Integration | Salesforce-WhatsApp

https://sleekflow.io/blog/salesforce-whatsapp-integration

WhatsApp is a powerful channel to reach new leads, nurture prospects, and close deals worldwide. But the manual process of sending every Salesforce contact a WhatsApp message is very repetitive - export contacts from Salesforce, import contacts into WhatsApp, and log WhatsApp messages as activity in Salesforce.

A Salesforce WhatsApp integration is all about building a user-friendly and intuitive chat interface that enables Salesforce users to interact with customers and manage WhatsApp communication easily.

Looking to invest in a new Salesforce integration software? Want to build your own system with WhatsApp API and Salesforce API? Here are 6 things to consider for a successful Salesforce WhatsApp integration.

Use case: Where in your business funnel do you require using WhatsApp for communication? For example, your customer service team sends booking information on WhatsApp. Does the tool connect well to your existing scheduling software (e.g. Calendly)? If you want to close deals with WhatsApp, ensure that the Salesforce integration service provider can process payment.
Messaging combined services: 86% of customers love channel-hopping. If you want to communicate with Salesforce contacts anywhere, consider an omnichannel provider that merges multiple messaging channels into one place. Your team can move fluidly between WhatsApp, Viber, LINE, Telegram, etc.
Native or custom integration: Some companies require a Salesforce native integration, so data doesn't leave the Salesforce platform. But native integration is more rigid. Many salesforce integration partners do not provide the flexibility to adapt the solution to your specific requirements. For example, to extend the integration and include other CRM tools (e.g. HubSpot).
Budget: Do you have a big budget to hire a team of solution engineers and developers to build a custom integration? Besides the one-off cost of building the system from the ground up, you will also need to maintain and optimize it constantly.
Payment amount and frequency: If you prefer to subscribe to a Salesforce integration software, look into the billing structure. Per-user pricing is easy to understand, but it can get expensive when scaling fast. A flat rate pricing with flexible add-ons allows you to extract the product's value as you like and predict the ROI accurately.
Template manager: WhatsApp API users must use the template to send a message to anyone who did not interact with them for over 24 hours. How do you want to create and manage your approved templates? Do you need to be able to send template messages as quick replies?

How to integrate WhatsApp with Salesforce and skip all the manual work of exporting and importing contacts into different systems? There are 2 options, which are Salesforce's products and third-party vendors.

TD; LR, here is a comparison table:

Option	Salesforce’s own product (currently available on Marketing Cloud)	Third-party vendors (WhatsApp Business Solution Provider, which provides Salesforce integration solutions)
Cost Structure	Acquisition cost, implementation cost, and support/maintenance cost.	Monthly subscriptions, cancel at any time
Best Use Case	B2C Marketing	Sales, Inbound and outbound marketing, Customer Support
Messaging combined services	Build Your Own	Some omnichannel platforms provide an all-in-one Salesforce social integration solution that includes Viber, Telegram, etc.
CRM integration	Salesforce Customer 360	Some omnichannel platforms offer integration with various CRM software including Salesforce Customer 360, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamic 360
E-commerce integration	Salesforce Commerce Cloud	Some omnichannel platforms offer integration with multiple e-commerce platforms including Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shopify, Magento

In September 2022, Salesforce announced its strategic partnership agreement with WhatsApp. Businesses of all sizes will be able to build WhatsApp messaging experiences and manage communication across the Salesforce Customer 360 applications. The WhatsApp integration with Salesforce also allows brands to activate their audience on the Marketing Cloud Customer Data Platform. With that, brands can launch highly-targeted Click-to-Message ads on Facebook and Instagram to drive conversions.

To integrate WhatsApp with Salesforce this way, you need to fulfill some prerequisites, according to WhatsApp News and Salesforce News:

Ability to build the integration on top WhatsApp Cloud API: You need to have a team of in-house developers and sign up for Meta's cloud-based API to customize the chat experience.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud user license: The Salesforce integration with WhatsApp Business Platform is only available on Marketing Cloud starting from December 2022. The timeline is still being determined for Salesforce Service Cloud and Commerce Cloud.

This option offers flexibility to make the integration do precisely what you want – such as tailor it to your customer data model. But it can be expensive to retain internal resources to support the constant build and optimization of the tool.