For part of your customer base, WhatsApp is the default messenger. Your receptionist answers there inside the windows and formats the platform allows, with the same instructions as on the phone.
7 days, 20 answered calls, no card
Some customer bases reach for a messenger before a phone, and WhatsApp is often the one. Immigration practices see it plainly: demand travels through groups organized by country of origin, on Facebook and on WhatsApp, and the international call lands at hours that are not yours. On the trades side, several electrical companies already show a button to text or write on WhatsApp beside the number: their customers adopted the channel well before their systems did.
Your receptionist answers on that number with the same instructions as on the phone: the same services, the same pricing rules, the same person to alert. She qualifies the request, offers a slot in your calendar when your rules allow it, sends the reminder before the visit, follows up on a quote left hanging if you chose follow-up, and files the thread in your app. A written exchange and a call about one job stay attached to one customer.
They ask a question, send a photo or a document, confirm a time. The receptionist answers from your instructions, qualifies and passes it on. Those replies draw on the monthly customer reply allowance, shared with whatever other channels you added.
You ask what came in overnight, have someone called back, change an instruction. That conversation is yours: it has its own meter and does not draw on what your customers use.
Connection is done with you, on a number you control.
Message transport and approved templates are billed at provider cost, apart from the subscription. Nothing is committed against that wallet without your written agreement.
Someone sends a photo of a document or a part. The file is scanned, filed with the request, and the receptionist asks the next question instead of having a reference number spelled out.
Time zones, call rates, language: some people will write and will not call. The reply goes out in the language of the message, and the request is waiting, readable, in the morning.
“Are you still coming tomorrow?” — the answer goes out with the planned window, and if the person cancels, the slot frees up in your calendar under your rules.
The price shown on this page is your sector’s base. The channel and its transport are shown separately when you choose your offer.
This channel carries more rules than the others, and they come from the platform. They are stated before switch-on, not discovered afterwards.
This channel has no page other than this one. The help explains how messages arrive, what is recorded from them and what you see in your app.
Each channel is added separately and none is on by default. WhatsApp does not come with Instagram or Messenger, and the reverse holds too: these are different modules, qualified separately.
A WhatsApp Business number is required, and it can be separate from your call line. The choice is yours: some owners keep the business number for voice and reserve a dedicated number for messages, which stops a call and a conversation from competing for one line.
Because the platform bills message transport and authorised templates to the provider, by unit. Those charges are shown apart from the subscription, and nothing is committed on that wallet without your written agreement. It is a messaging reality, not a billing invention.
It is a message whose content the platform validated, and it is the only way to re-open contact once a conversation window has closed. The receptionist does not work around the rule: window closed, it waits or uses an eligible template, and a template sent can carry a provider charge.
Yes, and that is often the reason for choosing this channel: for part of a customer base, WhatsApp is the default messenger, including from abroad. Coverage instructions still apply — the receptionist says plainly when a request falls outside your service area.
Written replies to customers, on the monthly allowance shared across the conversation channels you added, on one side; transport and templates billed by the provider on the other. Both are shown separately because they do not follow the same rules.
That depends on what the platform allows a business account, and it is not decided here. The page presents it as conditional rather than as a settled capability, and ordinary phone reception stays the main route for voice.
WhatsApp Business
