WhatsApp Business for a small business: a setup guide

If customers already message your business on WhatsApp, you have probably felt the problem: their chats sit between your family group and your mates, the same three questions arrive ten times a day, and a message gets missed because you were with a customer. WhatsApp Business is the free app built to sort that out. This guide covers what it is, how to set it up properly in an afternoon, the mistakes that cost small businesses customers, and the point where the app stops being enough.

It is written for Australian small businesses: cafés, salons, clinics, tradies, shops and studios that talk to customers one at a time.

What WhatsApp Business is, and how it differs from normal WhatsApp

WhatsApp Business is a separate app, made for businesses, that you install with a phone number for the business. According to the official WhatsApp Business app page, it gives you a business profile with your details in one place, a way to show your products and services with prices, and messages that greet people when they first write and reply when you are away. It is free to download from the App Store and Google Play.

Two products have almost the same name, and it helps not to mix them up:

• The WhatsApp Business app. The one you install on your phone. It is the place to start, and it covers most sole traders and small teams.
• The WhatsApp Business Platform (often called the API). Not an app you download. Businesses usually reach it through a provider, and it connects WhatsApp to other systems so conversations can be automated or shared across a team. It is the path for when the app is no longer enough.

For most small businesses the right order is simple: start with the app, use it well, and only move on when there is a specific reason.

Set it up properly in an afternoon

A careful setup saves more messages than any trick you add later. These are the steps, in the order that works best.

1. Use a number just for the business. Ideally not your personal mobile. Customer chats stay separate from yours, and if you hire someone later, the business number does not depend on your phone.
2. Fill in the business profile. WhatsApp's help pages suggest a complete profile: name, logo, a short description, address or service area, categories and hours. Add your website too. Make it match your Google Business Profile and your website exactly. If one says you open at 9 and another says 10, people stop trusting both.
3. Build the catalogue. If you sell products or services with a price, add them with a photo and one line of description. It works for services too: "Men's cut", "Initial physio consult", "Hot water system check".
4. Turn on the greeting message. It is what a new customer sees first. One or two sentences: who you are and what to expect.
5. Turn on the away message. Outside your hours, people should know when they will hear back. "We'll reply from 8am tomorrow" stops them assuming nobody reads.
6. Write quick replies. Write the answers to your ten most common questions once (hours, location, parking, prices, how to book) and reuse them instead of typing them again.
7. Use labels. Mark chats as "New customer", "Quote sent" or "Booked" so you can see at a glance which conversation needs you.

Menus and limits move around between app versions, so follow the steps inside the app's own business tools rather than an old screenshot.

A greeting that works

"Hi, thanks for messaging Example Physio. We're open Monday to Friday, 7am to 7pm. Tell us what you need and we'll reply as soon as we can. To book now, use the link in our profile."

Short, with your hours, a way to act straight away, and no promise you cannot keep.

What to put where

If the same question keeps landing in your chats, the answer belongs in one of those places, and ideally on your website too. Our guide to the pages a small business website needs shows where each answer lives on the site.

Common mistakes

Most WhatsApp problems in a small business are the same few:

• Replying late with no warning. A good away message fixes half of it.
• The business number living on one person's phone. A new phone or a staff change turns into a mess.
• Bulk messages to people who did not ask. The ACMA's guide on avoiding spam says you need consent before sending marketing messages, and every marketing message must identify you, include your contact details and make it easy to unsubscribe. Replying to someone who wrote to you is a different thing from promoting to a list. Check how the rules apply to your messages with your adviser.
• Sensitive details over chat. Avoid asking for ID documents, card numbers or health details on WhatsApp if you can.
• Promising an instant reply. A realistic time frame you keep beats a promise you break.

When the app runs out

The app works well while you, or one person on your team, answers. You can tell it is running out when:

• People message outside your hours and book with someone else because nobody answered.
• Almost every conversation starts with the same five questions.
• Several people on the team need to see and share the conversations.
• You want bookings or enquiries to land in your calendar or your system, not only in the chat.

At that point an assistant that answers the repeated questions from information you approve, and passes anything it does not know to a person, starts to make sense. The same thinking applies to calls: if the phone is the bigger leak, missed-call text back is the simpler first step. To compare quotes for a chat assistant, see how much an AI chatbot costs a small business in Australia.

Realtiq's chat assistant answers on your website, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, email and SMS, and texts back missed calls, all from information you approve. The details are on the AI chatbot page. Third party accounts and fees, such as WhatsApp Business, are set up in your name and listed in the proposal.

Questions to ask before you move past the app

• Do the number and the WhatsApp account stay in my name?
• Can I still reply myself from my phone whenever I want?
• What happens when it does not know an answer?
• What customer details does it keep, and for how long?
• Is it month to month, or is there a lock-in?

Common questions

Is WhatsApp Business free?

The app is free to download. What it costs you is the time to set it up properly. If you later move to the WhatsApp Business Platform through a provider, there is the provider's fee and Meta's own messaging charges, so check the current terms on WhatsApp's official pages before you sign.

Can I use my personal number?

You can, but it is usually not a good idea. If the business runs on your personal mobile, every customer conversation is tied to you. A number just for the business is tidier and easier to hand over.

Do I need the API just for a welcome message?

No. Greeting and away messages, quick replies, labels and the catalogue are all inside the free app. The platform only pays off when you need to automate conversations, connect other systems or have several people answering at once.

Do I need permission to message customers?

To reply to someone who messaged you, you are answering their question. To send marketing messages, the ACMA says you need consent first, and the message must identify you and offer an easy way to unsubscribe. Read the ACMA's guidance and check with your adviser. How Realtiq handles data on this website is in our privacy policy.