Your Ultimate Guide to WeChat Official Accounts

With over a billion active users and a national market penetration rate close to 100%, WeChat is China’s most popular messaging platform – which also integrates similar functions as Apple Pay, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google News, and even Tinder. Its massive ecosystem is also gaining worldwide attention as more global businesses try to reach Chinese consumers.

Many brands have built custom websites just for WeChat, live-streamed product launches, and even developed in-app games. If you want to do business in China, WeChat is the way to do it. CINNOX users can enjoy a streamlined experience that helps leverage its capabilities – see our step-by-step guide here.

What is a WeChat Official Account?

Easily integrated into your CINNOX account, a WeChat Official Account helps you:

• Engage followers
• Answer enquiries
• Send targeted content (in the form of articles)
• Send push notifications
• Redirect followers to a website/e-commerce

Basic features of a WeChat Official Account:

• Broadcast messaging – in the form of multimedia articles
• Direct messaging – with a user in the chat interface, usually for customer service
• Comment management – on shared articles
• Welcome message – a customizable automatic message to greet new followers which can link to articles, websites, ecommerce and more
• Automatic reply – set up automatic responses to common questions
• Customisable menu bar – interactive menus that followers can navigate to find articles, or link to websites
• Analytics and Voting
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There are 2 main types of official accounts for customer engagement:

Subscription Accounts

WeChat subscription accounts are like a daily news feed. Content can be published daily to subscribers, in batches of up to six articles. These updates will appear in the followers’ subscription folder, which they will see upon opening along with updates from other subscription accounts. Subscription accounts are ideal for media, influencers, and businesses that want to post content regularly.

Service Accounts

WeChat service accounts are focused on customer service, API integrations, e-commerce, and customer management. Service accounts are ideal for sales and ecommerce, offering access to nine advanced APIs that allow businesses to create additional apps and functions that deliver timely information to customers.

Service accounts can publish up to 4 updates per month, and up to six articles each time. Once the updates are published, they will appear as push notifications in followers’ chat lists. Compared to a subscription account, the allowed posting frequency is lower, but the visibility is higher and features are more robust. Service accounts can also allow for setup of an interactive menu, so that followers can easily navigate content.

Connect your WeChat Official Account to CINNOX

Despite the obvious advantages of a WeChat presence, many businesses hesitate to add yet another extra communication channel to the mix. CINNOX users, on the other hand, can easily integrate their WeChat Official Account into the CINNOX dashboard alongside WhatsApp Business, Facebook Messenger, live chat, SMS, and virtual number services – creating a hassle-free, omnichannel customer engagement platform to drive higher satisfaction rates.

CINNOX supports teams to intelligently manage enquiries and provide targeted support. All customer enquiries coming through your WeChat Official Account will appear as incoming enquiries on your CINNOX dashboard, alongside those from other channels. You can also set up smart routing to connect customers to the right agent, and leverage comprehensive omnichannel reports and insights to see the big – rather than trying to piece together communications channel by channel.