It's been little over a month since Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced to launch new enterprise messenger service dubbed as WhatsApp Business and now, the features of the new service have surfaced online ahead of the official release.
One of the testers of WhatsApp has posted crucial details that suggest that WhatsApp Business will be a standalone applications and the company, as a part of survey, has asked a beta app user ( Hüseyin Filiz via Android Police) for feedback on migration of chats, contacts from personal to business profile, Auto responses and analytics (to gauge consumer interactions).
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Given the fact that WhatsApp Business is a standalone app, users will have two WhatsApp applications on the same phone having the same number. With dual-SIM phone models, users can register different mobile numbers for personal and work. Another interesting aspect of WhatsApp Business is that user can add his/her landline number of their business house and directly receive messages on their mobile phone.
To make the two WhatsApp accounts distinguishable, the company has kept the 'phone handle' as the icon for a personal account, while the business profile will have large 'B' as its symbol.
With the separation of personal and business accounts, user will be able to work efficiently, as he/she will be able to focus on replying to consumer request, while they can ignore messages from friends and family, which most of the time, are distractive (ex: funny quotes/videos) in nature.
WhatsApp Business will have all the features in the original messenger app, and the key difference is that it will new options such as Analytics that will list all the individual interactions with the consumers.
The user just has to tap the vertically aligned three dots in the top right corner >> Business Settings>> Statistics.
Initially, WhatsApp Business will be offered for free to small and medium enterprises, but the company has plans to monetise by levying services charges on bigger companies in future.
More features of WhatsApp Business are expected to be revealed in coming days.
