WeChat Service Account: First Step to WeChat eCommerce

Since WeChat is the dominant social platform in China right now, brands/companies have extended their footprints on WeChat. The most common way for business to gain presence and conduct business on WeChat is to open up a WeChat service account. If you plan to develop WeChat eCommerce, this piece will help you understand the basics of WeChat service account:

What is WeChat Service Account?

WeChat service account is a part of WeChat Public Account Family, along with Subscription Account and Enterprise Account. Among all of three, WeChat is best for business and organization who want to access to advanced WeChat Official Account feature.

In general, service accounts could help your business implement not only marketing and promotion purposes on WeChat, but also establish a new eCommerce system – WeChat eCommerce.

Example 1 (left) :China Construction Bank Service Account allows users to apply for credit cards, view account balance, and do transactions via WeChat

Example 2 (right) :Homeinns Hotel Group Service Account allows users to reserve hotel rooms, looking up hotels nearby and manage user accounts via WeChat

What are the differences between Service Account and Subscription Account?

A lot of people can get really confused with subscription account and services account. Following are major differences between these two:

1. Different display.

As seen in the example below, service accounts are more visible: the message appears inline with personal contacts, and users will receive push notification, just like any other contacts sending you messages. On the other hand, messages from subscription account hide in “Subscriptions” folder, and there is no push notification.

Example: WeChat Display

2. Different number of message limits.

Service accounts are allowed to send 4 broadcast messages per month, while using subscription accounts you can send 1 broadcast message per day.

3. Different Functionality.

Subscription account is better used as a news and information broadcast. Business can use subscription account to promote their latest products, new marketing campaign, etc.

Meanwhile, services account has more advanced features. The core of service account is literally “service”: it provides more APIs than subscription account and companies can build its own application, get inquiries and broadcast own promotion to followers.

Why WeChat Service Account?

As an enterprise, you should choose WeChat service account simply because of these 2 reasons:

Service account is the only option that enables WeChat eCommerce and WeChat Payment.
Moreover, because of multiple API adaptation like geo-localization and voice-recognition, service accounts will be more efficient at collecting data from users and using this data to send them targeted marketing.

Example: Using Dianping’s WeChat Service Account to buy a piece of cake

The Benefits of WeChat Service Account

1. The first step of your WeChat eCommerce success.

Establishing WeChat service account will definitely help gather more followers on WeChat, the largest social platform in China. Furthermore, your followers has the access to your WeChat store with simply one-click.

2. Let your message be heard.

As mentioned, messages from service account will display in line with personal contact. User can receive push notification so you will expect better open rate on your messages. Last but not least, user can send you messages, and you can reply to any user message from time to time. This will form a better relationship between your customers and you.

3. Service account will serve your business better in multiple ways.

WeChat’s official accounts platform has featured APIs for web-based access to WeChat, such as voice messages, GPS location, and QR code scanning. Such functionality will help your business to grow and to improve by the feedback of customers data.

4. Fully support of WeChat Pay.

Again, service accounts can benefit from the payment system provided by WeChat Pay. Using service account give you the access to full range of functions available through the WeChat platform, such as taking payments, sending coupons which can be directly used on WeChat store, and sending “red envelopes”, which means sending cash directly to user’s account as a promotion method.

Conclusion

Above all, WeChat service account can both provides provide quality content to attract subscribers, and utilize open APIs to customize and grow your eCommerce on WeChat. If your business is aiming at WeChat as part of your omni-channel strategy, service account is the first of your must-do things.

WeChat Service Account: The Very First Step towards WeChat eCommerce