Recently WhatsApp submitted many updates through the Google Play Beta Program, that provide some information about the new WhatsApp Business service.
Let’s find out together what we are talking about ..
NEW BUSINESS INFO!
Recently we wrote a post about basic Business information and a post about the Business Info section in WhatsApp for Android versions, but today other information have been released.
WhatsApp published a FAQ that finally introduces Verified business accounts.
Thanks to this new FAQ, we discover that WhatsApp is starting to verify a small number of businesses participating in a pilot program and that WhatsApp will let us know when we start talking to a business via yellow messages inside a chat.
Let’s go see how the chat looks when you start a chat with a Business account:
BUSINESS TO STANDARD ACCOUNT
When you’re chatting with a old business account that it has recently re-registered as a standard account:
UNVERIFIED BUSINESS
When you’re chatting with a business account that was verified but WhatsApp recently unverified it:
VERIFIED BUSINESS
When you’re chatting with a business account that has been recently verified by WhatsApp:
UNVERIFIED BUSINESS
When you open for the first time a chat with an unverified business account:
VERIFIED BUSINESS
When you open for the first time a chat with a verified business account:
These yellow messages cannot be manually deleted (you need to clear the chat to delete them, but probably they will appear again to help the user to understand who is the Business he is chatting with).
And in the Business Info section, we will be able to see the verified business status:
In addition, there are other hidden information about WhatsApp for Small and Medium Business.
They are not publicly available, but WABetaInfo can give you this preview about three new features for the upcoming WhatsApp for Small and Medium Business app:
• Businesses can set their working hours.
• When you contact a business account that isn’t not available, you may receive an away message.
• Business can also manage automatic messages!
VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE
The WhatsApp Small and Medium Business new app will be available only for the Android platform, at present!
It’s not known if WhatsApp will work in future to build an iOS version of the WhatsApp Small and Medium Business, but at the moment they developed only the Android version!