Meta said on Thursday it is rolling out its Meta Verified program to WhatsApp Business users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia, and will eventually expand to other countries. Subscription plans for the service start at $14 per month.
The company is also adding more features to its business messaging service, allowing businesses to serve customers through in-app calling using APIs.
Meta launched its verification program for creators in March 2023 and expanded it to businesses in September 2023. The program was previously limited to Facebook and Instagram.
The company said that merchants who sign up for the plan on WhatsApp will get badges and anti-spoofing features by sharing their business details with the company. These businesses will also get a verified WhatsApp channel for marketing purposes.
The plan also allows businesses to use their WhatsApp Business account across multiple devices and even create a custom webpage with details about their business that can be shared with customers and vendors.
WhatsApp already offers some of these features in WhatsApp Premium and began testing them with a few businesses in some regions in 2022, but they were not rolled out to other markets.
Meta is also introducing the ability for users to call large businesses like banks and airlines using WhatsApp via an API. For users, this is similar to calling a customer support number through the app. Previously, WhatsApp Business users had to use their personal phone numbers to handle customer calls.
WhatsApp said it will charge businesses a fee for the service, but has not yet revealed pricing details.
Focus on business
It also offers a personalized messaging service for businesses, which merchants can use to send customers messages like coupon codes, new product launches, birthday wishes, and more.
With over 200 million monthly WhatsApp Business users, Meta is working to build a comprehensive suite of solutions that businesses can use to communicate with their customers. Separately, Meta also announced today the launch of new AI-powered tools to automate customer support and advertising.
Click-to-WhatsApp ads have worked well for Meta: Zuckerberg said the annual run rate for these ads will reach $10 billion and growing in 2023. India-based logistics company Shiprocket has also seen good results for the retailer.
“The introduction of click-to-WhatsApp ads will provide merchants with a more effective marketing channel, resulting in 3-4x higher return on ad spend (ROAS), driving more transactions and engagement on the platform,” Praful Poddar, chief product officer at Shiprocket, told TechCrunch.
Meta focused on building a shopping experience within WhatsApp last year, but is now working on messaging and customer support features as these are key revenue streams for the company.
The company's CFO Susan Lee said during the company's first-quarter 2024 earnings call that Meta's family of apps generated $380 million in revenue, with the majority of that coming from WhatsApp business messaging.
According to a recent study published by Meta in collaboration with Bain & Co, there is a huge opportunity for conversational commerce in India as of the 650 million users active on social media and messaging platforms, only 200 million shop online. The company said existing commerce and payment services only cater to the top 200 million users. With over 400 million users in India, the company believes there is a huge opportunity for WhatsApp to onboard more merchants and drive shopping among the remaining user base.