Sugro, the national wholesale distributor, has moved away from traditional emailing communications with its clients and is opting to use WhatsApp’s famed API technology for rapid B2B communication.
WhatsApp’s platform for businesses offers features that speed up the distribution process from start to finish, such as one-tap reordering and in-platform payment systems.
Head of commercial and marketing at Sugro, Yulia Petitt, said: "B2B WhatsApp is a powerful tool that can be used in a variety of ways, and we believe it could be a real asset to our wholesaler members and their customers. We see WhatsApp as a great means to get messages out to customers quickly in a secure environment that can track engagement through read receipts and clicks.
The benefit of using WhatsApp in comparison to other communication methods, such as SMS and email, is that we can send a variety of multi-format messages to customers at scale on a platform that we know the vast majority of people are using regularly throughout the day. The challenge is always guaranteeing we get eyes on messages and promotions we send so WhatsApp ticks this box in a way we haven’t been able to previously."
The use of WhatsApp in the F&B wholesale industry mirrors the rise of other instant messaging systems in B2B and intra-workplace communications across many industries — think Slack, Teams and Google Chat.
B2B Store CEO Rob Mannion said: "Almost everyone uses WhatsApp on a daily basis, with 80% of the UK’s phone users downloading the app.
While a lot of people are more familiar with the free versions of WhatsApp, our adaptation of the more advanced WhatsApp Business API technology supercharges what can be achieved – especially for wholesalers like those in Sugro’s membership.
“We’ve been working with the technology for several months and have found early adopters have adapted WhatsApp to their needs in different ways that goes to show how powerful this could be for the sector."