WhatsApp has designed its platform to suit various users, this including individuals who are messaging their contacts (non-work related) local businesses and large enterprises. The platforms include:
WhatsApp is a popular, dependable, and secure cross-platform communication service with more than two billion monthly active users worldwide. All of these people use the company’s applications to communicate with their friends, family, co-workers, and customers.
It’s easy to see why. The platform is very user-friendly and straightforward, and it comes with a slew of capabilities that go beyond simple text messaging. End-to-end encryption, support for multimedia sharing (pictures, videos, audio, PDF documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, and so on), group chats, voice and video calls, voice messages, and so on, depending on the solution.
Each of these platforms have their own advantages and have their own unique features but they all suit different types of people and what they are going to use it for. Let’s talk about them…
Individual users who wish to keep in contact and connect with their friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances in one-on-one and group chat sessions may utilise the conventional WhatsApp program.
The Business API for WhatsApp is very distinct from both WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business. It is mostly targeted at companies employing more-than 5 staff, expanding businesses and organisations looking to take advantage of automation functionality. It equips them with sophisticated and enterprise-level capabilities that the other two solutions lack.
While both WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business are free to download and enable you to sign up with a mobile or landline phone number (the latter is only accessible in WhatsApp Business), the API is obtained differently. To get access to it, businesses must subscribe to the services of a business solution provider (BSP) and WhatsApp partner, such as Stitch. WhatsApp needs formal approval of your account, which is made possible through its BSP partners, before granting you access to its API.
Although these services are charged, they provide sophisticated capabilities such as state-of-the-art process automation and contact synchronisation, a team inbox, and a centralised dashboard. All of this is accessible via the solutions offered by Stitch. For instance, conversation automation is enabled via a chat bot, which enables you to offer fast and comprehensive responses to your customers’ most frequently asked questions and/or to take over in the absence of customer care employees.
Additionally, it allows several agents to sign in simultaneously and utilise the unified dashboard and team mailbox to interact with clients, exchange multimedia files and documents, and access helpful tools like comprehensive statistics and granulated reports. Nothing of the above is feasible with the other two alternatives.
While the other two choices include native Android and iOS applications, WhatsApp Business API does not. However, the solution delivered by the BSP could well have mobile, as well as desktop apps.
Another critical distinction exists between WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business on the one end, and the WhatsApp Business API on the other. The former enables you to make voice and video calls via their applications, while the latter usually does not.
Both the WhatsApp Business app and the WhatsApp Business API are distinct from the standard WhatsApp messenger account in that they enable you to connect with your target consumers more effectively. This enables companies of all shapes and sizes to benefit from widespread exposure and do the best possible.
By reading this post we hope we have provided you with a clear understanding of what the difference between ‘WhatsApp’, ‘WhatsApp business’ and ‘WhatsApp business API’. Each of the three WhatsApp solutions we examined above has a number of benefits and is an excellent option for a variety of different kinds of users. Having said that, WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business come with a slew of restrictions that the API effectively eliminates.
Is your company too big for the standard WhatsApp Business app and in need of a more robust solution? Then request API access from Stitch and let it link you to WhatsApp’s Business API. This way, you’ll be able to take advantage of the many benefits it provides. Uncertain yet if our platform is the best fit for you? Not to worry, we also provide a free 30-minute consultation before making any decisions, so you can get a better understanding of what Stitch has to offer. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further inquiries.