In our personal lives, WhatsApp is a great way of organising socials with friends in groups or perhaps getting those reminders about sending a birthday card. We’ve all been there in the supermarket only to receive a message can you get some milk or bread? Mostly these messages are texts but sometimes they are voice notes.
On WhatsApp, we have also received family videos capturing special moments which are quite often kept to cherish. Some businesses have started using WhatsApp and whilst this is effective it’s an IT governance and security nightmare. WhatsApp in businesses is often unapproved and is seen as a risk by system administrators.
WhatsApp is effective as a communication tool. Messaging has become more widely accepted in society when compared to more intrusive phone calls. The problem with WhatsApp is your business can lose control because you do not administer all the groups.
Some businesses cast a blind eye to this. However, the ability for messages to be forwarded from business groups to personal groups represents opportunities for data leaks. WhatsApp as a utility is great for your personal lives but it’s largely used on mobile phones as an app, not on desktops where we spend most of our working day.
We know that WhatsApp is useful for communication. But we need to take this utility from predominantly the mobile screen to the web and from personal use cases to business needs. Watch and Learn takes much of the functionality of WhatsApp and applies this in a business setting. Watch and Learn is a video-first platform. Users are encouraged to post a video first, followed by voice and then text. It’s true to say if you are camera shy you can post a voice note. If you are in a quiet setting and you can’t speak you can still post text. The point though is to encourage a video-first approach. This gives users the richest form of messaging and is the next best thing to a video call.
Video calls have to be scheduled and you can do this on Watch and Learn but when diaries don’t match video messages can be sent instead. For example, your standup meeting which used to last for 15 minutes can now go asynchronous allowing for video updates. This gives people greater flexibility over their schedules and allows them to focus on the most important task. When necessary you can click to call for building relationships or escalating issues when messaging isn’t appropriate.
WhatsApp cannot be customised and branded with your logo. Watch and Learn allows your logo and colour scheme to be applied. This gives users reassurance that they are in the right place and builds brand affinity. Watch and Learn allows you to set up multiple video sites so you could set one up for internal communication, one video site for recruitment and another for customers. You can then switch between the video sites from your single Watch and Learn account.
WhatsApp was built by its founders to solve some of the issues with international communications and the expensive text messages between the USA and Ukraine. Watch and Learn video messages and voice notes are particularly useful for communication across time zones where text messaging lacks empathy and coherence.
Watch and Learn offers a web-based experience similar to WhatsApp and is oriented towards business utility rather than personal consumption. Watch and Learn is complemented by mobile apps for iOS and Android when you’re away from your computer. In summary, WhatsApp is fantastic as one of the most popular messaging apps in the world but it just wasn’t designed for business. Watch and Learn simply takes the messaging habits adopted in our personal lives to the business world with built-in security and overarching business administrative oversight.