WhatsApp for inquiries instead of a form

Compared 6 min read

What WhatsApp is better at than a website form, what it costs you, and how to set it up so it does not take over your evenings.

Half your customers already message you on WhatsApp. It started with one job, and now people send you photos of a broken fence at nine in the evening and you answer because the phone is right there.

If that is where the conversations happen anyway, why keep a form on the website at all?

What WhatsApp is genuinely good at

The advantages are real, and they matter for trades specifically.

Photos, first. A customer can show you the thing instead of describing it, which for anything you would otherwise drive out to look at is a saving on both sides. Half the quotes you cannot give over the phone become quotes you can give from a photo.

Second, it is a conversation rather than a submission. You can ask one clarifying question and get an answer in forty seconds, where a form gives you one block of text and then silence.

Third, people already have it open. There is no page to load, no fields, no thank-you screen they are not sure worked. They send a message the way they send a message to anybody.

And fourth, you usually get a read receipt. When it is on, you know they saw your reply, which removes a whole category of wondering. It is not a certainty, though. Either of you can switch read receipts off in Settings, Privacy, Read receipts, and the switch works both ways, so turning yours off also stops you seeing anybody else's.

The phone number problem

WhatsApp is tied to a phone number. If that is your personal cell phone, then putting a WhatsApp link on your website is publishing your personal number, along with whatever profile photo and status you have on it. It will end up scraped, and it will get sales messages.

There is a business version of the app that runs a separate number on the same phone, which solves most of this. Setting it up costs you an evening and a second number, and it is worth doing before you advertise the link rather than after, because you cannot easily un-publish a number.

None of this makes WhatsApp a bad idea, only a thing to set up properly instead of a link you paste in a hurry.

One phone, one person, no record

WhatsApp lives on your phone, in your hand. If you are on a roof, nobody else can pick up the conversation. If your phone goes in a puddle, the history goes with it, and the history includes the message where a customer agreed to the extra sockets.

It also does not keep records the way an email trail does. Six months later, when there is a disagreement about what was agreed, scrolling a chat with three hundred messages in it to find the one that matters is not the same as opening an email.

For a solo operator on small jobs this is fine. For anything bigger, agree the price in writing somewhere you can find again, even if the whole conversation happened in chat.

It moves the edges of your working day

A form arrives as an email. Email does not feel like it needs answering at nine at night, because email never has. WhatsApp does, because every other message in that app is a friend or a family member and you answer those immediately. The app has trained you.

Then there are the read receipts working against you. If yours are on and a customer can see you read their message at eight in the evening and did not answer, silence becomes a thing you have to explain rather than a thing that is simply true. Switching them off is one toggle in Settings, Privacy, and the price of it is that you stop seeing whether anybody has read yours either.

You can manage this. The business version has an away message you can set to run outside your hours, and it will say plainly that you answer in the morning. Set it before the volume builds, not after you are already resentful about it.

What WhatsApp does not replace

It does not replace a website, though people are sold the opposite.

Nobody types your business into a search engine and finds a chat thread. WhatsApp is a route for contacting you once somebody already knows you exist, and it does nothing at all about being found.

It also does not replace the form for everybody. Plenty of people will not message a stranger's cell phone, and plenty of inquiries come from a laptop where the app is one more thing to set up. A form catches them for free.

The version that works is both: a form for people who want to write to a business, a WhatsApp link for people who want to send a photo now.

If you use it, set it up like this

• Use the business version of the app on a second number, not your personal one
• Set your business hours in the app and write an away message in your own words
• Set a greeting message for first-time senders saying when you answer
• Add a link on your website, not just a number, so a tap opens the chat
• Keep the form as well, for people who would rather write to a business
• Put the price in writing on anything bigger than a small job, and keep a copy off the phone
• Turn on the backup so a lost phone does not take a year of conversations with it
• Save the photos that matter into a folder for the job, not just the chat

The honest recommendation

If you are already having these conversations on WhatsApp, put a proper link on your website and set it up on a business number. You are formalizing something that is happening anyway, and the photos alone are worth it.

If nobody has ever messaged you that way, do not add it because you read that you should. An unused chat button is one more thing on the page and one more thing to check. Fix the phone number and the form first, because those are the routes people actually try.

And if somebody is selling you a WhatsApp system with a monthly fee, ask them what it does that the free business app does not. For a one-person trade the answer is usually nothing you need.

Questions people ask

Is WhatsApp better than a contact form

For photos and quick back and forth, yes. For being found, for keeping a record, and for people who will not message a mobile, no. Most trades are better off with both.

Should I use my personal number for business WhatsApp

Better not to. The business version of the app lets you run a separate number on the same phone, which keeps your personal number off a public website.

Can I stop messages coming in at night

You cannot stop them arriving, but you can set business hours and an away message that answers automatically outside them, and you can turn notifications off for the app in the evening.

Do I still need a website if customers message me on WhatsApp

Yes. Nobody finds you by searching WhatsApp. It is how people contact you after they have found you somewhere else, which is a different job entirely.

Is a WhatsApp conversation enough of a record for a quote

For a small job, usually. For anything substantial, put the price and the scope in an email or a written quote as well, and keep a copy that does not live only on your phone.

What happens to my messages if I lose my phone

Whatever your backup setting says, which most people have never looked at. Check it now rather than after, because there is no way to recover the history otherwise.