WhatsApp is the connective tissue South African businesses can no longer ignore

WhatsApp is the connective tissue South African businesses can no longer ignore

Customer experience has become one of the most talked-about priorities in South African boardrooms, but for many businesses it remains more theory than practice. Consumers are still forced to bounce between websites, call centres, emails, SMSs, and in-store visits simply to complete a purchase or resolve an issue. This fragmented reality frustrates customers, drives down conversion rates, and leaves revenue on the table. The solution is not another app, another channel, or another call centre script. 

The solution is WhatsApp.

“WhatsApp is no longer just a chat platform. It has become infrastructure, woven into the daily lives of the majority of South Africa’s adult population. A recent study with Dataportal and Statista estimates that between 90% and 96% of South Africa’s internet users, roughly 24 to 29 million people, are on WhatsApp. It’s where we connect with family, manage our social lives, and increasingly, where we transact. If businesses are not meeting customers on WhatsApp, they are not meeting them where they already are. And if WhatsApp is not integrated into an organisation’s omnichannel strategy, that strategy is incomplete,” comments Jonathan Elcock, Co-Founder at rather.chat.

The strength of WhatsApp lies in its ability to collapse friction. Instead of forcing customers to navigate multiple apps, websites, or phone calls, everything can flow through one trusted channel. Research, decision-making, payment, fulfilment, and after-sales support can all live in a single WhatsApp conversation. This consistency not only reduces customer frustration but also creates visibility across the journey, driving up trust and conversion rates.

Elcock comments that many business leaders still argue that traditional, old-school analog methods deliver acceptable results: “They point to a 38% contact rate achieved through traditional channels as evidence of success. But that number masks a more important truth: 62% of customers are telling you they don’t want to engage that way. What businesses believe is “working” and what customers actually want, are increasingly at odds.”

He adds that the real measure of success is not internal efficiency, but whether the customer journey is seamless from end to end: “Without WhatsApp integrated at the core, the journey breaks down: front-end lead generation operates in isolation from contact centres, and back-end fulfilment often lags behind. Every breakdown represents a lost opportunity. WhatsApp bridges these gaps, acting as the connective tissue that ensures consistency and ease across the entire customer lifecycle.”

The data supports Elcocks’ sentiments. “Globally, we’ve seen the rise of messaging platforms as full-scale commercial ecosystems. In China, WeChat evolved from a chat app into an all-in-one marketplace, banking service, and customer engagement tool. South Africa is following a similar trajectory, and WhatsApp is the natural platform of choice. Customers are already voting with their thumbs, showing businesses where they prefer to engage. The question is no longer whether consumers are ready for WhatsApp; the question is whether businesses are ready for them,” concludes Elcock. 

South African companies must wake up to the reality that WhatsApp is the best practice customer engagement channel of 2025. To ignore it is to risk irrelevance.