Is WhatsApp the answer?

One response from website owners to the prediction that customers will soon be using Ai agents to interrogate websites is “if their enquiry is complicated enough that they need these tools, why don’t they just call us?” It’s a fair point, but it’s been an issue which predates the internet – many people simply don’t like to make phone calls, for a range of reasons.

This has become even more acute with the ubiquity of text messaging. Parents roll their eyes at their kids spending hours a day exchanging messages with friends, but even old folk quietly prefer (and use) this channel too. Making a phone call has become a last resort, even when it’s likely to be the best option. It’s taken business a long time to wake up to providing chat services on their websites to meet this customer preference, and for many it’s been a revelation.

However, text chat services on websites have quickly fallen victim to enshittification. Now we look at them with disdain, assuming if we engage with the chat box it’ll just put us in touch with some awful ‘bot’ which will waste our time. Is there a way around this?

One approach which may solve the problem is the WhatsApp Business app. The reason this works as a chat box in the corner of a website is familiarity. Visitors see the logo and instantly assume it will put them into a WhatsApp text chat with the business. And it does.

Of course, this requires the business to have someone available to text chat. Assuming it’s only during business hours, the availability needs to be made clear, or the chat box needs to be set to only show when a contact is available.

Inevitably, people are already trying to ruin the simplicity of WhatsApp on a website by offering integrations with reply bots. For now though, for anyone who has no text chat on their website, I would strongly recommend experimenting with the vanilla version.