In Costa Rica nearly every enquiry ends up on WhatsApp, and that is where they get lost. How to link it properly from the site, what message to prefill, and how to know which of those conversations came from your website.
In Costa Rica almost every commercial enquiry ends up on WhatsApp. It does not matter whether the customer arrived through Google, Instagram or a recommendation: the moment of truth is a message. And yet it is the worst-handled channel in most businesses, because it runs off somebody's personal phone, with no record and nobody watching how many enquiries were lost.
WhatsApp Business is not the same as WhatsApp
It is free, it installs like any app and you can migrate your current number. What it adds is what the regular version does not have:
- A business profile with address, hours, website and description.
- A catalogue of products or services inside the chat.
- An automatic welcome message for first-time contacts.
- An away message outside working hours, so nobody is left waiting at eleven at night.
- Quick replies for what you answer twenty times a week.
- Labels to separate new enquiries, ones in negotiation and closed ones.
None of it is sophisticated and all of it is configured in half an hour. The difference between a business that replies "hi" and one that replies with the catalogue and the hours in view is enormous for someone deciding who to buy from.
How to link it properly from the site
The WhatsApp button has to carry the number in international format and, above all, a prefilled message. That detail changes the conversation: instead of a bare "hi" that forces you to ask what this is about, the person arrives saying what they need.
And the prefilled message can tell you where they came from. If the button on the services page sends "Hi, I saw the services page and I would like a quote" and the blog button sends different text, you know which part of the site generates enquiries without installing anything.
Two more things that matter: the button should be visible without scrolling to the bottom, and it should open in a new tab so the person is not pulled off the site.
How to know how many enquiries your site brings
This is the blind spot in almost every business: they know enquiries arrive on WhatsApp but not which came from the site, which from Instagram and which from a customer who passed the number along.
It is solved by tracking every click on the button as an event in Google Analytics. It is a small technical change and what it returns is the answer to the question that actually matters: how many clients the site brought you this month, and which page they left from. Without that figure, any decision about investing in the web is blind.
The mistakes that lose sales
- Taking hours to reply. The first hour decides almost everything; after that the person has already messaged three others.
- Replying with just "hello" and waiting. If someone asked about a price, give them a range or tell them what you need to know to give one.
- Using an employee's personal number. The day they leave, the conversation history leaves with them.
- No away message. A "we will reply tomorrow at 8" holds people; silence does not.
- Sending long voice notes to someone who is not a customer yet. Many people listen late or not at all.
When to move up to the API
The WhatsApp Business app is enough up to a certain volume. When several people are handling messages, when the history needs to live in a CRM, or when you want real automation, you move to the official API, which has a cost per conversation and requires a provider.
Do not rush there. Most small businesses have enormous room to improve just by configuring the free app properly and by measuring where enquiries come from.
Want us to review your site or build a new one?
