WhatsApp Team: Get Started with WhatsApp Team Inbox

Looking for a collaborative messaging solution that will allow your team to respond to messages on WhatsApp? In this article, we’ll share what a WhatsApp team inbox is, the benefits of having one and how to use a team inbox on respond.io.

What is a WhatsApp Team Inbox?

As WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging channel in the world, WhatsApp Business App has become a useful tool for businesses to communicate with customers in real time.

However, as your business grows, so does your team. While using WhatsApp Business App is sufficient for small businesses with few team members, it comes with several limitations, including:

• Can’t be connected to more than 5 devices

• No collaborative features

• Inability to track individual or team workload

• Inability to track which team member sent or replied to a message

• No way to ensure all inquiries have been answered

If you’re running a large business, you’ll need more sophisticated features to solve the issues stated above. This is where the WhatsApp team inbox via WhatsApp Business API comes in.

A WhatsApp team inbox is a collaborative messaging inbox that organizes all of your WhatsApp conversations in one place for your team to handle. Let’s find out how your business can benefit from using a team inbox next.

Benefits of Using a Shared Inbox

You can create a WhatsApp team inbox through a messaging platform like respond.io. It allows all team members to respond to customers through a shared dashboard and grants managers visibility into all customer conversations.

Centralizes all conversations into a single point of contact

A shared inbox provides a single point of contact with each customer for a record of all interactions. Any agent can see the context and reply to the conversation. Since all messages are consolidated in a single inbox, this reduces the risk of overlooking inquiries, thus giving customers a better experience.

Handle high volumes of conversations

To handle high volumes of conversations, businesses can set up chat automation or AI Agents to reply to customers instantly, answer FAQ, qualify leads and more. Then, the AI agent can route the customer to the right team or agent.

Improve team collaboration

When conversations are handled across multiple WhatsApp numbers, team members lack customer context. With a shared inbox, anyone can pick up the conversation if needed so it's easy to collaborate. Agents can leave internal comments for follow-ups, tag their colleagues or escalate complex cases. With respond.io, AI can also create an automatic summary of a conversation so there's no need for agents to scroll through and search for important details.

Gather customer lifecycle data and reports

Another benefit is the ability to track the entire customer lifecycle, from the first time a lead contacts you all the way through to retention. In respond.io's team inbox, you can set and update lifecycle status for full context and personalization. For example, team members would want to prioritize a "hot lead" or someone who's "pending payment."

Connect multiple channels in one inbox

Omnichannel platforms like respond.io connect multiple messaging channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and even VoIP in one inbox. Consolidating a contact’s information and chat history across channels into a single profile gives agents a full overview of the customer.

Now that you’ve learned why you should get a WhatsApp team inbox, let’s find out how to set it up.

How to Set Up WhatsApp Team Inbox

The most efficient way to set up a WhatsApp team inbox is to create a WhatsApp API account directly via an official WhatsApp Business Solutions Provider (BSP). However, not all WhatsApp BSPs are created equal.

Some, like Sleekflow, for example, charge additional WhatsApp connection fees and come with poor onboarding experiences. Consider respond.io for its high value, stability and top-rated support.

As a WhatsApp team inbox is meant to facilitate teamwork, you need a WhatsApp API account for its multiuser functionality. As the API has no front-end interface to send and receive messages, it has to be connected to a customer conversation management software like respond.io.

Then, you can add team members to your shared inbox and use features like AI agents, advanced automation tools and flexible integrations to make teamwork easier than ever. Let’s look into how respond.io empowers teams to do more with WhatsApp.

How to Use a WhatsApp Shared Inbox for Business on Respond.io

Here, we’ll show you how to use WhatsApp team inbox on respond.io for different use cases, especially for sales and customer support.

WhatsApp Team Inbox for Sales

First, we’ll look at how your sales team can utilize the team inbox.

Boost leads with click to chat ads

You can easily drive sales conversations and increase the volume of leads by placing WhatsApp click-to-chat links in prominent locations where customers can easily see them. You'll also want to integrate with Meta's conversion API (CAPI) to optimize your click to chat ads for conversion.

Instantly reply with AI Agents

A WhatsApp team inbox allows businesses to handle high volumes of conversations efficiently, improving the chances of making a sale. Quickly connecting with your customers prevents them from feeling ignored and checking out your competitors. The best way to do this is with respond.io's AI Agents.

Build an AI Agent from templates for specific roles like receptionist or sales agent. Train it with company knowledge sources so it can instantly gather lead data, ask and answer basic questions and let you know whether a lead is qualified. That way, team members won't waste valuable time answering low-quality or spam leads.

Automatically route conversations to the right team or agent

Once the AI agent has qualified a lead, it can send the lead to the right team or agent. For example, it can route based on language, customer lifecycle stage or simply to the next available agent.

Create custom inboxes for VIPs

Salespeople can use a custom inbox to prioritize VIP customers. It allows managers to filter and view high-value conversations, ensuring the best possible customer experience. This helps build strong relationships and increase customer loyalty.

Integrate your CRM with respond.io

By connecting your WhatsApp sales CRM with respond.io, you can easily transfer data between the two platforms to create deals quickly. This enables agents to perform sales-related tasks while chatting with customers without having to switch between platforms.

Use the same platform for chat and call to streamline customer experience

While chat and call used to be separate, now, WhatsApp Business Calling API enables businesses to make and receive calls over WhatsApp and keep all chats and calls within the team inbox. This enables businesses to close more deals where a more human touch is required and it removes friction as there's no need to move from WhatsApp to a phone line. Even beyond WhatsApp, you can reach personal numbers using respond.io's VoIP integration.

As shown above, you can shorten your sales cycle when you use WhatsApp for sales. In the next section, we’ll show you how to improve customer service with a WhatsApp team inbox.

WhatsApp Team Inbox for Customer Service

Now, let’s take a look at how businesses can use a shared inbox to improve customer service over WhatsApp.

Use AI Agents to answer FAQs

In respond.io, set up a Support AI Agent template to answer all FAQs about your product or common troubleshooting. That means customer inquiries can be answered at any time, and all but the most complex issues can be resolved without needing to involve a human team member.

Inquiries that cannot be handled by the AI Agent can be routed to an appropriate, available team member. With routine inquiries managed by AI, human support agents will have more time to dedicate to solving serious inquiries, leading to greater customer satisfaction.

Integrate your CRM with respond.io

You can also integrate your existing CRM to respond.io to allow support agents to create tickets while chatting with customers without leaving the conversation.

Collaborate on complex issues as a team

The Comments feature in respond.io allows agents to collaborate and resolve inquiries more efficiently. Alternatively, you can implement an escalation Workflow to automatically escalate complex or high-priority inquiries to the right team or agent.

Get detailed reports on support response times

Want a detailed report on how your agents are performing? Get the performance data from our Reports Module. Now you know exactly how many contacts a

n agent is handling and how efficient they are at responding to customers and resolving inquiries.

We hope this article provides everything you need to know about a WhatsApp team inbox and how to use one with your team. Interested in getting a WhatsApp inbox for your business? Sign up for respond.io, a badged Meta Business Partner, and connect your WhatsApp Business API account to get started.

Further Reading

Looking for more articles on how WhatsApp benefits your business? Here are some blogs that might help you.

• WhatsApp Marketing: A Guide to a Successful Campaign

• How To Use WhatsApp for Sales

• WhatsApp Customer Service: Using WhatsApp for Support