Global customer engagement company Clickatell is partnering with several large banks to roll out their chat banking capabilities on messaging platform WhatsApp across Africa.
WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging services around the globe, with more than 1.5 billion people in over 180 countries using the service.
On Wednesday Clickatell said it had integrated the WhatsApp Business application programming interface (API) into its Connect, Touch and Transact solutions, making it easy for businesses to build a significant presence on the platform.
“With Clickatell’s integrations, a business can immediately start sending out helpful notifications and conduct real time two-way customer interactions,” it said.
Businesses had already informally started using WhatsApp for customer engagement, and with the Clickatell integrated solutions they now had the technology backing to actively engage with their customers at scale, the company added.
“We are delighted to build on our long running relationship with both WhatsApp and brands with the WhatsApp business integration across all of our offerings” CEO Pieter De Villiers said.
“Businesses have just begun to realize the power of chat based engagement. We are determined to be the go-to partner of choice for businesses globally.”
Clickatell’s customers on WhatsApp Business solutions include Absa Bank, GTBank, First Bank of Nigeria and United Bank of Africa.
The company is working with several other large businesses across online commerce, retail, digital entertainment and financial services to enable their presence on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp Business lets companies send “non-promotional” content such as shipping information, charging for confirmed deliveries.
Companies will be able to respond free to questions or comments sent to them on WhatsApp, as long as the responses are fired off within 24 hours. Tardy responses by businesses will incur costs.
Some Facebook ads will also feature an easy way to initiate WhatsApp conversations with the businesses.
(via African News Agency)
