To compete with
WhatsApp Business
,
Telegram’s founder
, Pavel Durov, announced a significant update on Wednesday. Users on the popular chat app can now seamlessly transform their personal accounts into business accounts by subscribing to a monthly fee.
This latest feature is aimed at empowering small businesses, such as cafes and shops, by enabling them to display crucial information like location and opening hours.
Durov highlighted several enticing features for business accounts, including the ability to organise chats with colour labels, utilise automatic greetings or away messages, and employ shortcuts for swift replies.
Apart from this, Telegram also plans to roll out additional business-centric features this month, with a notable inclusion being the integration of AI-powered chatbots for enhanced customer service.
While Telegram is striving to rival WhatsApp Business, a key differentiator lies in its approach to revenue generation. Telegram opts for a subscription fee to access business features, diverging from WhatsApp’s model, which relies on the nature and frequency of conversations for revenue. WhatsApp Business, owned by Meta, boasts over 200 million monthly active users as of last year and introduced various business-focused features, including personalized customer messages and in-app e-commerce transactions.
The update is now rolling out and it can be availed by updating the Telegram app via Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Do keep in mind, that the business features are placed under the subscription model which users have to pay in order to access them.