WhatsApp wants to dominate the world, and the next thing in its plan is to attract as many companies as possible to communicate with the more than 1.300 million monthly active users that the messaging platform currently has. This is the beginning of his strategy that seeks to monetize the application, because WhatsApp still does not make money, something that Zuckerberg knows well and plans to change in the coming months.
We have already talked several times about the plans of WhatsApp to obtain income, the last thing we heard was a kind of sale of data from its users. Today the same company is confirming the first step to add companies to its service, which includes a badge and a possible exclusive application.
Green logo to differentiate
Within the WhatsApp FAQ, today the company is announcing the format it will be adding in the next few days so that users know when we are facing a business profile. This profile will include a green badge with a white check in the center, which means that the account belongs to a company verified by WhatsApp.
According to the company, “verified business accounts” are currently limited to a small number of companies that have agreed to participate in the pilot test. These companies will be contacted by WhatsApp and must provide documents that support the company’s data registered before the law of the country of origin, a physical address and a telephone number, which is the one that will be used to contact users.
It is said that these companies will use an exclusive application (WhatsApp Small and Medium Business) that will let them manage everything related to messages and follow-up on their clients’ cases, as well as statistics and even say that they will have a database of potential customers. This application will be something very similar to ‘Facebook Mentions’, which is used by celebrities and artists on iOS. However, the WhatsApp business application will only be available for Android at the moment. This application will also allow to automate messages and set work schedules.
Another point that will allow us to differentiate a verified business account from a normal one, will be that when entering the chat window we will be shown a yellow message that will indicate that we are facing a verified profile. Even the WABetaInfo site was able to get the first screenshots of what the application looks like when we are chatting with one of the new profiles.
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It is important to note that we will be unable to delete messages when we chat with a company, and all messages will be archived to follow up. Likewise, if the company changes its number or receives several reports due to abuse of messages, the verification will be withdrawn and a new process will have to start, in addition to the chat will show a new message that will indicate that the business account is no longer verified.
In summary, we will find four new types of profiles in WhatsApp …
Business account: Any company can migrate from a normal account to a business account.
Verified business account: The same as the previous one but with the badge and the possibility of using the mobile application for companies.
Business account with withdrawal badge: An account that was verified but lost the badge for some reason.
Business account to standard: There will be the possibility that a business account will no longer be a standard profile, losing all the privileges it had.
It should be noted that WhatsApp has not mentioned anything regarding a fee for having a business profile, but if we rely on the latest rumors, it is said that this will be their main source of income, as it will equip the companies with juicy weapons to have communication with your customers.