Meta launches a new offensive in the business market with WhatsApp
Luca Colombo, Meta’s country director for Italia: “Revenue generated by WhatsApp is growing rapidly”
Having won over consumers, Meta is now trying to turn WhatsApp into a business platform. The strategy is to transform the leading messaging platform into a channel through which to manage customer support, notifications, authentication, promotions and, increasingly, AI-powered conversations. Meta is, in short, trying to turn it into a one-stop shop for businesses. In Italia, this journey begins with the first event dedicated to businesses, taking place today in Milan.
“WhatsApp has a high penetration rate amongst the population in Italia,” Luca Colombo, Meta’s Country Director in Italy, tells *Il Sole 24 Ore*. “Data from Censis shows that there is one WhatsApp account for every mobile phone. There had always been very strong demand from businesses, but we weren’t ready with a robust offering.” Now, “the whole world of business messaging is growing and is becoming a viable sector for companies too.”
The leap is from small-scale operations to industrial scale. WhatsApp Business was used by restaurant owners for opening hours and bookings. It wasn’t enough for large groups. “Today, the service is aimed at millions and millions of users, so communication on a massive scale,” explains Colombo. The aim is to replace text messages and emails: deliveries, access codes, purchase confirmations. “When I have a problem with my internet connection, I no longer deal with a call centre, but handle it much more quickly via a WhatsApp account.”
For a growing instant messaging platform, however, one inevitably wonders whether someone will have to lose out. Telcos or contact centres? Colombo rejects the idea of a straightforward replacement: ‘This is an additional channel.’ He adds: ‘These days, people mainly want asynchronous interactions. The advantage of a text message is that it can be handled at different times compared to a contact centre’. However, he admits that ‘perhaps something will change, just as the way we interact will change’. The key is to become part of the consumer’s “customer journey”: support, confirmation, promotion, conversion.
At its commercial heart lies personalised, one-to-one customer care that is always available. Companies use their own CRMs; Meta provides the channel. “You can send a message knowing that the recipient has certain habits,” says Colombo. This is where Meta Business Agent comes in – the AI on WhatsApp and Messenger, and soon on Instagram too. “There are already a million businesses using it worldwide.” In Italia, the product is still in its early stages: customer support, bookings and sales, with “that personal touch”.
