WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging platforms around the world, with its number of users expected to reach 3.14 billion by 2025. For businesses, this presents a massive opportunity to engage with customers on a platform they already use daily.
Recognizing this, WhatsApp introduced WhatsApp Business in 2018 to help small businesses connect with customers efficiently. It launched the WhatsApp Business API for larger enterprises, enabling advanced automation and scalability.
However, there’s a catch—the WhatsApp Business app allows only five users at a time. This limitation poses a challenge for companies that need multiple agents handling customer interactions.
Fortunately, businesses can overcome this challenge by leveraging multi-agent solutions. This guide covers setting up multiple agents on WhatsApp Business, its benefits, best practices, website integration, and real-world success strategies. Let's dive in!
To manage multiple agents on WhatsApp, you need to use the WhatsApp Business API Software with a third-party platform. This allows businesses to integrate WhatsApp messaging functionalities into their software, with added features for smarter operations.
With third-party, multi-agent integration, you get capabilities such as:
This multi-agent system streamlines customer support, boosts efficiency, and enhances customer satisfaction.
Here are the key benefits of this setup:
By allowing multiple agents to work together, you can field a larger number of customer queries simultaneously. You can also scale it up when your team members increase.
Multi-agent WhatsApp ensures faster response times, improved resolution rates, improved customer experience, and higher flexibility in operations. This boosts your business's overall efficiency in customer experience.
Multi-agent platforms facilitate better collaboration between team members, as they have access to a centralized platform for smoother data sharing. This improves workflows, promotes transparency within the team, boosts the collaborative spirit, and ensures seamless knowledge transfer.
Agents can view all conversations and take action quickly, reducing pressure on a single resource while speeding up customers' response time.
Many multi-agent platforms offer analytics and monitoring tools for robust reporting on business metrics. With this, you can track agent performance, identify bottlenecks, set measurable goals, and optimize your customer-centric strategies.
Analytical features provide valuable insight into your essential metrics, enabling you to drive better conversions and increase your business's overall profitability.
Platforms like Gallabox enable small—and medium-sized businesses to boost their sales and marketing efforts through a smooth communication channel on WhatsApp. They aim to capture more high-quality leads, qualify and convert them, and provide customer support more effectively through a host of AI-powered features.
To set up multi-agent operations in your WhatsApp Business account, you need to follow a few process steps. The first and simplest process is to use the multiple users feature in WhatsApp Business via the app.
Follow these steps to get started:
To operate WhatsApp with multiple devices or through WhatsApp business multiple users, you need to join their Beta program.
This adds you to the Beta program, where you can link other devices to your phone through the "Linked Devices" option. Now, multiple agents can access the same WhatsApp Business account on different devices.
However, this is not an ideal solution for a larger team. The next best option is to use the WhatsApp Business API.
For a bigger team that has to deal with a higher volume of incoming WhatsApp Business chats, manual distribution becomes tedious and time-consuming. In this scenario, you can automate the customer service process with the WhatsApp Business API Tool.
This enables equal distribution of chats among your agents, internal communication, and tagging capabilities to highlight issues. The shared team inbox centralizes all communication and removes the need to switch between other apps for business messaging needs.
To enable WhatsApp Business API with multiple agents, you need to first create a shared account through the following steps:
This completes the setup of a shared account for your agents. The thing to note here is that your agents won't be able to access this account on multiple devices without a third-party multi-agent tool like Gallabox.
Gallabox is a conversational commerce platform that helps you unlock the full potential of WhatsApp Business through multiple users.
After you register your business as a WhatsApp Business API, you need to follow these steps to set up a multi-agent through Gallabox.
Before you can start using WhatsApp Business, you need to sign up for a 360 Dialog account using your business email ID or Facebook credentials.
If you sign up with a Facebook account, follow the prompts that 360 Dialog provides. In a few steps, you will be able to complete the registration process.
Before you start using the integration, you can set up a few AI-powered and automated features.
Before launching the multi-agent WhatsApp Business operations, you can also perform the following tasks:
Multi-agent management on WhatsApp Business may get complicated if you do not have best practices to guide you.
From feature selection to optimization, internal communication to customer segmentation, there is a right way to manage these things for maximum productivity and efficiency.
Since multiple agents can only be set up through third-party tools, selecting a tool that best fits your business needs is first.
While choosing your multi-agent tool, you should look at the following aspects:
If your business has more than five agents, you have to use WhatsApp Business API integration for multiple user access. Make sure you have a centralized dashboard for all your agents.
This lets them address customer queries simultaneously, monitor chat statuses, assign conversations to specific agents, and reduce response time. It also helps business owners maintain transparency and collaboration within the team.
If you have a large team, it is crucial to define roles and responsibilities among agents to ensure efficient workflow. Set clear goals, outline dedicated tasks, and assign specific responsibilities to agents or teams so that they don't get confused when new tasks arrive.
This can be done smoothly through regular internal communication, which can be carried out on the same platform.
Ensure your WhatsApp Business profile is complete and has detailed contact information. This is essential to building trust with customers. Another proactive way to direct traffic is to place a WhatsApp widget on your website.
This way, users are directed to your platform at one click and can input their queries to receive instant responses. This works wonders to build a positive customer experience that promotes conversions.
Integrating a WhatsApp ticketing system within your WhatsApp Business API allows you to track customer queries, measure their progress, and ensure quick resolution. It is also easier for agents to manage these queries if they are logged in the form of tickets.
Agents can also use this system to assign messages and tasks based on expertise and availability.
Chatbots and automated replies are great ways to keep customers engaged even when you don't have live agents to help them immediately. With WhatsApp auto reply, your customers will receive a response outside of business hours, making them feel heard and boosting satisfaction.
Similarly, chatbots help customers address simple queries and find solutions on their own. This eliminates the need to create a ticket for basic issues or wait hours for a resolution.
Any competent multi-agent tool offers performance metric tracking, such as response time, resolution rate, customer satisfaction score, and so on. This helps identify key areas of improvement and build strategies to optimize them.
Using this data, you can improve your WhatsApp Business system, ensure better customer service, and reduce delays and downtimes that harm profits.
Building customer segments for different demographics helps you identify your ideal customer base and tailor your services accordingly. For instance, you can optimize your messaging and promote offers based on customer segments.
Similarly, broadcast lists are a great way to reach customers with tailored offers and promotions. You can deliver important messages to several customers in your contacts at one go.
This is a subset of tracking customer metrics and using customer segments. Using this data and information from past conversation history, you can tailor messages for prospects and existing customers.
These messages can be engaging, with images, GIFs, videos, and more to promote customer interest in your content. You can strengthen customer bonds, simplify communication, and boost sales with customized messages for your target audience.
The following companies used multi-agent WhatsApp Business to revolutionize their customer service operations and create a huge difference.
The Indian clothing brand Thread Bucket Studio used Gallabox as the multi-agent integration tool for WhatsApp Business. This helped them transform their retail customer service operations and team collaboration, leading to 68% higher business growth, a 50% increase in employee productivity, and a 30% growth in customer base.
With features such as WhatsApp Flows Builder, WhatsApp Chatbot Builder, Bulk WhatsApp Marketing Software, Whatsapp Team Inbox Software, etc., Gallabox helped this brand address concerns like:
We were unable to see the chats of the employees, and due to the ‘delete’ feature, many of the chats and messages would be deleted, resulting in poor transparency and accountability," explains Rahul Rawal, Sales and Marketing Manager from Thread Bucket Studio.
Gallabox came to their rescue with features like:
This led to more efficient marketing efforts, better return on ad spends, and an overall increased WhatsApp Marketing ROI.
Another multi-agent success story is of the education company GoIreland. This company improved conversions by 39% with the use of personalized WhatsApp Business communication through Gallabox integration.
Initially, GoIreland faced issues regarding:
With a scattered support team using different phone numbers for customer service, this company was losing out on high-quality leads due to a lack of collaboration and efficiency.
Gallabox helped solve these issues through multiple features.
Managing multiple agents, devices, and conversations on WhatsApp Business API has never been easier. Though the platform has user limitations, you can utilize all its capabilities and more with third-party tools like Gallabox.
With Gallabox, you can enhance your support team with a centralized dashboard, shared inbox, multi-device integration, and role-based access. Sign up for free now!
The WhatsApp Business app lets you connect to five devices with one account, of which one can be a phone, and the other four can be companion devices. So, apart from your phone, you can link the account to four additional devices, including tablets and computers.
With the WhatsApp Business API, large teams can enable features like multiple users, automation capabilities, and insights with multi-agent tool integration.
WhatsApp Business multi-agents provide a clear and unified view of all customer communication within one inbox and dashboard. This ensures agents know what others are doing and which tickets have already been addressed, so they don't respond to the same customer differently.
You can manage internal communication between multiple agents on WhatsApp Business by the integration of a third-party communication tool. This way, you can create group chats with agents, assign specific chats or tasks, divide roles and responsibilities, and provide structure to your workflows.
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