How this small business owner uses WhatsApp to engage customers and grow her business

Ms. Tsuasam Aku Elizabeth,  founder of Adjasam Apparel, started her business in 2017 in her home in Ghana. She started producing unique artistic, hand-painted garments and selling them from her home. In 2021, she started using WhatsApp Business to promote her business and engage with her customers and since then she has been able to build better connections and grow her business..

In this chat, she shares some exciting moments from her journey from launching Adjasam Apparel to date and how she has been able to grow the business progressively.

1.  What inspired you to launch Adjasam Apparel?

Ans: What inspired me to launch Adjasam Apparel is the  cliché but very important need to have a personal source of income and the fact that I have the skill to leverage on. I have a skill that I could easily leverage on to create income which was the artwork. So, the desire to have money coupled with my art skills inspired me.

2. How do you feel being among the SMBs spotlighted for the WhatsAppreneur campaign?

Ans: I think it’s amazing and it shows that whatever I’m doing is being watched by the right people. I am grateful for the opportunity, and it motivates me to do more.

3. When did you start using WhatsApp to connect with your customers and how are you leveraging it for the growth of your business in building an inclusive and resilient brand?

Ans:  I don’t remember exactly how I started using it, but I have been leveraging the WhatsApp Business App to build my brand as an inclusive and resilient brand. The app comes with functions that make it easy for me to track my customers, deliver quality service and maintain customer trust thanks to the quick replies and other features in the app.

4. Which feature of WhatsApp has helped you engage your customers the most and how has it been used?

Ans:  LABELS! The label feature helps me segment my customers which makes it easier to engage based on the level of relationship established. I am able to create clear timelines which enables me to deliver to customers in a timely fashion thereby establishing customer satisfaction and boosting credibility with customers, both old and young.

5. What do you think about Meta’s efforts in empowering SMBs like yours?

Ans: I believe Meta’s efforts to empower small businesses have been absolutely fantastic. However, I also think they could do more to help small businesses by expanding the number of chats you can pin. If we can pin chats of close deliveries as a reminder, it will be great.

6.  How important is it for SMBs to embrace the use of WhatsApp for their business growth?

Ans: WhatsApp, like most social media apps, is very important if you want to scale your business especially SMBs like mine. Customers want to feel like they’re interacting with real people and in real time too which WhatsApp business offers. Every SMB should embrace the use of WhatsApp to experience business growth.

7. Any advice to young business owners using WhatsApp?

Ans: My advice is for them to constantly go through the app and learn something new. Modern day marketing is not motionless or slack, it’s a daily base knowledge which can be gotten from constant thumbing. I call it “on the-job knowledge”. You cannot get to know everything about WhatsApp in a day, month, or year. Keep on using the app if you want to gain all the good qualities a business can have. Get to KNOW the app.

8. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate WhatsApp’s contribution to your business growth?

Ans: I give the rating a 9.5. Like most of our lecturers say in Ghana, not all the marks go to the student, the lecturer must also have some. (Haha) The app has been extremely good in contributing to the growth of my business but as always there’s room for improvement.