Whatsapp adds green badges to business accounts

Whatsapp is introducing verified badges to select business accounts if their contact information checks out.  If the phone number of a contact belongs to a business account, it earns a green check.

The green badges are designed to make it easier for consumers and businesses to communicate with each other, and a green badge with a white tick helps them stand out from regular accounts. A yellow chat bubble also appears inside conversations between regular and verified accounts, to confirm you’re talking to a business.

“If you already have a business’s phone number saved in your address book, the name you will see is the name you have saved in your address book,” says WhatsApp in apost.

“If you don’t have a business’s phone number saved in your address book, the name you will see is the name the business has chosen for themselves,” the company added. If you’d like to stop a business from contacting you, you can block them.

The green badges are an effort to make businesses appear more trustworthy on the messaging app, and could encourage more businesses to get on the platform.

Whatsapp business verification is currently limited to a small number of businesses participating in a pilot program.