Salesforce and WhatsApp have entered into a new partnership that will bring instant messaging facilities to the Customer 360 platform.

The partnership, announced during Dreamforce 2022, will give businesses a new way to communicate with customers, courtesy of WhatsApp integrations for multiple Salesforce CRM applications.

The arrangement will set the stage for “convenient, integrated and personalized experiences between people and businesses”, says Salesforce, as well as catering to the demand for greater consistency across communication channels.

WhatsApp comes to Salesforce

Historically, businesses have interacted with customers either in-person or over email, but Salesforce believes instant messaging is “the next great customer engagement frontier”.

Research from Kantar, cited by Salesforce, suggests a healthy majority (66%) of customers now prefer to interact with businesses over messaging platforms, which allow for conversational interactions.

By building WhatsApp messaging into its product suite, Salesforce is aiming to help businesses cater to this new preference and build more personal relationships with their customers.

Specifically, WhatsApp messaging will be built into Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud and Commerce Cloud applications, in support of promotional and customer service use cases.

“Our customers are engaging audiences in the US and globally, which requires them to constantly find ways to improve the customer experience by connecting every customer touchpoint into a source of truth to create truly personalized experiences, at scale,” said Michael Affronti, General Manager of Messaging at Salesforce.

“WhatsApp-first business messaging enables every Salesforce customer to provide personal and conversational experiences that increase sales, improve customer service, and engage customers wherever they are.”

WhatsApp messaging will make its way to Salesforce Marketing Cloud in December, with further integrations to enter general availability in the months to follow.