Facebook-owned company WhatsApp in their bid to help enterprise owners have a direct communication channel with their customers launched the special WhatsApp Business for Android in January 2018 and after more than a year, the company is bringing the same for Apple iPhone users.
WhatsApp Business for iOS is finally available for installation on Apple App Store and is currently available in Mexico, claims the tech community blog WABetaInfo. It is widely being reported that the app has now reached three more regions—Brazil, Argentina, and France, as well.
It can be noted that WhatsApp Business for Android has received a really good response from enterprise users across the world including emerging markets such as India. Within a span of one year, it has registered more than five million business owners.
The company, earlier in the year, said Bengaluru-based eyewear brand Glassic received 30 per cent of its new sales were generated through WhatsApp Business.
The new WhatsApp Business for iOS will have the same features as the Android version and also is a free-to-download app. 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 WhatsApp Business app, the shop owners will be able to respond to customers faster and the latter can get critical information about a product, its availability and also price before coming to the shop. This will save the time of both the consumers and the shop owner. Also, it will offer options to send store address, timing details, greeting messages to the prospective customers.
Earlier in the year, WhatsApp also launched a desktop version with several value-added features such as quick reply, labels and chat list filtering.
Brief descriptions of WhatsApp Business for Desktop features:
Quick Replies: This will help users to reply faster to frequent messages to answer common questions. Simply press the "/" on the keyboard to select a quick reply and send.
Labels: With this, users can organize their contacts lists or chats with labels, so they can easily find them again.
Chat List Filtering: With this, shop owners can easily manage their chats with filters to sort by unread messages, groups or broadcast lists.
In a related development, WhatsApp in collaboration with the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) Foundation has announced to work on improving digital literacy among youth in India to curb the spread of the misinformation.
With Lok Sabha elections fast approaching, WhatsApp and NASSCOM will run a campaign in multiple cities, towns and villages to educate youngsters on how to detect whether the message they receive on the messenger is genuine or fake.
The general election is being conducted in seven phases, starting from April 11 to May 19 and the counting of votes will be held on May 23.
