WhatsApp for Business starts roll out, BookMyShow is among the first

Businesses will soon start messaging you on WhatsApp

WhatsApp is taking early steps towards making money off its platform in India. On Thursday, tickets booking platform BookMyShow said it had started collaborating with WhatsApp. It sent its users confirmations on WhatsApp for tickets booked, one of which was posted by a user on Twitter. “We will use this chat to send your ticket confirmation,” BookMyShow’s WhatsApp message read. “To stop receiving messages from us, please reply with ‘Stop’.”

BookMyShow is not the only company that is looking at what is being referred to as “WhatsApp for Business”. WhatsApp is in talks with other companies such as Uber’s local rival Ola and hotel rooms aggregator OYO, and some airline companies.

BookMyShow is not the only company that is looking at what is being referred to as “WhatsApp for Business”. WhatsApp is in talks with other companies such as Uber’s local rival Ola and hotel rooms aggregator OYO, and some airline companies.

Here is all you want to know about WhatsApp verified business and how it works

➧ Some business accounts have been verified by WhatsApp.

➧ If you see a green badge next to a contact's name, it means that WhatsApp has  confirmed that the phone number of this contact belongs to a business account.

➧ WhatsApp will also let you know when you start talking to a business via yellow   messages inside a chat.

➧ But there is no way to delete these messages from the chat.

➧ If you already have a business's phone number saved in your address book, the   name you will see is the name you have saved in your address book.

➧ If you don't have a business's phone number saved in your address book, the        name you will see is the name the business has chosen for themselves.

➧ However, if you'd like to stop a business from contacting you, you can block         them.

WhatsApp for Business could come as a crucial boost for WhatsApp as it enters the digital payments sector as well as it faces the tech challenges of its own encryption layers that do not allow anyone-even WhatsApp itself — to see the contents of the messages on the platform. Especially when even global tech giants like Amazon and Google are making a fray for it. With BookMyShow on its rolls, it seems to be gearing up for a big play in business and ecommerce. How successful will it be given the broken Internet connections in India and the fact that SMSes are still irreplaceable to surmount bandwidth problems, remains to be seen.