WhatsApp Business API: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything You Need to Know

Did you know WhatsApp is the world’s biggest messaging app with over 2 billion users worldwide? People use it regularly to message friends, family, and now, businesses than ever before. The huge success of WhatsApp as a secure, convenient messaging app for friends was the driving force for Meta, parent company of Facebook, to monetize the platform. Meta identified the opportunity wherein businesses would benefit from being given access to this personal space for business communication. This led to the birth of WhatsApp Business App.   

Launched in January 2018, WhatsApp Business is a free app that is designed for small businesses. It enables businesses to communicate with their customers, and vice versa. A business account in WhatsApp enables businesses to create branded profiles to provide customers additional information pertaining to website, brief business description, office hours when a customer can expect a response, and more.   

However, the WhatsApp Business App was developed for one-on-one conversations. Customer inquiries are handled manually using a cell phone, but not smartphones or tablets, and up to four other devices. The same account is used by all employees, which leaves ambiguity about who answered the query. Therefore, the app is not suitable for professional customer service. The suitability of the app is further questionable, especially for European companies for lack of data protection and GDPR compliance.   

This led Meta to launch WhatsApp Business API in a bid to offer larger companies a scalable, customizable alternative when using WhatsApp Business. The solution also served to help companies looking to integrate WhatsApp into their existing customer communication systems. The technical interface (API) of the solution allows businesses to connect their WhatsApp account to a professional customer messaging application – a WhatsApp Business Platform. WhatsApp Business API by WhatsApp Commerce is a cutting-edge tool designed for medium to large companies that offers more advanced features and customization options.  

To summarize, the main difference between WhatsApp Business App vs WhatsApp Business API is that the former is a free app for small businesses and the latter is a paid API solution for larger businesses that enables rich messaging to communicate with users. Standard WhatsApp messaging is for personal use to stay in touch with friends and family. Besides this, WhatsApp provides an array of services such as the WhatsApp API for business that allows businesses to integrate WhatsApp messaging capabilities with their own business framework.  

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