WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging applications, with over 2 billion users worldwide. It makes it much easier to share messages, images, videos, GIFs, and documents with friends and loved ones from your desktop and mobile devices.
With the introduction of WhatsApp Business, more businesses are using WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business API to communicate with customers.
But, imagine having to stare at your tiny mobile phone’s screen all day to reply to your hoards of customers. Not to mention sending files from your desktop to your customers. It’s a disaster.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have the option of accessing your WhatsApp account on your desktop or laptop computer? Well, the answer is yes! It’s also straightforward to set up WhatsApp web and WhatsApp desktop app.
Since the launch of WhatsApp Web and WhatsApp Desktop in 2015 and 2016, users can message through a desktop computer. WhatsApp will then synchronize conversation messages on all platforms. Therefore, you do not have to worry about losing or missing any important messages.
Now, let’s dive in the features of WhatsApp Web and WhatsApp Desktop.
One of the excellent features of WhatsApp Web and WhatsApp Desktop is that it automatically syncs chats across all your devices connected with the WhatsApp account in real-time.
There is no particular limitation to communicating with a person through these different versions and from whatever device you have at hand. Companies can keep performing all functions as usual.
For example, sharing messages, photos, and videos with up to 256 people in the WhatsApp group lets users stay in touch with different customer groups by using any device.
Document Sharing
Document sharing has also become more accessible and compatible with WhatsApp, enabling sending and receiving PDFs, documents, live photos, PowerPoint slides, and more. You can easily send up to 100 MB of multimedia files through WhatsApp instead of traditional e-mail. This feature is freely available on any smartphone, tablet, or computer, as long as connecting your mobile phone to stable internet. There is no need to download the app. Simply open WhatsApp web in your browser!
However, WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business have several functional restrictions that constrain their enterprise users. For example, they do not support multiple people logging in to an account at the same time.
For a company with many customers, it gets pretty much impossible to process hundreds of WhatsApp queries quickly if only one customer service agent is handling them. Even if there are multiple customer service agents, they won’t be able to log in to the same WhatsApp account from multiple devices at the same time. Hence, using WhatsApp web and WhatsApp desktop are some of the considerable solutions for businesses.
A more effective solution is to use imBee‘s commercial instant messaging software, which allows multiple users to log in to a WhatsApp account simultaneously. imBee also provides Automated Message Management functions, such as automatically routing to the appropriate customer service personnel, setting keywords for automatic tagging, appropriately assigning tags to messages, and classifying customer groups.
WhatsApp Web supports Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, and other browsers. However, keep in mind that you must connect mobile phones and computers to the internet to function well on WhatsApp’s desktop and web versions.
To improve privacy and security, WhatsApp announced in January 2021 that it introduced biometrics authentication to WhatsApp desktop app and WhatsApp web.
Suppose you have enabled biometrics authentication on your mobile phone before connecting the WhatsApp account to your computer. In that case, you must successfully authenticate the fingerprint or face ID recognition to unlock the account and scan the QR Code.
This step aims to reduce the number of people allowed to connect to that one WhatsApp account through the web or desktop version, read or even send messages without the original account owner’s permission.
The WhatsApp Desktop is similar to the WhatsApp Web. Before scanning the QR code, you must unlock the mobile phone and account with biometric authentication before connecting to the desktop version of WhatsApp.
In addition, WhatsApp Desktop has also launched new features in 2021, such as supporting voice calls and video calls. To make it easier for users to digitally meet relatives and friends or communicate with business colleagues on a larger computer screen, WhatsApp now supports Windows PC and Mac users to make voice and video calls on the desktop version of WhatsApp.
When using a computer to make voice or video calls, the system will display the call screen on top. The window size is adjustable, so it is more convenient and customizable for the user.
Currently, the computer version of WhatsApp only supports one-on-one calls. It might support group voice and video calls in the future, but there are no definite plans yet.
Web Version Beginner's Guide:
Desktop Version Beginner's Guide:
WhatsApp Business is an instant messaging software used by many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) worldwide. Enterprises can use WhatsApp Business accounts to communicate with their existing and potential customers and other stakeholders such as suppliers and employees.
It would be more convenient and quicker for customer service staff working shifts during business hours. Also, using a computer to respond to customer inquiries is much more convenient than typing on a small mobile phone. Therefore, most SMEs will use the web and desktop versions of WhatsApp Business to handle customer service.
Companies can use the same links shown in the above paragraphs to log in to the WhatsApp Business Web and WhatsApp Business Desktop. Businesses only have to open the WhatsApp Business mobile application and scan the QR Code to log in from another device.
It gets difficult for only one person to handle numerous customer service inquiries, even for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). When your company is growing, customers may not know much about your company’s products or services. It makes customer service tasks more tedious and tremendous, and staff could not handle all accumulated incoming messages efficiently.
Even if multiple employees are sharing the work of a customer service function, WhatsApp limits companies from assigning customer service messages to various employees for processing at the same time. After all, WhatsApp only supports two devices for simultaneous login.
Business users can use imBee to process customers’ messages from multiple channels under one unified platform to meet the company’s budget and reach optimal cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, multiple logins can help manage messages simultaneously and route them to the relevant customer service staff for processing.
Multiple logins feature helps appropriately allocate human resources and improves the firm’s customer service quality and experience. Besides that, imBee can also help companies reduce the labor needed to deal with standard repetitive questions. It helps enterprises achieve overall digital transformation through chatbots, automatic replies, and other bonus functions!
Discuss your channels, team and conversation handover needs in a product demo.
