As a PM at WhatsApp, you found that there is a gradual decrease in the engagement of WhatsApp groups. How will you make enhancements in such a way that this engagement is improved?

Candidate: Before I answer this question, I would like to describe the structure of the answer:

1. Understand the goal and objective of the product
2. Define and constraint the problem
3. Evaluate possible solutions
4. Propose a solution and the metrics that will be used to measure.

Along the way, I will have some follow up questions and assumptions.

Interviewer: Sounds good.

C: So, WhatsApp is the world's most popular instant messaging application owned by Meta which allows its users to stay connected through messages and media. The mission of Meta is to connect people and bring the world closer together. The WhatsApp group messaging feature allows users (admins) to create a group of n number of people and interactions are done simultaneously with all the users

C: Are we talking about WhatsApp or WhatsApp for Business?
I: WhatsApp

C: The engagement of groups is down, what about the engagement in WhatsApp chats (DM)?
I: That is more or less the same

C: When you say gradual decrease, does it mean it has been declining about 2-5% month on month? If yes was the engagement constant before that?
I: So the average amount of data shared in a group has been declining for three months. We wanted to make sure this is a definite decline and not an outlier

C: Any particular geography where this has been observed?

I: US

C: iOS/Android?

I: Both

C: Is there any competition product or negative media coverage that meta is getting?
I: Yes, there have been some concerns with respect to privacy that is circulated in the media

C: Any update or feature enhancement that has been done to groups?

I: Yes, we recently introduced the feature that gives the admin the ability to decide who can send messages

Assumptions: Data is accurate, there are no recent fixes that have been deployed that might introduce a change in the experience.

From my analysis and assumptions, it seems like there has been a good increase happening for the past year or so which has been halted. Two reasons that I can think of are:
1. Because of this new feature, many groups have switched to only admins being able to share data on the groups that have caused a drop

2. The second reason is that there was a spike during Covid lockdowns as things went remote and a lot of information was shared in groups. Since the lockdown has eased up, the usage for these reasons has reduced.

Solution: The spike was a seasonal spike and the numbers were bound to go down, I would like to look at opportunities to engage with these users who have churned because of lockdowns easing up. Following are my suggestions:
1. Introduce gamificiation in WhatsApp for the younger users (like streaks in Snapchat)
2. Evaluate the possibility of using WhatsApp as an official office communicator. I know there is Facebook workplace, but this segment can be more focused on mobile with a quick dispensation of information.

 

Answer end.

Such questions are difficult to answer on your own. You need to know the structure and the right questions to ask as this will be a conversational question. A lot of your follow up responses depends on what interviewer is saying. I have obviously assumed things here. For example, I assumed the decline is only in US, someone might say it is a global or an Android-only issue.

The trick to this is ask questions, limit the scope of your problem and then come up with a solution