WhatsApp has officially confirmed that it will begin introducing verified business accounts into its app soon. The feature has been rumored for quite some time now and has now been confirmed via a post on the company’s FAQ page.
Verified business accounts will be denoted by having a green badge embedded with a white tick mark next to its name. It’s being added as a way for users to know that the number they’re communicating with has been authenticated by WhatsApp as having a business account and is not someone trying to impersonate the brand.
WhatsApp’s also trying to distinguish regular chats from enterprise ones by coloring the text bubbles inside with the color yellow. These chats can’t be deleted once they’ve been sent, a solid measure in case they’re needed to prove a conversation took place.
If a person already has a WhatsApp business’ contact saved in their address book, the name they see next to the badge will be the name that’s present in their phone. If they haven’t done so, the moniker they see will be the one the firm has chosen for itself.
In what will be a relief for many, individuals will be able to block a business from contacting them, just like a regular user. This could prove to be very useful in case an account decides to spam people. WhatsApp says that business verification is at the moment limited to a small amount of enterprises participating in a pilot program.
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With the addition of verified profiles, WhatsApp will join the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It hasn’t given an exact date for when the initiative will expand yet. The feature appears to be in testing in the Android and Windows Phone beta versions of the app, so it should be out fairly soon.