In this blog post we will understand how to use WhatsApp within a support or sales team to manage shared chats with our customers, from a single web platform.
More and more companies are using WhatsApp to communicate with their customers, both during the sale phase and to provide assistance and support.
The most widespread messaging app in the world is in fact a very simple solution to manage communication between a company and a customer, without the need for it to take place in real time: Whatsapp can be used in real-time as a live chat or it can be as flexible as an email.
Moreover, the widespread use of WhatsApp, which today counts over 1.5 billion active users every day, means that companies can easily reach the vast majority of their customers through the app.
One of the limitations of the app is that, to date, it was not possible to manage incoming chats on this channel in a shared manner.
In fact, until August 2018, WhatsApp, as well as its Business version, did not provide the opportunity to “extract” chats towards platforms able to provide a multi-user chat management.
What does this mean? That chat management could not be distributed to a sales or support team.
In August 2018, the company finally announced the release of WhatsApp Business API, opening the door for the first time to other companies like Callbell, in order to create apps that would allow businesses of all sizes to leverage this communication channel in a structured and scalable way.
Since the release of the APIs, WhatsApp has gradually allowed access to its APIs, both directly to the first large companies, and to service providers that take care of creating ad hoc software solutions for the management of this channel.
This means not only that it’s now possible to collaboratively manage WhatsApp’s inbox but that it is possible to integrate the contacts with which a conversation has been initiated into your CRM.
Adding notes and keeping track of the customer’s history are just some of the features that allow you to overcome the limitations of the Business version of the app.
So let’s recap what you can do when using solutions like Callbell to manage WhatsApp within your team:
1) Choose your team mates and invite them to join the platform
2) Decide if they are Admin users or not
3) Assign incoming chats to different agent
4) Add tags and do searches both among clients and chats
5) Manage contact history thanks to CRM management
6) Analyze statistics on response times and team performance
7) Export your contacts and their information to other platforms
This feature allows a company to obtain a series of information which are fundamental for the use of WhatsApp within its contact center, facilitating the shared management of chats and the analysis of the contact history.
The advantages of using WhatsApp are not limited to the company: statistics say that in 2018 a survey conducted by Facebook shows that 67% of consumers expect to be able to use at least one messaging app to communicate with a company from here up to the next two years.
The report shows how, in general, customers prefer to make purchases from companies that are reachable through apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or Instagram Direct.
To start using WhatsApp in a shared way within your team, we advise you to create a free account on Callbell: in less than 5 minutes you can setup your account, invite your teammates and, if you wish, install a chat widget on your website to allow site users to start a chat on WhatsApp in just one click.
Callbell is born to centralize the most widespread direct messaging apps into a single web interface allowing you to integrate, besides WhatsApp, also Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct and Telegram. Similar to services like Front or Hiver that allow you to manage emails, Callbell allows you to do just that, but with direct messaging apps.
To start, just create a free account by clicking here, and managing WhatsApp’s inbox with your team will no longer be a problem for your business!
Thank you for reading and see you soon!
For any questions or support requests, you can contact us at: [email protected], write us in chat or leave a comment below. We will get back to you as soon as possible!
Frequent Questions
How to manage a WhatsApp shared inbox?
The release of the WhatsApp Business API in August 2018 finally made it possible to build solutions that would allow a team to manage a WhatsApp account in a collaborative manner. Thanks to platforms such as Callbell, it is in fact possible to use a WhatsApp number with multiple users at the same time thanks to a series of features designed for collabroration such as automatic chat assignment or the possibility of tagging and filtering contacts.
Why use WhatsApp to communicate with customers?
Communicating with customers through WhatsApp allows companies to reach customers wherever they are and with open rates of almost 100%. The advantages of using WhatsApp are not limited to the company: statistics show that in 2018 a survey conducted by Facebook shows that 67% of consumers expect to be able to use at least one messaging app to communicate with a company from here to the next two years.
What are the differences between WhatsApp Web and Callbell?
WhatsApp Web is the application made available by WhatsApp to manage messages from desktop. The platform can be used by a single user and by a single device at a time. Callbell instead allows the simultaneous management of a WhatsApp number by multiple users and on multiple devices and is designed for the collaboration of sales teams or customer support.
About the author: Hello! I am Alan and I am the marketing manager 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 Instagram Direct
