Why We love WhatsApp & Salesforce: Types of Integration and best Apps out there

This is my first article so bear with me, be patient and enjoy the ride along.

Not so long ago I did my first WhatsApp & Salesforce integration and it took me some time to gather all the information and to get to know the tools out there to help ?me make the best decision on how to make this connection.

Here are some first questions I had when starting this exploration:

What are the best ways to integrate WhatsApp and Salesforce? What great Apps are out there to successfully make this connection?

In this article I would like to introduce you to the power of this Marketing & Customer service tool for businesses.

Just send me a WhatsApp...

Whether you like it or not, WhatsApp is part of our life. You just cannot escape it. You just have to have it.

So here are some questions for you :

Did you know that WhatsApp has more than 2 billion users? Did you know that there are more than 100 billion messages sent each day on WhatsApp?

That is just crazy, and it would be crazy as well if we could not integrate this app with Salesforce, right? So how about another question for you: Why should I do the integration? What are the use Cases?

Let me give you a few examples:

• Lead nurturing:?Your sales reps can send images, videos, brochures and documents to your potential customers
• Order tracking: You can send automated messages to the clients with details about their order or/and any updates on their delivery
• Customer support: Your support team can solve any issues in real time via the integration, cases can be opened from the WhatsApp messages, follow up can be done for a better customer experience
• Customer feedback:? Your customers can give immediate feedback on the company products , services or delivery. This can be really helpful for future improvements of the process.

In nutshell: WhatsApp Business makes interacting with customers easy by providing tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages.

To get to the point of this article I will be introducing the 3 most common ways for the integration:

1. Salesforce's own products (digital engagement)
2. AppExchange apps
3. WhatsApp API integration

My, my. my! so many options. Let me narrow it down for you so you can make a better choice when selecting the best tool for your company.

1. Salesforce's own products (digital engagement & WhatsApp Chat messaging)

1.1 Salesforce Digital Engagement -the one I have worked with so here I can give some personal input as well. I have recently completed the set-up of WhatsApp via Digital Engagement. I can tell you... it was so much fun...and wow what a powerful integration.

To learn more about digital engagement and how to set up messaging channels for WhatsApp check out this help page:

1.2 Marketing Cloud - WhatsApp messages that can be sent from Marketing Cloud allows you to send two types of messages. 1. transactional template messages such as shipping notifications or reminders of unexecuted purchases. 2. session messages eg. user-initiated conversations. For more information and how to set it up follow this help article:

2. AppExchange apps: let me introduce you to some of the most used apps

As we all know that the app exchange is a magical source for great integrations, here are some apps which stood out to me as I was researching for a solution.

2.1 Avochato for Salesforce features: SMS Text Message App for Sales & Support features: One-to-one messaging; One-to-many messaging; SMS, live chat, WhatsApp and phone conversations managed from one place; Skill routing; Real time analytics; Keyword triggered auto-responses;Surveys; Slack integration; Embeddable live chat widget for websites; Native mobile apps; Programmable API and Message templates.

2.2 Tuvis (formerly Whatslly) features : Click to send WhatsApp message from Salesforce; Create new leads/contacts in SF; Dynamic Message Templates; Copy chats into SF as activities, tasks or cases; Auto Chat Syncing; Upload files as attachments; View open/closed opportunities

2.3 Mogli SMS: Text Messaging | WhatsApp features: Real-time 1-to-1 SMS & WhatsApp conversations; Bulk SMS with campaigns, list views, and reports; Immediate SMS notifications of incoming messages; Auto-create Contacts/Leads, Cases, Opportunities and event registrations; Voice features for auto-calling and text to speech; Use Workflow, Process Builder, Flow and Triggers to Automate text messages; Text to donate and pay; Dashboard responses with the magic of Salesforce and get a 360-degree view of your clients.; Works with Twilio, Nexmo, MessageBird, Plivo, Telnyx

2.4 360 SMS App for Salesforce - Send SMS | WhatsApp from Salesforce features: Conversational 1-on-1 Texting | Threaded text messages on any object; Link Tracking | Drip Campaigns; Scheduled SMS & Event Reminders; Bulk SMS/MMS, even from Reports; Automated/Triggered SMS/WhatsApp through Process Builder;Chatbot | Intelligent Text | Keyword-SMS based Responses; SMS & Email Alerts; WhatsApp:2-way global messaging & WhatsApp Live Chat from website; Omnichannel SMS Routing; available for Sales, Service & Community Cloud | Marketing Cloud/Pardot/Marketo

3. WhatsApp API integration

Last but not least there is the option of using WhatsApp Business providers, so you can directly integrate with SOAP or REST APIs.?This way all the transactions happen through API calls between WhatsApp and Salesforce.

The choice is yours! Or shall I say the choice is in the hand of the company or project you are working for. :)

Either way good luck, I am sure you will have plenty of fun doing this integration!

Thanks for reading my blog and if you have any further questions feel free to contact me! See you soon!