you’re contacting your customer base directly. Follow our guide to learn how to switch your existing WhatsApp to WhatsApp Business, freeing up your personal number!

Why use WhatsApp Business instead of the normal WhatsApp Messenger app?

WhatsApp Business has been specifically designed with the needs of small business owners in mind. As a business owner, you can use the WhatsApp Business app for communication, customer service, marketing, sales and more.

WhatsApp conversations are end-to-end encrypted, which supports privacy and security for you and your customers. As with any customer communications channel, UK businesses should still take care with what personal data is shared and stored, and follow UK GDPR best practices.

Using WhatsApp Business as a customer service channel and marketing channel can help to build up brand loyalty. More and more people are using messaging apps rather than phone calls, and with so many WhatsApp users out there, it’s likely that your clients will enjoy communicating via WhatsApp messages.

1. Quick replies

Stay on top of incoming messages and speed up the time that it takes to answer questions. With quick replies, you can save the answers to commonly asked questions as templates and set up shortcuts.

This means you don’t have to type out the same response to repeated questions, which as any small business owner knows, can be time consuming!

The benefit for your clients? Quicker responses and less time waiting.

2. Short Links

Using WhatsApp Business, you can share a short link with your customer that allows them to instantly start a secure chat with your WhatsApp account. You can even pre-write their introduction message – give it a try using this link!

3. Automatic greeting messages

WhatsApp Business allows you to automate messages when potential customers get in touch. You can use this to send a welcome message or templated messages personalised to your business and share important information (like your opening hours, how to book, or what you need to prepare a quote).

4. Automatic away messages

Manage expectations when clients get in touch outside of your business hours with an automatic away message. This is a great way to continue customer communications even if you’re unable to directly reply.

5. Business profile

Set up a WhatsApp Business profile and share your business address, business description, contact information, contact details, social media accounts and website URLs with clients.

A branded business profile not only looks professional, it’s an important part of your WhatsApp marketing strategy, helping your clients find you and your services online.

6. Contact labels

For a business app, WhatsApp’s organisation tools are key. Labels can help you to manage conversations and keep track of lots of different projects and clients. Organise and categorise users and messages into buckets to help you stay on top of urgent or high-priority messages. You can choose to use pre-programmed labels such as New Customer, New Order, Pending Payment or Paid, or create new labels to suit your needs.

7. Message statistics

With WhatsApp Business Statistics, you can understand your customers’ engagement and experience. Find out how many messages are sent, delivered, read, and received from within your WhatsApp Business Settings.

8. Catalogues

WhatsApp Business users can showcase products and services in a catalogue. Each item can have a title, price, description, website link and product code, with a maximum of 500 items in the catalogue.

9. QR codes (for instant enquiries)

WhatsApp Business also supports QR codes that customers can scan to start a chat with you instantly. Add your QR code to your shop counter, van signage, menus, flyers, business cards, invoices, packaging or event stands to turn offline attention into direct conversations.

10. Interactive Messages and Reply Buttons

An advanced feature. Developers using the WhatsApp Business Platform (API) can make use of interactive messages (such as reply buttons and list messages) to present users with predefined options when replying. This creates a simpler, more consistent customer journey — great for FAQs, lead qualification, booking steps and support triage. Developers can build chatbots and integrations that guide customers and connect WhatsApp to your existing systems.

11. WhatsApp on desktop and linked devices

You can use WhatsApp Business on WhatsApp Web/Desktop and link up to four additional devices. That means you can reply from a laptop keyboard (or let a small team help manage enquiries) without constantly passing a phone around — ideal for busy periods.

How do I engage clients on WhatsApp?

Split out work and personal communications

Keeping your WhatsApp business account separate from your private account can help you to stay on top of messages and quick replies to your work enquiries. Even better, you can keep your personal number private – so you can avoid comms mishaps, and really switch off out of office hours.

Use specific business messaging tools

The business tools listed above including automated messages, business profiles and WhatsApp statistics can form a valuable part of your marketing efforts. They help you respond faster, stay organised, and create a smoother customer journey from first message to conversion.

WhatsApp Web

With WhatsApp web (or desktop) you can sync your laptop to your WhatsApp Business account and answer messages from the comfort of a full sized keyboard.

Easily use WhatsApp Business with a Virtual Number

You can’t use the same phone number for WhatsApp Messenger and WhatsApp Business – but that’s where YourBusinessNumber can help.

If you have only one phone number, you’ll need to purchase a second virtual mobile number to use WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Messenger (for personal use) on the same device.

You can use your virtual number to set up a WhatsApp Business account, without using your personal phone number. Better work life balance, more professional client contact, and tons more benefits await. Get your virtual WhatsApp Business number with us today!