WhatsApp Business updates: what they mean for your customers
Updated: Sep 6
In summary
Usernames will give customers another way to contact your business, while allowing people more control over sharing their own mobile number.
Coexistence lets eligible businesses keep using their WhatsApp Business App while connecting the same number to a managed platform.
Calling and small managed groups offer additional ways to help customers and coordinate specific conversations.
For a marketing team, the useful question behind each WhatsApp update is straightforward: what will it help a customer do?
Find your business? Join a programme? Get an answer? Complete a purchase?
The developments below are worth considering when planning your next campaign or reviewing an existing WhatsApp channel.
Some features are still being rolled out or tested. Availability depends on your market, business account and connected platform.
Customers will be able to contact you by username
Businesses can now reserve a WhatsApp username. As the feature becomes available in each market, customers will be able to contact the business using its exact username. Reserving a name does not mean it is already active. Meta explains the rollout in its username announcement.
For a brand, this provides another contact option to include on campaign material, packaging and event signage.
The practical step is to check your preferred business username and its availability. Before adding it to printed material, confirm that customers in your market can actually use it.
Customers will need the exact username; this is not a directory in which they can browse for businesses.
Ask for a customer’s number when it is needed
Personal usernames bring a different change. A customer may be able to contact your business without automatically sharing their mobile number. Your WhatsApp setup needs to support those conversations, rather than depend entirely on having a number to identify the customer.
Where the number is needed, the business can ask the customer to share it through a button. That request can also be included in an approved message template, making it part of the planned conversation rather than something an agent must remember to ask. The customer decides whether to share it.
Someone could, for example, ask about a loyalty programme without first providing their contact details. When they decide to register, the business can explain why the number is needed and request it at that point.
Keep that request separate from the customer’s choice about receiving future promotional messages.
Keep the existing app while adding more control
Coexistence allows an eligible business to use the WhatsApp Business App and a connected business platform on the same number. Meta describes this in its announcement about using the app and platform together.
For an organisation with branches or local teams, this could offer a less disruptive way to improve how WhatsApp is managed. Staff can retain the familiar app while the organisation introduces a platform with shared access, reporting and connections to its other systems.
It is worth assessing where local WhatsApp activity needs more oversight. Eligibility and feature limitations still need checking before committing to this approach.
Move from messaging to a call when it helps
Some enquiries are easier to resolve in a conversation than through another ten messages.
Where business calling is enabled, customers can call through WhatsApp. Businesses can also call customers who have granted the required permission. Read Meta’s overview of WhatsApp business calling.
A product enquiry might need a discussion with an adviser. A customer struggling to complete a registration may need someone to talk them through it.
Before adding calling to a campaign, decide who will answer, when they are available and how they will access the earlier conversation. The customer should not have to start again because the interaction moved from text to voice.
Small groups could support specific tasks
Eligible Official Business Accounts can now create small, invitation-only groups through their connected platforms. These currently have an eight-participant limit and are not supported on coexistence numbers.
A potential use would be bringing a customer, account manager and specialist into one conversation. For a community programme, a small stakeholder working group could coordinate a particular activity.
This is not a replacement for a large campaign audience or a community-wide communication channel. It is an option for situations where a few people genuinely need to participate in the same discussion.
Routine messages should become easier to set up
Meta is testing a simpler way to configure routine messages such as booking confirmations, order updates and login codes. It reduces some of the work involved in preparing approved messages in advance. The feature remains in testing and does not cover marketing messages.
The account setup process is also being simplified, including support for connecting existing WhatsApp Business App numbers.
For a campaign team, these developments could reduce setup work. They do not remove the need to agree what customers should receive, when it should arrive and what happens when they respond.
Keep the focus on campaign results
Some newer Meta marketing measurement features remain restricted in South Africa. Check local availability before building a reporting plan around a feature shown in an international announcement.
Your reporting should still answer the questions that matter to the campaign: how many people registered, claimed a reward, completed a survey or asked for a follow-up—not only how many messages were delivered.
Meta is also expanding its AI tools, and from 1 October 2026, some service messaging that is currently free will become chargeable. Both belong in planning and budgeting, without becoming the sole reason to change a customer journey.
Start with the points where customers struggle. Then assess which capabilities would help, who will manage them and how success will be measured.
The Quorum helps organisations design and manage WhatsApp campaigns and engagement programmes, connecting customer conversations to business processes and reporting.
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