WhatsApp has become an essential communication tool for businesses of all sizes. The WhatsApp Business app allows companies to have a business profile, share useful information with customers, and respond to messages quickly and efficiently. One of the most useful features of WhatsApp Business is the ability to see when you are online or offline to your customers. This allows businesses to be more responsive in real-time when engaging with customers on WhatsApp.
Why is the online status useful?
Seeing when a business is online on WhatsApp can be very beneficial for several reasons:
- It allows customers to know if you are available for a live chat. If they see you are online, they will know you are able to respond right away.
- It makes you appear more responsive as a business. Customers like knowing their messages will be seen promptly.
- It builds trust and improves customer satisfaction when you can connect with them in real-time.
- Your business will seem more accessible if customers can see when you are online and reachable.
- It encourages customers to message you knowing you are actively online and ready to assist them.
- Being online gives your business a more personal touch of availability to clients.
Overall, the online status helps portray your business as attentive, responsive, and ready to address customer needs and questions. This level of availability is something customers have come to expect today.
How to be shown as online
WhatsApp has made it simple for businesses to show their online status to customers within the app. Here are the steps:
- Open your WhatsApp Business app and go to the main menu.
- Tap on Settings and select Business Settings.
- Under Services, choose the option for Show Business As Open or Closed.
- Toggle the switch on to Show As Open. This will now display your online status to customers.
Once you enable this setting, customers who message you will see when you are online. If you do not want to be seen as online at certain times, you can simply toggle the setting off to show as closed or unavailable.
Customizing your online hours
Within WhatsApp Business settings, you can also customize the hours you are shown as open or closed. Here’s how:
- In Business Settings, choose Show Business As Open Or Closed.
- Tap Set Operating Hours.
- Select your time zone.
- Set your opening days and hours.
- Set your closing days and hours.
- Tap OK when finished.
By configuring your operating hours this way, WhatsApp will automatically show you as online during those hours and offline outside of that time frame. You can set hours for specific days of the week and customize as needed.
Appearing online during off-hours
Even if you set closed hours on WhatsApp, you may want to sometimes appear online and responsive outside of your scheduled availability. This is easy to do on-demand within WhatsApp:
- In your WhatsApp Business app, tap the More Options button (3 dots).
- Choose Available to provide support outside of your operating hours.
- Confirm that you want to be shown as online.
Using this manual override, you can essentially show as online anytime, even if you are technically “closed” per your set hours. It’s great for providing timely support when needed.
Why staying offline is also useful
While being online has its benefits, there are times when a business may want to remain offline or show as closed on WhatsApp. Reasons for this include:
- You are currently unable to respond to customer messages.
- It is outside of your promised response time.
- You want customers to know you are unavailable or closed for business.
- To manage customer expectations about response times.
- Your team is currently unable to provide support.
- During holidays or scheduled time off when closed.
Staying offline helps set reasonable expectations with customers about your availability. It can prevent frustrations from customers wondering why you are not responding in real time when shown as online.
Best practices for online status
Here are some best practices when leveraging your WhatsApp Business online status:
- Keep it enabled whenever you are actively available for conversations.
- Disable it or show as closed when you are unavailable, outside of hours, or cannot respond instantly.
- Set automatic open/closed hours that accurately reflect your real support availability.
- Use manual overrides judiciously if coming online during closed hours.
- Train your team on proper use of online/offline status and response expectations.
- Inform customers of guaranteed response times, regardless of online status.
- Avoid leaving online status enabled 24/7 if you cannot actually provide 24/7 real-time support.
- Monitor customer engagement and satisfaction to improve online status usage.
Following these tips will help you utilize WhatsApp’s online status feature effectively for your business. Customers will appreciate the improved communication and responsiveness.
Responding to customers who message while you’re online
When customers message your business while your online status is enabled, it sets the expectation for a real-time response. Here are some ways to meet that expectation:
- Have team members dedicated to monitoring WhatsApp messages when shown as online.
- Set up notifications and alerts so new messages are not missed.
- Aim to respond to new messages within 1-2 minutes when online.
- Send a greeting or acknowledgement when first reaching out to a customer who messages you.
- Follow up with any details or information requested as quickly as possible.
- Stay engaged in the conversation until the customer’s questions or needs have been fully addressed.
- Before going offline, let customers know you need to continue the conversation later.
- Pick up the conversation where you left off when online again.
Delivering this real-time engagement when online leads to great customer satisfaction. Be sure to manage expectations if you cannot maintain an immediate response at all times.
Notifying customers when you go offline
To provide good customer service, it’s important to communicate properly when you go from online to offline on WhatsApp. Here are some ways to notify customers:
- As part of your away message, indicate when customers can expect to hear back from you.
- Send a message like “I’m now offline, I’ll respond when I’m back online later today.”
- Let them know alternate channels if they need immediate help when you go offline.
- Inform them when you will return based on your operating hours or availability.
- Activate an autoreply confirming you received their message and will get back to them as soon as possible.
- Update your business profile description to share your guaranteed response policy.
- Train your team to send an offline notification message as they close out conversations.
Proactively messaging clients before going offline sets clear expectations and shows them quality customer service.
| Business Size | Average First Response Time | Average Resolution Time |
|---|---|---|
| Small (under 50 employees) | 2 hours | 8 hours |
| Medium (50-1000 employees) | 1 hour | 6 hours |
| Enterprise (over 1000 employees) | 30 minutes | 4 hours |
Adopting a formal response policy
To manage customer expectations, it can help to develop and publish a formal response policy for your WhatsApp Business account. This should cover:
- Expected first response times when customers message you.
- How quickly customers can expect resolution of their issues.
- Times when support is unavailable, such as nights and weekends.
- Service level commitments and goals.
- Channels to use if immediate assistance is required.
- Clarification that showing online does not guarantee instantaneous response.
- How response times may vary by message volume or business hours.
Communicating your policy openly helps avoid misunderstandings about your availability and manage customer satisfaction. Your WhatsApp greetings message, profile description, website, and other channels are great places to share your policies.
What should the response policy cover?
Your WhatsApp Business response policy should address:
- Expected response times based on business hours
- Prioritization system for different types of queries
- Timeframes for issue resolution
- Treatment of messages received outside of operating hours
- Service targets such as first reply in 1 hour during weekdays
- Channels customers can use if immediate support is needed
- Indicators of availability, such as online status
- Exceptions such as holidays or high volume times
Documenting these areas provides helpful guidelines both for your team and for setting expectations with customers.
How detailed should the policy be?
Your response policy should be detailed enough to give customers a clear picture of what to expect. Key considerations include:
- Balance simplicity and detail based on your business needs
- Keep language easy to understand rather than overly technical
- Provide enough specifics on timeframes and availability
- Explain how and when priorities or exceptions are handled
- Use examples where helpful to illustrate your policy
- Align WhatsApp and other channel policies for consistency
- Revisit and update the policies as needed with business changes
While comprehensive policies are helpful, take care not to overwhelm customers with too complex of documentation. The goal is clear communication and managed expectations.
Automating responses when away
Automated messages can be useful for acknowledging customers and setting expectations when your WhatsApp Business account is offline or unavailable. Here are some tips for automation:
- Set up away/offline greetings to reiterate when you will return.
- Configure autoresponders if conversations exceed time-based triggers.
- Use pre-written templates for typical offline scenarios.
- Send automated notifications of received messages if closing conversations.
- Remind customers of alternate contact channels as needed.
- Avoid overly generic automated messages when possible.
- Monitor customer satisfaction with automation and refine as required.
With the right approach, automation enables more consistent communication and shapes customer expectations of response times. Be transparent about any auto messages.
| Feature | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Online/offline status | Shows availability for better communication |
| Business profiles | Presents useful information about your company |
| Quick replies | Enables fast responses to common questions |
| Messaging metrics | Lets you track engagement and improve service |
Monitoring your online status usage
For optimal use of WhatsApp’s online status feature, it’s important to monitor usage and customer engagement. Here are some tips:
- Review when team members are enabling online status
- Audit response times when online versus offline
- Gather customer satisfaction feedback on responsiveness
- Check that away messages are used when going offline
- Confirm scheduled hours match actual availability
- Analyze message metrics to identify trends and areas to improve
- Provide ongoing team training based on what the data reveals
- Communicate learnings internally and optimize processes
Consistent monitoring leads to valuable insights on how to refine your usage of online statuses for better customer conversations. Be proactive with any changes needed.
Using WhatsApp alongside other channels
While WhatsApp Business provides excellent real-time engagement, it’s important to use it together with your other communication channels. Key tips:
- Have linked response policies across all channels
- Make sure customers can easily escalate to other channels as needed
- Provide channel options like phone, email, social media, live chat
- Train teams to handle conversations seamlessly across channels
- Use common tools and templates for unified messaging
- Develop integrated processes between channels
- Coordinate hand-offs between channels to continue conversations
With integrated usage across channels, you can optimize response times, availability, and the overall customer experience.
Optimizing customer satisfaction
Here are some key ways to optimize customer satisfaction with your WhatsApp Business account availability:
- Set proper expectations by communicating response policies.
- Show online status only when able to respond in real-time.
- Use out of office messages and notify when going offline.
- Have customer service teams dedicated to WhatsApp messaging.
- Provide quick issue resolution within promised time frames.
- Monitor data and satisfaction metrics to improve processes.
- Take learnings to enhance response times and availability.
- Automate where appropriate to deliver consistent experiences.
- Keep evolving policies and practices based on customer feedback.
By optimizing around the customer, you can deliver the responsiveness and availability they expect when engaging via WhatsApp for business.
Conclusion
The ability to display your online status is a powerful feature of WhatsApp Business accounts. When used effectively, it allows customers to see when you are available for real-time conversations to resolve their needs and questions. However, it must be paired with clear response policies, good notifications when going offline, and integrated processes across channels. Optimizing your online status and availability enables businesses to provide delightful responsiveness and customer satisfaction on WhatsApp messaging. With a strategic approach, the online indicator becomes an invaluable asset for strengthening your customer relationships.