The WhatsApp Business Platform has been a game-changer for businesses worldwide. The ability to tap into WhatsApp’s potential audience of over 2 billion people, most of whom use the app daily, has opened a whole new universe of possibilities for brands who want to reach out and engage their customers, offer real-time support, and sell products and services.

But while getting a WhatsApp business account for your business might be a straightforward process, the dynamics of succeeding on the platform require a lot of planning and attention to detail.

Today, we will talk about some of the most common pitfalls of using WhatsApp for your business. As you will come to see, offering a great customer experience over WhatsApp is often a question of what NOT to do.

What not to do on the WhatsApp Business Platform

1. Don’t spam people

This is the prime directive of WhatsApp Quality Based Marketing — do not send people information or offers they don’t need or didn’t ask for. If they initiate a conversation with you, you can use the 24-hour conversation window to share any relevant offers, or promotional content or cross-sell something they may be interested in.

WhatsApp’s Quality-Based Marketing guidelines clearly state that it is a good practice to make users go through an unambiguous opt-in process where they explicitly agree to receive marketing communication from your business.

If you start sending unsolicited WhatsApp promotional messages en masse, you will most likely get marked as spam by a significant portion of your potential audience. This will reduce the quality score of your account, leading to issues with the deliverability of your messages and in some cases, getting your account banned altogether. Make sure you also use your WhatsApp channel to send important notifications, and updates and initiate conversations with your customers to provide some actual value.

You should also have a clear way for people to opt out of some or all messaging from your busines