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← Back to workCase study · Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison · 2022–2025

Making WhatsApp a sales channel

IM3's WhatsApp was built for customer service, like checking your balance or paying a bill. We didn't sell anything there. I made it a sales channel for the first time.

~$9Ka day in sales, about Rp150M
~50%of WhatsApp buyers bought again there the next month
~5%better response from ChatGPT-written copy
The situation

The problem

IM3 Official WhatsApp launched in October 2020, two years before I joined. It was for self-service, next to the myIM3 app and the *185# menu. Customers used it every day, but we never offered them anything there.

As AVP of Customer Value Management, I was responsible for revenue in every channel. WhatsApp was a channel where customers were already talking to us, so it was worth trying.

IM3 Official Illustration
How much data do I have left?
You have 1.2 GB left, valid 3 more days.
For you+10 GB for 7 daysRp30,000 · one tap, charged to your balanceBuy now
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Done. 10 GB added. ✓
What I did

What I did

  1. 01

    Offer at the right moment

    When someone checks how much data they have left, they're likely to need more. I owned the AI chatbot and added a personal offer to that moment, inside the chat.

  2. 02

    Pick the offer for each person

    Offers came from next-best-offer logic on the Tech Mahindra billing platform, using RFM and churn scores we defined with data science. If no model matched, we showed a default offer.

  3. 03

    Test before scaling

    Every campaign kept about 10% of people as a control group. If revenue and retention didn't hold against that group, we didn't scale, even if ARPU went up.

  4. 04

    Test the copy

    We A/B tested ChatGPT-written copy for each customer type against our usual copy. The AI versions did about 5% better.

  5. 05

    Follow the rules

    Consent and opt-in rules, legal review of every promotion, checks against promo abuse, and frequency caps set by Indonesian government contact rules.

Result

What happened

WhatsApp reached about Rp150M (~$9K) a day in sales. About half of the people who bought there in a month bought again the next month. It became one of the six channels behind the ~$119M a month I was responsible for.

For context, Meta's WhatsApp Business case study says Indosat's prepaid revenue through WhatsApp grew 94% in 2024. That's a company result, not mine alone. Read it

What I learned
  • A good time to sell is when the customer is already talking to you.
  • Always keep a control group. ARPU going up doesn't always mean revenue went up.
  • Consent and frequency caps protect customer trust.
  • AI copy helped a bit. The offer and the timing helped more.

Happy to walk you through it.

Next: Hot Promo in partner apps