A WhatsApp greeting message is equivalent to a doorman at a fancy restaurant or hotel that greets you when you enter the place. It makes your customers feel valued when they get in touch with you over WhatsApp.
But let’s dive in deeper here!
What is a WhatsApp Greeting Message?
A WhatsApp greeting message is also known as a WhatsApp welcome message. These are customizable automated messages that get sent to your prospects or customers when they message you for the first time on WhatsApp or when they message you after 14 days of inactivity in their chat with you.
It’s essentially a welcome message for your customers on WhatsApp Business. You can set up several greeting messages for a wide range of situations.
The uses of WhatsApp Greeting Messages
Building strong relationships with customers
Using a greeting message on WhatsApp can help you create a positive first impression with your customers and improve your brand perception. If you build your greeting messages well and let your brand personality shine through, it can show that your brand has a soul and isn’t just a corporation sitting in a glass building. If you display a personality that your target customers will resonate with, this could even help them fall in love with your brand, allowing you to move on from a transactional relationship and win your customers’ loyalty.
Acknowledging the receipt of a message
If your customer service agents aren’t available to answer your customers’ questions, you can’t leave the customers waiting for hours on end without providing them with a reply or offering them any information. If you do that, they’ll just be waiting anxiously for you to reply to them and answer their questions (which, lets face it, sounds like an absolutely horrible customer experience), or they’ll just give up and decide that they do not want to do business with your brand anymore.
Using a welcome message to acknowledge that you have received a message from your customers shows that you will deal with the issues they are facing, alleviates their anxiety, and makes it possible for you to set expectations regarding when it would be possible for you to come up with a solution to their problems.
Guiding customers towards next steps
WhatsApp greeting messages can show your customers (especially first-time customers) what steps they could perform next. The welcome messages can have clearly defined CTA buttons that either prompt your customers to tap and engage in further conversations or to visit your website.
If you want to do this well though, it would be far more effective to use a WhatsApp chatbot. An AI-powered chatbot could continue the conversation on it’s own, without needing human agents to take over after the first greeting message. The bot could handle around 80% of the queries that you get on WhatsApp, so that your agents only need to deal with the most complex ones. This even allows them the time to tackle the complex queries in depth since they don’t need to waste their time answering the easier queries that your chatbot can deal with.
The best WhatsApp greeting message examples
Onboarding new customers
WhatsApp greeting messages are perfect for onboarding new customers. You can use them to show these customers what your brand is all about, and even mention other products and services that you offer. This allows you to cross-sell and upsell to these customers so that they can get more value from your business and you can get more sales revenue from them.
Here’s a WhatsApp greeting message that you can use for onboarding customers.
Hey, welcome to the <your business name> family! We’re thrilled to have you with us.
In addition to <service they opted for> we could also help you with <other services>
Drop a message if you’d like help with this or anything else!
If the prospect is a marketing qualified lead (MQL) who has registered for one of your services or inquired about a specific product, you can use this greeting message on WhatsApp:
Hi <name>
Hey, welcome to the <your business name> family!
Thanks for your inquiry about <product or service>. One of our agents will reach out to you with information really soon!
Customer service welcome messages
Even if your agents are online, they might not be able to answer every query immediately. They might need time to deal with another customer conversation (or a bunch of them) before they can get to the latest query. You can’t leave them waiting without a response, nope… not even for 10 minutes. That’s just a bad idea, it’d leave them waiting in frustration and ruin your customer experience.
Instead of making them wait and try to figure when you’ll be able to help them out, just send them a WhatsApp welcome message to let them know that you’ve received their query and your agents will get in touch with them quickly.
Here’s a WhatsApp welcome message that you could use for a better customer experience:
Hi <name>,
Thanks for getting in touch with <brand name>. We’ve received your query and one of our agents will reach out to help you in <amount of time>.
But you’d want to make it possible for them to find answers faster, so instead of making them wait for your agents, you could send them to your FAQ section. All you’d have to do is add an extra line to your greeting message. Here’s what it would look like:
Hi <name>,
Thanks for getting in touch with <brand name>. We’ve received your query and one of our agents will reach out to help you in <amount of time>. In the meantime, you could look at our FAQ section <insert link> and you might find an answer there.
Festive greetings
Wishing your customers on festivals and special occasions is a great way to strengthen your relationship with them. It’s also a good way for you to let them know about offers and sales that you are running at the time.
Here’s a greeting message template with an offer that you can use:
Hi name,
We wish you a very happy <occasion/festival>.
To celebrate this special day with you, we’re offering you 25% off on <collection names>.
Hit the link to explore the collection - <link>
After-hours assistance
Let’s say a customer decides to text you after your working hours. It’s fairly common, but it's not the best idea to leave them waiting with their message unread till the next morning. Just shoot a greeting message to them and let them know what time your agents will be able to get back to them and help them out.
Try this greeting message:
Hi, thanks for your message. We’re unable to respond right now, our business hours are <business hours>. We’ll get back to you by <time> tomorrow. Have a great day!
The better way to engage on WhatsApp
WhatsApp greeting messages are decent when you have very few customers, but it still won’t let you engage with them effectively and answer their questions. You’d still have to leave them waiting for replies.
The more effective way to engage your customers would be to deploy an artificially intelligent chatbot that could answer around 80% of their questions in real-time, without making them wait.
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