As businesses increasingly adopt messaging platforms for customer interactions, the recent launch of Telegram Business marks a significant enhancement in how companies can engage with their audience on Telegram.

Telegram Business makes it easier for companies to meet customers where they already are, reducing barriers to interaction and being truly mobile first. With over 900 million monthly active users as of March 2024, could Telegram's enhanced business features be the start of its path towards a pre-IPO ‘Super App’ strategy? 

In this post, we’ll explain what you can do with Telegram Business, who it’s built for and a step-by-step guide to get started. 

Why now? 

“Consumers want to interact with companies over messaging platforms, email and web alone isn’t enough”

Telegram has clearly seen the rapid adoption of  companies using WhatsApp for business to engage with consumers and doesn’t want to be left behind.

Key Features of Telegram Business

Telegram has always had a powerful API allowing companies and developers to build bots on its platform, but on March 31, 2024, Telegram announced a range of new no-code ‘Telegram Business’ features as well as enhancements to its API, that it hopes will increase business usage of the platform. It’s also promised more features soon…👀

Here’s a summary of the new business features they recently announced:

Hours and Location: Businesses can now indicate their operating hours and pinpoint their locations on a map, making it easier for customers to visit.

Custom Start Page: Businesses have the option to personalize the start page of empty chats. This customization allows them to select the initial text and stickers that appear, offering a unique way to introduce products or welcome customers with tailored branding.

Quick Replies: Telegram Business enhances communication efficiency by enabling the creation of quick replies. These are pre-set responses designed to streamline frequent customer interactions, such as sharing a class schedule or a menu PDF. Users can easily access and send these replies through a simple command in the chat.

Greeting Messages: Automated greeting messages can be set to welcome new contacts, providing immediate responses that may include frequently asked questions or important business details. These greetings can be reactivated after a specified period to maintain engagement.

Away Messages: For times when businesses are closed or on holiday, away messages can be set to inform customers when they can expect a response, enhancing communication transparency.

Chat Tags: In Telegram Business or Premium, chats can be organized with colored labels, which are useful for categorization and can be linked internally and externally, such as on websites or QR codes in physical locations.

Chatbots for Business: Business users can integrate Telegram bots to handle messages, allowing for seamless interaction with existing tools or new AI-driven chat management systems. Settings can be adjusted to specify which chats bots have access to, ensuring privacy and focus.

Who’s Telegram Business for?

Some of the Telegram Business features, such as the Greeting messages, can be useful for non-business users, but the majority of Business features are targeted at small to medium sized businesses that want to engage with their customers on Telegram.

Although some of the features are great, teams looking to engage with their customers across multiple-touch points, for example over a web chat, email, Discord as well as Telegram, are going to run into problems. For example, having messages siloed across multiple platforms instead of one shared team inbox, a lack of powerful customer support features or no native AI chat integration. 

If you’re a small business just starting out, or a medium size company that only needs to communicate with customers on Telegram and isn’t looking to provide high-volumes of customer support on the platform then the native business features are great. 

That said, any sized company could pick and choose a few of the new features and then implement a natively designed customer support solution such as Mava to enable omni-channel customer engagement.

Getting started with Telegram Business:

‍

Set Up a Telegram Business Account (Skip if you already have a business account)‍

There's no need for a separate business-specific Telegram app; the standard Telegram app works for all users.

Here’s how to create a Telegram account for your business:

1. Download the Telegram app, suitable for your device—available for iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and MacOS—whether you're on mobile, desktop, or web.
2. Tap the 'Start Messaging' button.
3. Enter your country and your business phone number.
4. Press the tick icon in the top right corner to get a verification code.
5. Input the verification code to confirm your phone number.
6. Add your name and set up your profile.

2. Upgrade to Telegram Premium

You’ll need to be a Telegram premium subscriber to start using Telegram Business features. Telegram has stated that its business features are temporarily free for Premium subscribers, so we expect some additional or separate charges for business features in the near future.

As of April 2024, Telegram charges $4.99 per month or $35.99 per year for its Premium plans.

3. Configure Telegram Business features within Settings

You can configure Telegram Business features on either Mobile or on the desktop version of the app, but we recommend mobile as a few features don’t currently appear on the Desktop version. You can find them in Settings > Telegram Business.

You’ll see the list of new features and a simple to use user interface to configure everything. 

- Location: Input your business's location into your account details.

- Opening Hours: List your business hours for customer knowledge.

- Quick Replies: Create ready-to-use responses with text and media for quick communication.

- Greeting Messages: Set up automatic welcome messages for new customer chats.

- Away Messages: Write messages to be sent automatically when you're unavailable. TIP: this is a cool feature for personal accounts too. This feature is particularly useful at networking events, where you can pre-define an introduction message to avoid manually typing or copying and pasting each time.

- Links to Chat: Generate chat-starting links with a suggested initial message.

- Start Page: Set the initial message seen by someone before they message you. TIP: this is also great for personal accounts if you’re at an event and want someone to easily see a custom welcome message such as a link to your personal bio or business page.

- Chatbots: Integrate third-party chatbots to handle customer messages. We recommend implementing a fully AI powered customer support solution such as Mava, if you’re looking to answer more than a small handful of questions on Telegram.

‍

Looking Ahead 

Telegram has a lot of work to do to catch up with WhatsApp in terms of market penetration, however, the user experience is much more fun and these new features hint at something potentially much more powerful than WhatsApp. Telegram is much more Developer friendly with a free and powerful API leaving much more scope for companies to deeply integrate Telegram into their workflows. 

It’s likely Telegram will become increasingly mainstream following its hotly anticipated IPO and another must-have channel for engaging with customers and providing customer support.

Having tested the new Business Features as a premium user, they do improve the experience a little, but if you’re a medium to large team trying to manage customer support over Telegram you’re still going to need a dedicated support solution that natively integrates with Telegram like Mava to be able to scale your operations. 

Conclusion

In summary, the introduction of Telegram Business represents a significant step forward for businesses looking to engage directly with consumers through Telegram. 

As Telegram continues to grow its user base, these new features offer companies a robust and scalable way to interact with customers, fostering both convenience and immediacy. Whether you're a small startup or a medium-sized enterprise, Telegram Business provides a suite of tools designed to enhance customer communication and streamline operations. 

While there are challenges to managing customer interactions across multiple platforms, solutions like Mava can help integrate and scale customer support efforts. Looking ahead, as Telegram approaches its IPO and expands its market presence, businesses leveraging these features today will be well-positioned to capitalize on Telegram's evolving ecosystem. 

This step-by-step guide not only equips you to start using Telegram Business effectively but also underscores the platform's potential as a critical tool in the evolving landscape of digital business communications.

‍