South Africa, Sept. 25 -- There's been a fair amount of trepidation and speculation around Meta's pricing changes for business WhatsApp. Some industries will feel it far more than others, and a few design tweaks can go a long way towards minimising the impact.

What are the changes?

From 1 October, the way businesses are charged for customer service messages on WhatsApp will change. Customers can still start a WhatsApp conversation with a business at no cost to the business. The pricing change applies to replies sent by the business once its free monthly allowance has been used.

Each registered WhatsApp Business number will receive 1,000 free Service messages per calendar month. Once that allowance has been used, additional Service mess...