Is it possible to integrate a WhatsApp Business account with Salesforce in order to synchronize contacts and chats coming from the messaging application?
The integration between WhatsApp and Salesforce was announced during the Spring Release in April 2019. With this feature, Salesforce made available the possibility for agents working within the platform to respond to their customers directly on their favorite channel , in the same way with which it was already possible to do through SMS, telephone, e-mail or Facebook Messenger.
This new integration, as reported by Salesforce, applies to Lightning Experience in the Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer editions. To activate it, as we will see below, you will need a Facebook Business Manager account.
It is important to immediately clarify that the purpose of this integration is to provide customer support through this new communication channel, only and if requested by the customer. This therefore means that promotional campaign or the creation / integration of WhatsApp within marketing automation flows will not be allowed. Each company can therefore communicate with its customers through WhatsApp only in two ways:
1) When the customer contacts the company directly: in this case the agents will be able to manage the request via the Service Cloud Console, with the possible integration of Einstein bots.
2) By sending to the contact notifications pre-approved by WhatsApp and only according to the permitted use cases (mainly related to the need to contact the customer to solve a previously reported iisue or to provide updates regarding an order, a reservation, a payment or an appointment.
How to add WhatsApp to Salesforce
To allow your customers to write to your Business via WhatsApp and respond from the Salesforce Service Console, you must first be a Salesforce customer. In addition, you need to meet some additional requirements:
1) Own Lightning Experience or Salesforce Classic in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited or Developer versions.
2) Have a Digital Engagement, Service Cloud and Chat user license.
3) Have an approved WhatsApp Business account and a verified Facebook Business Manager account.
Finally, once the requirements described above have been completed, it will be necessary to follow the steps described in this guide to enable the integration between Salesforce and WhatsApp.
The question is therefore: why are you looking for an integration between WhatsApp and Salesforce?
If you are looking for a way to integrate WhatsApp within its customer support channels, in addition to the channels already supported within your Salesforce account, then the integration described above meets your needs.
If instead you use WhatsApp as a sales tool and you are looking for a solution that allows your sales team to collaborate within what could be described as a “WhatsApp per team” (with a footprint very similar to what it is a traditional messaging experience where the seller can chat in real time with the customer) then the integration provided by Salesforce is probably not the right solution.
If you are looking for a tool that responds to this second use case, we recommend you try Callbell.
Callbell is a simple platform, also available from a mobile app, which allows you to centralize requests for assistance from direct messaging applications such as WhatsApp in a single solution and to ensure that these are managed collaboratively by a sales or support team.
For more information, you can visit the Callbell homepage from here.
About the author: Hello! I am Carlo and I am one of the co-founder at Callbell, the first communication platform designed to help sales and support teams to collaborate and communicate with customers through direct messaging applications such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram and (soon) Instagram Direct
