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Join for freePosted: Tue 28th Jul 2026
WhatsApp is the most engaging communication platform on the planet, and if your customers and prospects are using WhatsApp, you should too.
In this webinar, Chris Dillon tells you how and why you should use WhatsApp in your business. You'll make life easier for your contacts, and have more of them engaging with and buying from you as a result.
How you can harness WhatsApp as your best communication platform
How to use WhatsApp videos to build trust like no other method
How to generate conversations and increase engagement from leads and clients
Chris is a best-selling author and leading WhatsApp automation expert whose goal is to help businesses grow through more conversations and more time by harnessing the power of WhatsApp and all it can do.
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Lightly edited for clarity.
Caitriona: Hello everyone, and welcome to today's Lunch and Learn. My name is Caitriona, and I'll be your host today. For those of you attending a Lunch and Learn for the first time, Enterprise Nation is a vibrant community platform for start-ups and small businesses.
I'm pleased to introduce Chris Dillon, a WhatsApp automation expert. In this session, Chris will tell you how and why you should use WhatsApp in your business.
If you have any questions throughout the webinar, please post them in the chat, and we'll do our best to answer them at the end of the session. Today's webinar will be recorded, and we'll send a follow-up email with the recording and further resources later today. Over to you, Chris.
Chris Dillon: Thank you very much, and thank you for the introduction. As mentioned, my name is Chris Dillon.
The purpose of today's talk is primarily to go through WhatsApp automation, but also to talk about the importance of customer experience. When I speak to pretty much every business, I believe one of the biggest areas for improvement is a business's actual customer experience.
You can have the best marketing in the world, and the best product in the world, but if the experience a customer goes through between A and B isn't great, they simply won't care enough about you to take the next step.
WhatsApp is the big shiny object I talk about all the time, because I believe it's the best channel – from a communication standpoint – for getting things out. This presentation is going to talk about that today.
This is going to be a theme throughout today's conversation: conversations naturally lead to more conversions. If you're conversing with people, getting them to talk to you and engage with you, they're more likely to do the thing you want them to do – whether that's booking a call, registering their interest, turning up to a masterclass, making an enquiry, or buying something from you.
A little bit of background on me: my journey in sales and marketing probably started about 20 years ago, when I was going around university halls knocking on doors, selling tickets for nightclub events, and making one pound in commission from doing so.
I started to realise that I was putting in a lot of effort for a very small amount of money. So I started learning marketing and how I could do that remotely. By the end of the year, I had people coming to me as part of their normal weekly process to get tickets from me, because I'd organised Facebook groups and events, tagged people, and set up WhatsApp groups.
During this presentation, I want to show you what this can look like for your business. I've got a QR code that I'm going to get you to scan – when you fill out the details there, which is just name, email and phone number, it will send you a WhatsApp while we're talking. I've also popped the link in the chat if you don't have access to the QR code.
I want you to see how WhatsApp automation can be used, and actually interact with it during this talk, so you can see what it could look like for your business. I'll leave this up on screen for a few minutes, and I want you to interact with the messages I send. There'll be a few points during this training where I'll ask you to send me words back, so you can get a sense of how the automations work and how that might fit into your business.
Every business on here today is different, so do let me know in the comments what you're doing. We've got clients that range from window cleaners and independents all the way up to seven- and eight-figure businesses, all putting this into practice because they understand where people's attention is.
I want you to understand that the more you're talking to people, and the more you get people interacting, the more attention you get from that person – and the more likely they are to take the next step. And this isn't something that's unbeknownst to you.
There's an exercise I like to do. Imagine your favourite restaurant, and everything that makes it your favourite. Generally, when I ask people where the best food they've ever had was, their answer is different to what they'd name as their favourite restaurant.
Nine times out of ten, that's because their favourite restaurant has good food, but it also has good service, memories, ambience, and something unique that they love. It's the same with businesses. We put a lot of emphasis on businesses that offer us a better quality of experience.
Because ultimately, in marketing we talk about things like leads – but your leads are actual human beings, they're people going through an experience. I sometimes get very annoyed at marketers and marketing companies because they frame it as "these are the leads coming in," when really, there's an actual human being who's taken time out of their day to interact.
As people were interacting during that exercise, my phone was going a bit mad with notifications. A few of you jokingly commented on my hair and my dog in the background – it's a good example of how, as you're interacting, notifications just keep coming through.
The more I can get people interacting, the more I get them engaging with my business, and the more attention they're going to spend. When I do keynotes, to give you an idea, I speak on WhatsApp around the world, and I don't say that flippantly.
I've been flown to Abu Dhabi, and I'm going to Manila next week to speak at a conference in front of two-and-a-half thousand people. I'm also in America at the end of the year, having spoken there last year, and I spoke in India at the start of this year. Next year should bring a bit of a tour of Latin America.
I talk on WhatsApp a lot, and I need to make it really easy for my own business, for people to interact and communicate. But this is also something that's really at the core of it: why do I choose WhatsApp? As I mentioned, conversations lead to conversions, and conversations quite frankly happen on WhatsApp more than on any other platform.
So what do I mean by WhatsApp? Most people will be familiar with at least two of these three: personal WhatsApp, which is probably what most of you are interacting with the automation on right now; WhatsApp for Business, the free app you can get; and what's called the WhatsApp API.
Without getting into too much of the technicalities – because I don't want to flood you with them on this training – I'll keep it fairly high level so you get an understanding of the concepts. The API allows us to do an awful lot of things, and Meta allows this; it isn't a case of jerry-rigging a system.
For any more detailed questions, I can answer them afterwards. But for the sake of this: your normal WhatsApp for Business app will typically be limited in the number of devices you can use it on, and you'll have a limited number of contacts you can save.
Your ability to mass-broadcast is more likely to come through communities, which is very much a one-way, billboard-style approach – here's the post, here's the information. There's no official API integration, although a few pieces of software can get around that, and it can put your account at risk, because Meta doesn't want you using it that way.
Things like button call-to-actions – which you'll have seen in the messages I've sent you – don't typically happen in normal WhatsApp Business. Whereas with the API, we can have it on unlimited devices, and you're typically using it through a third-party platform. We use the CRM system HighLevel, but it's available through a lot of other platforms too.
Because of that, you can have an unlimited number of contacts and get to a point where you can mass-broadcast to an unlimited number of people. Those of you who are eagle-eyed will see an asterisk beside that, because when you start out, you'll have a limit of 250 people a day that you can message – it's not a message limit, it's a limit on the number of people.
If you're a verified business with Meta, that jumps up to 2,000 a day. If, over time, you get enough people engaging and replying to you, Meta will see that you're using WhatsApp the way it's intended and will upgrade you – the limits go from 2,000 a day, to 10,000, to 100,000, to unlimited.
Meta and WhatsApp actively want you to use this, so there are active API integrations. You're allowed to use AI and chatbots, and you can have up to 10 call-to-action buttons, although I'd only typically recommend up to three.
The reason it's so effective is that 3 billion people around the globe use this app at least once a month. Your average user – and this is the stat that always blows my mind – uses it for 61 minutes a day.
If you compare that to Facebook, TikTok or Instagram, 61 minutes might not sound like a lot, but nobody's doom-scrolling through WhatsApp. That's 61 minutes a day of people responding to and reading messages.
I'm a massive believer in this, and I can see people in the chat saying they use WhatsApp every day too. I truly believe human beings do one of three things: what they've always done, what feels familiar, and what they think everybody else is doing, though of course there are outliers.
If you're trying to encourage somebody to do something that doesn't fit into at least one of these three categories, you're going to have an uphill struggle. WhatsApp works so well because, for most of us – especially in the UK, Europe, most of Asia, Africa and Latin America – we've used it for years.
I've had it for about 22 years now, which makes me feel old. The point is, it's something we've always done, it feels familiar because we use it so often, and we know everybody else is using it too, in our friend groups, family groups and work chats.
Because we know our peers and loved ones are using it, it naturally feels like a more personal platform – and it is. It's much more personal than email or SMS, which is why 100 billion WhatsApp messages are sent worldwide every single day.
Of those 100 billion messages, 7 billion are voice notes, and I'll explain why that's important shortly. A couple of stats: if you'd like the slides from this presentation, send me the word "slides" on WhatsApp, and I'll send you the full deck from a longer version of this talk I gave in India.
That won't work if you send it in the chat here – it only works if you send it to me on WhatsApp, in response to the messages you're already getting.
So, a couple of stats. Email open rates average around 26% to 27%, which is a fairly well-known figure. An open rate of 40% is usually cause for celebration, even though that still means 60% of people aren't even opening the message.
WhatsApp and SMS open rates are much, much higher by comparison. Michelle mentioned she's currently getting 46% on email, which is a fantastic open rate – I'm not suggesting you stop everything you're doing on email and move to WhatsApp; I send an email out every single day to our list.
46% is a huge open rate, and yet it still means most people aren't opening your emails. That's not a criticism – it just shows how attuned we've become to receiving emails, whereas people do open WhatsApp messages.
The biggest thing for me with WhatsApp, though, is engagement. Click-through rates on email average around 2.5%; combined click-through and reply rates on SMS are about 18%; on WhatsApp, it averages over 55%.
So how do you go about implementing it? First, take a serious, granular look at your own customer experience. Look at what happens when people go through it, and how they interact.
For example, somebody fills out a form to make an enquiry with your business. What do you send them immediately? If it's an email saying "thanks, we'll be in touch," frankly, that's not good enough.
You need to plan that customer experience properly. Send me the word "plan" on WhatsApp, and I'll send you a full 24-page resource guide that lays out exactly how every step of my customer journey works, from start to finish, once somebody makes an enquiry.
Michelle made a good point about business owners not opening emails: people are flooded with so many emails that a business owner receives about 50 a day on average, which lines up with what I see. So – first things first – plan your customer experience, and send me "plan" if you'd like the full document.
Here's a stat that always blows my mind: getting back to somebody within the first five minutes of them enquiring is 21 times more effective than getting back to them within 30 minutes. Speed matters – if a lead comes in and you don't respond until the end of the week, they're already gone by the time you get there.
But it's not just about speed – the quality of that experience matters just as much, if not more. Simply sending an email that says "thanks, we'll be in touch" is, in my view, less than the bare minimum.
I think you need to look closely at what happens the moment an enquiry comes in, and for me, that needs to be a WhatsApp video. I'll explain why with my favourite sentence in the world – it's a strange favourite, but it is one.
This sentence has seven words and six different meanings, depending on which word gets the emphasis: "I didn't tell you to kill him." Say it with the stress on a different word each time, and the meaning changes completely.
The only way you'd know which meaning I intend is by hearing my voice – if I wrote that sentence in any text form, whether WhatsApp, SMS, email or a billboard, you'd have a one-in-six chance of reading it the way I meant it. I know that's a hyperbolic example, but it makes the point.
There are sentences in your marketing, your emails and your messages that are being misread right now, and you'll never spot them, because you'll always read your own marketing the way you wrote it. Remember, somebody going through your process doesn't care enough about you to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Think about the last time a friend or family member sent you a message that made you think "what on earth do they mean by that?" – and then, after a coffee and a moment to relax, you realised they probably didn't mean it that way. That happens all the time.
If it happens in your business, with your customers' experience, they'll simply disappear, and you'll never know why. Not enough businesses, in my opinion, do a good job of listening to that negative feedback through customers' actions, let alone through reviews – if everybody's dropping off the moment they arrive, that's a problem.
So, what should you be automating, and what should you put into practice? I'd argue the first thing should be a video as soon as somebody comes in – something like: "Hi, Chris here. Thank you for filling out the form on the website a few moments ago. This video will explain everything you need to know, answer the questions most people have at this stage, and let you know what the next steps are. My team will be reaching out to you in the next 48 hours, but if you'd like to skip ahead, you can click the button below and book in a time that suits you."
I also answer the pricing question in that first video. I don't tell people the exact price of packages, because I don't want them making a decision on price without understanding the value – but I'll say that some clients invest £30,000 a year with us, while others spend £12 on our online course, or £300 to spend a day with me on bespoke training. That frames the conversation moving forward, and I think it's one of the most important things you can do.
The second thing I'd put into practice is a reminder series. If you have sales calls, discovery calls or consultations as part of your business, and you have a problem with no-shows, you need a sequence – from the point of booking to the appointment itself – that builds excitement, rather than just reminding them they need to be there.
The point at which someone books is their highest level of interest, and that naturally drops by the time the appointment comes round. One of the most effective things we do is send a video 24 hours before a sales call that lays out everything that's going to happen and sets expectations.
That's led to our sales call show-up rate being over 98% over the past 18 months. We encourage people to reschedule beforehand rather than not show up, because it's far easier for them to reschedule ahead of time than to rebook afterwards.
I think you can also do a lot of initial qualification through WhatsApp. I won't demonstrate this live, as it might be distracting, but afterwards you can send me the word "flow", and it will take you through a "pick a card" demo, where you're presented with a few options and, by the end, sent a photo of the card you picked.
The idea is that you might want to direct people down one path or another based on the choices they make, which might mean qualifying some people out. All of this is built around one simple idea: make it easy for people to take the next step.
A good example is what we've done today: I made it easy at the start by putting a QR code and a link in the chat, and I've since sent that link to anyone who joined late. I've asked you to interact throughout, pointed out that everyone else is doing it, and got you to send me the words "plan", "slides", and "flow".
Even when I said "don't do this while we're on the presentation, because my phone goes mad," people still did it anyway – which shows how well this works when it's made easy. Everyone on this call today will get a video from me at seven o'clock tonight, thanking you for spending part of your day listening to me talk.
To wrap up quickly: our conversion rate from form to booked call used to be 42%; once we added WhatsApp to the process and told people that everybody would be called, that jumped to 68%. 25% of every lead that comes into our business – whether from a presentation, paid ads, a lead magnet, an exhibition or a keynote – books a sales call with us, and, as I said, the show-up rate for that is 98%.
I have three core suggestions before I hand over to questions. First, automate key points in your process – "I'll get back to my leads as soon as I can" isn't fast enough. If a lead comes in at one in the morning on a Saturday and you don't respond until Monday, they've been left waiting for hours; automation needs to play a part in capturing their attention with something that keeps them engaged.
Second, remember the three Ps: be personable, be personalised, but don't pretend to be a person. People don't mind automation as long as it's in service of them, and as long as you're always giving them the option to say they're not interested.
At every single point, I want people to be able to opt out of a sequence. If you understand that they're human beings, and you're just having a conversation with them, looking at their experience will be the key to unlocking a lot of things – and WhatsApp is the shiny object that helps you do it. Thank you very much.
I know there are some questions coming through – shall I dive straight into those?
Caitriona: Sure, go ahead.
Chris: Katie's asked whether this is typical for product-based businesses. It also depends on the product: if it's a relatively low-ticket product, you could use things like abandoned-cart follow-up sequences, customer service, and gathering reviews after purchase. For higher-ticket, more considered products, where there's more of a sales process, WhatsApp is definitely part of that too, because people need to interact, ask questions and be asked questions in return.
Riley's asked a few questions, so I'll touch on them quickly. On the most scalable platform to keep in touch: I'd use a QR code rather than WhatsApp groups, because groups get crowded very quickly – if three people respond to a post, it disappears into the ether, and most people don't scroll back.
Using the WhatsApp API, every person who scanned the QR code and filled in the form got their own personal message and had a one-to-one conversation with me. In terms of keeping in touch, WhatsApp is where all the attention is – if their attention is already there, don't try to move them off it. Platforms like YouTube or LinkedIn are good if you have a strong following, but you're asking people to go out of their way to engage, whereas with WhatsApp, they're reading those messages anyway.
Michelle, who runs a subscription box business, asked about running a quiz. You can do the entire quiz on WhatsApp if you want to get technical – we run our full onboarding process this way, asking questions like "what's your business name?" and "what's the first line of your address?", with answers saved straight into fields so the account can be set up without any extra work.
On API pricing and whether to budget per message or per client: it's a difficult question to answer in detail. The software we use, HighLevel, is provided as part of our service, but going direct costs around $97 a month, depending on your CRM.
The WhatsApp API doesn't charge per message – it charges per template message sent to a conversation that isn't already open. Everybody who filled in the QR code at the start of this talk cost me about seven pence for that first message; everything since, while the conversation's been open, hasn't cost me anything.
On the engagement rate for businesses using AI agents with WhatsApp: engagement on WhatsApp itself is massive, but engagement with an AI agent comes down to how good that agent is. Our current reply rate is around 80%, though that's partly because I've been getting all of you to send me words throughout this talk, which counts as replies.
Julia asked whether I find it intrusive when people get in touch via WhatsApp. Only if I wasn't expecting them to – it's important to set the expectation up front that filling in a form means you'll get a WhatsApp message. Nobody on this call found it intrusive, because I was clear from the start: scan this, and I'll send you a WhatsApp.
The easiest way to do this is on your form: change the phone number field to "WhatsApp number", so people expect it, and give them the option to opt out if they don't want it. WhatsApp is a much more personal platform, so people are more likely to find it intrusive if they weren't expecting a message – and WhatsApp makes it very easy to block you if you don't give people that option.
A couple more questions, as I'm conscious of time. Gracie asked how many accounts we manage: it's 193 across our clients – I checked the exact number yesterday. A few clients have multiple numbers, but it's 193 clients in total.
Gracie also asked at what stage we offer the "not interested" option. We try to include it in any follow-up message that isn't necessarily expected – for instance, if someone fills in a form and I send them something straight away, there's an understanding that they can text "stop" whenever they want. But if I send a follow-up message later, that will include a "not interested" option, whereas a booking confirmation won't, because they've already booked.
At any point, people can still go into WhatsApp and block me, remove me or report me. It's a very sensitive platform, and WhatsApp doesn't want this to become like email or SMS.
Maggie's last question was whether I'd recommend HighLevel over Zoho One. I do, personally – I've used the platform for about six years, and we have no affiliation or sponsorship with them. We use it because it works, and they know I'm good at WhatsApp, which is why they put me on stage to talk about it.
So this might be a slightly biased perspective, but for me, HighLevel gives you pretty much everything at one of the lowest costs available. A lot of software charges extra every time you want a new feature – sometimes £300 a month – whereas going direct with HighLevel costs $97 a month for access to everything.
If you go through agents like us, we tend to offer higher-ticket services, so people come to us to build or consult on their setup, with the software cost embedded in what we charge.
Maggie's other question was about GDPR, given that HighLevel is American. My main recommendation is to be GDPR-compliant across the board, regardless, because it sets clear expectations: you fill this in, and I'm going to send you a message.
It's a bit of a grey area with WhatsApp, because it's technically a private platform – when you sign up, you agree to terms and conditions that include businesses messaging you. But WhatsApp will still encourage people to block you if they weren't expecting the message in the first place, so it's worth adhering to those principles anyway.
Hopefully, that answers everything.
Caitriona: Great, thank you so much, Chris. Thanks for your presentation today, and thanks to everyone who joined us. We'll be sharing the recording and further resources in a follow-up email this afternoon. Thank you.
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