Contable.app is a Chilean bookkeeping company that handles accounting for micro-businesses. From its app, clients can manage their invoice payments as well as do their accounting. But that’s not all — Contable.app’s accountants also advise clients on financial and pension-related matters via WhatsApp and Telegram.

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The Problem

In the beginning, the Contable.app accountants used their personal WhatsApp app to communicate with customers, which meant there were several phone numbers associated with the business.

Accountants had to go back and forth between WhatsApp and other platforms they use to reference and share information with customers. This led to slow response times or worse, forgotten conversations.

As these chats took place on accountants’ personal phones, managers had no insights into these issues until they received complaints from customers who expected quicker responses or who were fined for not declaring their taxes on time.

Contable.app needed to regain control over its customer communication. It was looking for a way to consolidate its communication channels in a single platform and get visibility into client conversations. Most importantly, it needed to grant its accountants multiuser access to a shared inbox to provide support through a single point of contact.

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The respond.io Solution

Contable.app considered a few business messaging solutions, but not all provided integrations with WhatsApp API. Eventually, they chose respond.io due to its WhatsApp API integration capabilities, value-for-money proposition and openness to customer feedback through Canny.

WhatsApp API and Telegram Bot were Connected to a Central Inbox

For a start, Contable.app applied for a WhatsApp API account and connected it to respond.io. While in the past each accountant used their own phone number to chat with clients, now all accountants operate under a single WhatsApp Business Account number. Consolidating all numbers gave Contable.app a single point of contact over WhatsApp.

Contable.app also uses Telegram as its secondary channel as the app has a certain degree of popularity in Chile. Therefore, it upgraded its Telegram account to a Telegram Bot and connected it to respond.io to send and receive messages.

Occasionally, a customer messages Contable.app from both WhatsApp and Telegram. To ensure they always associate messages with the right client and create a single conversation thread per client, accountants can merge the same contact on both channels into a unified profile.

Accountant Assignment was Automated with Workflows

Contable.app used to manually assign inbound conversations to its accountants. To reduce first response times and increase customer satisfaction, it set up a respond.io Workflow that automatically assigns conversations to accountants.

If the Contact is an existing client, he is immediately assigned to his respective accountant in respond.io. On the other hand, Contacts who don’t have an accountant are automatically assigned to a supervisor.

Before using respond.io, accountants had to jump from one platform to another and manually access or input data. Now, they use HTTP requests to retrieve data from their accounting software to see the status of the Contact when they interact with the platform.

Managers Gained Conversation Visibility and Performance Insights

At Contable.app, accountants who advise and educate customers via WhatsApp and Telegram must ensure they are expressing themselves correctly. Failing to communicate concepts clearly could cause customers to miss important deadlines or submit the wrong information.

From the respond.io Dashboard, Contable.app managers are able to observe conversations and give feedback to accountants when needed.

Formerly, it was not uncommon for accountants to accidentally abandon conversations. Luckily, that’s now a thing of the past, as all customer conversations flow into the same inbox and managers are now able to identify the ones that urgently require a response and follow-up on forgotten conversations.

“I regard respond.io as a young, lively and dynamic company, always innovating and improving its product. Not many platforms I work with update me every few months with new features! Plus, I’ve always loved the possibility to contribute to the product’s direction through Canny. In fact, I’ve requested many features that ended up coming to life.” – Luis Cruz, CEO at Contable.app.

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The Results

Centralizing all messaging channels on one platform has given Contable.app managers much-needed control over conversations with customers, as client history is now clear and easily accessible.

Contable.app also used Workflows to systematize repetitive company tasks. By integrating its accounting software with respond.io, it secured 40% faster response times, as accountants didn’t need to juggle multiple software anymore.

What’s more, customers noticed an improvement in service quality provided by their accountants. Inquiries are now answered in a timely manner, and no conversation is left unattended for extended periods of time. This led to a 30% customer satisfaction increase and a 30% higher retention rate.