Trengo WhatsApp alternative: Chatarmin is the better Trengo WhatsApp

There was a huge outcry when Klaviyo announced its official partnership with Trengo six months ago. Klaviyo had only recently announced that it would not develop its own WhatsApp product. A philosophy that Klaviyo still adheres to today. Of course, Klaviyo eCommerce customers in particular want a WhatsApp solution that enables both WhatsApp marketing and an eCommerce WhatsApp Klaviyo integration. This solution makes it possible to consolidate contact with customers across different platforms, thus promoting customer loyalty.

Unfortunately, the Scandinavian startup has not yet managed to deliver a decent Trengo WhatsApp eCommerce solution. Due to the lack of Trengo WhatsApp eCommerce integration, Trengo remains another solution in the sea of “multi-messenger customer support suites”.

In this blog post, we explain why this is the case.

If you would like a consultation to discuss the Trengo WhatsApp Business API, please feel free to book a meeting with me, Johannes Mansbart, the founder of chatarmin.com.

Trengo: A first look at the company

Trengo is a multi-messenger communication software. This means that not only GDPR-compliant and scalable WhatsApp marketing is possible, but also communication channels such as email, SMS, Instagram DM's, Facebook Messenger and Co. Trengo seamlessly manages and integrates emails with other communication channels to ensure efficient customer interaction. This makes it easier to contact customers and promotes communication across different platforms.

This sounds attractive at first glance. However, as soon as you realize that only about 10% of all communication flows do not take place via WhatsApp, it seems like a lot of noise for nothing.

Or do you want to occupy and annoy your teams with countless communication channels, only so that they spend 90% of their time and energy on things that are only 10% relevant? Then you should just follow the Pareto principle and focus on the channel with the most benefit.

Trengo WhatsApp Alternative - Comparison between Trengo and Chatarmin

Trengo offers multi-messenger solutions with native customer support agents and a ticketing system. This is the only category in which Trengo outperforms Chatarmin. However, Trengo offers fewer customer service features compared to Chatarmin. The importance of contacting customers and employees alike is emphasized by a centralized platform for communication across different channels. This facilitates contact with customers and employees and promotes efficient communication. However, since over 90% of multi-messenger communication flows in the DACH region take place via WhatsApp anyway, we consider this argument to be convincing in only a few cases.

The Trengo WhatsApp solution is technically very limited due to its low industry and product focus. If you are looking for a Trengo WhatsApp alternative, you can find a comparison with Chatarmin here:

So if you are looking for a more cost-effective and flexible WhatsApp marketing provider, and optionally use Shopify and/or Klaviyo as a MarTech stack for your D2C brand in eCommerce, you should definitely take a look at Chatarmin in search of the right Trengo WhatsApp alternative for you.

In this video, I explain what a collaboration with us could look like, based on an e-commerce setup with Chatarmins Shopify WhatsApp integration and Klaviyo WhatsApp integration:

Trengo WhatsApp Business API - What does it mean?

Trengo offers the option of sending templates to the WhatsApp Business API. But what does that actually mean?

If a company wants to initiate a “conversation” - i.e. a 24-hour time window from the start of the chat - it must do so through a pre-verified “template”.

This must first be approved by the WhatsApp Business Spam Filter before companies are allowed to proactively contact contacts. This ensures that weapons, drugs, alcohol and the like cannot be advertised on WhatsApp.

The WhatsApp Business API allows you to integrate photos, videos and PDFs, as well as different CTAs and formatting options into your templates.

This opens up completely new possibilities for the interactive and personalized design of WhatsApp templates for WhatsApp campaigns and WhatsApp flows. A flowbot can help to forward customers to the right team or provide information by asking targeted questions and multiple-choice options. This further simplifies interaction with customers.

Trengo WhatsApp eCommerce solution for beginners

Trengo offers the WhatsApp Business API as part of its “integrations”. The WhatsApp communication channel is therefore not “natively integrated” and is therefore limited. However, it is possible to trigger “flows” through Klaviyo “inflow webhooks” and thus enable at least a minimum level of integration. Trengo also enables customer communication across different channels, including real-time communication through a live chat. A live chat widget can be easily integrated into the website to automate customer requests and forward them to specific teams.

For beginners who already use Trengo as a multi-messenger communication software, it makes sense to use the Klaviyo integration for their first steps. Sooner or later, however, product limitations and scaling restrictions will arise, which will make you look for a Trengo Klaviyo WhatsApp Business API solution.

In conversations with customers, including the CRM team at Farmrio, it became clear that both the Trengo WhatsApp integration and the Trengo Klaviyo integration are such external app integrations that can be connected. Accordingly, the interaction and connection options are limited.

Trengo WhatsApp eCommerce integrations and their limits

The Trengo WhatsApp API does not allow native integration with Klaviyo. This means that you cannot synchronize WhatsApp activities from Trengo to WABA or send them to Klaviyo. This means that the Trengo WhatsApp and Klaviyo integration is a “one-way street” that excludes the enrichment of your Klaviyo leads through their WhatsApp activities. This unfortunately makes it impossible to segment and analyze the following, which is so important:

• Email user cohorts

• Email & WhatsApp user cohorts

• WhatsApp user cohorts

in Klaviyo. However, due to the high pricing of the WhatsApp Business API, this is essential to efficiently use WhatsApp as a marketing communication channel and to minimize cannibalization with email as a marketing channel as much as possible.

Compared to Chatarmin, Trengo offers a worse price-performance ratio, as the integration with Klaviyo is not complete and thus affects performance and cost efficiency.

Unfortunately, the Trengo Klaviyo integration for D2C brands in eCommerce does not live up to its promise. We cannot recommend Trengo to lovebrands that use Klaviyo as a source of truth, main CRM or CDP (customer data panel).

On the one hand, it's a shame because it's a missed opportunity. On the other hand, it's great for chatarmin.com because it reveals a market gap that we are happy to fill. You can see how our partner chatarmin.com can make the most of it here

Trengo Klaviyo Integration for eCommerce

The Trego Klaviyo integration for eCommerce is fine for starters. But don't forget that your CRM game in eCommerce will take off when you are also enabled by your WhatsApp marketing tool to do the following:

• Cohort analysis 30 days after purchase

• Cohort analysis 60 days after purchase

• Cohort analysis 90 days after purchase

• Analysis of new revenue: retention revenue

• Repurchase rate after the first, second... purchase

• Cohort analysis by product, AOV and CLTV

If purchases are now made via WhatsApp or customers convert through a CTA in your WhatsApp campaign, this tracking is lost on the other sites. This critical event, which theoretically takes place in the Trengo WhatsApp Business API, is not communicated to your Klaviyo dashboard.

Tracking is lost, attribution is diluted, over-attribution happens on many different levels. This must be avoided.

To our knowledge, Chatarmin is the only WhatsApp marketing tool that offers these critical WhatsApp marketing functions for eCommerce D2C brands with Klaviyo & Shopify techstack. You can find examples of this here.

What do customers say about Trengo and Chatarmin?

Trengo

1. Frits, Automotive Industry

“Trengo is a very useful messaging platform for all channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook, SMS and website chat. However, there have been price adjustments that were not optimal.”

2. Jeffrey, Marketing and Advertising

“Trengo's prices have gone up and important features have been discontinued. Support is slow and there have been problems with the data export function.“

3. Tim, automotive industry

”Trengo saves us time, brings us closer to our customers and shortens response times. However, it is sometimes difficult to see the history of closed tickets."

Chatarmin

1. Andre P., Head of CRM

“We are happy to have found Chatarmin. It allows us to serve multiple markets internationally in WhatsApp marketing at a fraction of the cost compared to other providers.”

2. Leoni H., Head of CRM

“The integration with Shopify and Klaviyo is excellent and the price-performance ratio is right. Chatarmin offers us the necessary flexibility and efficiency in WhatsApp marketing."

Sources:

• [Trengo](https://trengo.com/de)

• [Chatarmin](https://chatarmin.com/)

Conclusion: Chatarmin is the better Trengo WhatsApp for eCommerce

If you are already using Trengo for multi-messenger customer support, you can safely test the WhatsApp integration. It takes less than two days to migrate your WABA from the Trengo WhatsApp Business API, and you can keep your number, WABA Quality Rating, Green Tick and more.

But please don't expect the Trengo Klaviyo integration to be your serious WhatsApp eCommerce tool. It doesn't fulfill this expectation because Trengo serves far too many different companies from a wide range of industries. These in turn bring with them a wide range of tech stacks. Unfortunately, this means that the Klaviyo focus that we can provide at Chatarmin is missing.

If you would like to discuss the Trengo WhatsApp solution or see Chatarmin as a Trengo WhatsApp alternative, please book your 25-minute WhatsApp marketing sparring session here.