Business Search
WhatsApp Business Search is a feature for people to find businesses and start conversations with trusted, API accounts on WhatsApp.
At the moment this feature is available only for verified businesses in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia and the UK.
By typing the name of a verified business they want to contact, the user will see one or many business results, e.g type ‘american’ - ‘american express would display’.
They can also browse by category to find and connect with businesses they need. You can configure your Business category (vertical) from the 360dialog Client Hub or using the Partner API.
Popular Business
The WhatsApp Business Search App has a " Popular " section at the top of the homepage, to enhance visibility for eligible businesses in Mexico, Indonesia, and Colombia.
The Popular businesses section in Discover businesses displays the top 25 verified business accounts for users to discover. To be featured in this section, business accounts must be responsive to at least 90% of incoming user messages. Business accounts must also have received the most messages through business searches in their country in the last seven days (see image above).
Understanding search results
Search results will match in full or in part the text the user has entered. The results displayed will only show businesses registered in the user's country. Note: Global business accounts are not yet eligible to be listed in Discover businesses.
How to manage verified business account visibility in Discover businesses
Discover businesses will automatically display businesses that must meet the following criteria:
Accounts must have a Verified or Official Business Account status.
Accounts must have a Connected status in the WhatsApp Business Manager, indicating that their phone numbers are connected.
Visible phone numbers in a WhatsApp business account must have different account profile names.
The display name for a given phone number must be unique for the given country because duplicate names are not allowed.
The phone number must have the prefix +57 for Colombia, +62 for Indonesia, and +52 for Mexico.
The phone number must be responsive to at least 80% of incoming user messages in the last seven days.
On average, the account must reply to the first message in a user-initiated conversation within 24 hours.
It is also recommended that businesses take the following steps to improve the quality of their accounts:
Use a clear business logo as the account profile photo.
Select the relevant business category.
Add their business address.
Add a description of their business.
Meta reassesses account eligibility every 24 hours. If an account doesn’t meet the criteria, it will no longer be visible in Discover businesses. This change is automated and business owners will be able to see the reason for the ineligibility in the WhatsApp Business Manager.
Opting out and in
Visibility in Discover businesses is automatic for businesses meeting the criteria above. Shared WABAS created through Integrated Onboarding can remove their account(s) from Discover businesses at any time using the WhatsApp Business Manager. Businesses can also re-list themselves from the same locations, if eligible.
If the account was created via Classic Signup, please file a ticket requesting this update so our Support team can assist.
Businesses will need to allow ~1 hour for their visibility to be adjusted in WhatsApp users' phones.
Note: If an account was previously visible in Discover businesses, it’s possible that customers who found the account there will continue to contact the business. Charges could apply.
Understanding the pricing model
The WhatsApp Business Platform is priced by each conversation. There are two rates, one for user-initiated and one for business-initiated conversations. User-initiated conversations are only charged once a business replies to the user, and standard pricing will apply.
Rates are based on the end-recipient’s phone number and as part of the initial rollout, businesses won’t know the:
Exact point of origin for the customer-initiated conversation
Total number of customer-initiated conversations
Think strategically about your presence on Business search
Tip 1: Consider how your brand shows up in search results
Simplify your business presence to make it more appealing for consumers to get in touch by making visible one account with a brand-oriented display name.
Highly marketable and promotable
Wider variety of use cases need preparation and management
Reduces overall number of templates
Less ability to tailor initial response message to expected use cases
Tip 2: Create unique account display names
To ensure a high quality, confusion-free experience for people, duplicated display names will not be displayed. Review your display names and ensure those that you wish to be visible are change to a unique name and switch their visibility to “on”.
Tip 3: Reflect the purpose of the account in the display name
Tip 4: Reflect the purpose of the account in the templated responses
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