Using WhatsApp

A company can link a WhatsApp business number to Denkploeg. Customers then get answers to their questions, and your team can take over conversations and even direct the director, all from WhatsApp. The customer only ever sees the business number and never a staff member's private number. This page shows per role what you type and what you get back.

Who can do what

As a customer

Asking a question

Send a message to the business number. An ordinary question gets an answer from the company's knowledge base. If the assistant does not know, it says so and offers human.

With status plus your order number and your email address (or postcode) you see where your order is, for example status 1001 jan@example.com.

Asking for a person

Type human. Your team gets a notification. As soon as a team member takes it over you hear about it, and you talk to that person in the same chat.

If the team member postpones or does not take it over, it stays a notification for the team. You can always keep typing: you hear at most once that someone is on their way.

Stopping

Type stop to erase your WhatsApp messages, Support conversation and window right away. Even in the middle of a conversation with a team member.

Linking your number

A staff member links their own phone once. After that the business number knows it is you, and you can use the inbox and the director (with the right add-on).

If you type stop later, your number is unlinked and the conversations you had go back to the assistant.

With the WhatsApp inbox

The inbox is a paid add-on. A Denkploeg platform administrator turns it on for the workspace and for you. Ask your contact about it. Without the add-on you can still take over conversations in the portal, but not from your phone.

Taking over in the portal

Go to Support, Live chat. A WhatsApp conversation has the WhatsApp label and the last four digits of the customer, with a counter showing how long you can still answer ("window closes in 2 h 10 min"). Click Take over and type. Your reply goes to the customer, with your first name in front. For every reply the team member sees whether it was sent, delivered or read, and for a failed message why.

If you have the inbox, your phone shows the same conversation: what you type in the portal also arrives there, and what you type on your phone is in the portal. The customer gets each message once.

Taking over from your own WhatsApp

When a customer asks for a person, you get a message from the business number with two buttons. Tap Take over and everything you type from then on goes to the customer. A colleague who is too late hears who already has it.

What you type goes to the customer, except what starts with /, a PIN or a link code. Those never go to the customer. The commands:

Two customers at once

You have at most one active conversation: everything you type goes there. When something arrives in another conversation you see whose it is, so an answer never ends up with the wrong customer.

When the conversation goes back

• If you say nothing for 30 minutes in a conversation, it goes back to the assistant by itself. The customer hears that the assistant is taking over again and you get a notification.
• If the customer has not written for more than 24 hours, the window is closed. You can no longer answer over WhatsApp, and the portal and your phone say so honestly. Close the conversation or hand it back.
• If the customer types stop, you hear about it and everything of the customer is erased.
• If you no longer have an open window to the business number, you get no notification on your phone. The notification is then in the portal under Live chat. A notification outside your window only arrives if the workspace has set up a template approved by Meta.

With the WhatsApp director

The director is a paid add-on, to be turned on by a platform administrator, for the workspace and per staff member. You can then do over WhatsApp what you do in the portal chat, with the same rights and the same gate. What goes outside keeps asking for a signature.

Giving a task

Just type what you want, or start with regisseur. If you see "typing…" or "Working on it…", it is on it.

faq or uitleg with a question about how Denkploeg works ("how do I make a site?") is answered by the Denkploeg assistant. nieuw starts a new conversation with the director.

Approving a proposal with a button

When the director proposes something that needs a signature, you get a message with Approve and Do not do it. For something reversible, like a draft for a site page, one tap decides.

A button works once and for 4 hours. Someone else's button does not work, and a button ID you type yourself is just text.

Publishing with your PIN

If something goes outside (publishing, mailing, paying, ads), the bot asks for your 4-digit PIN after your tap. The bot does not keep it and shows it nowhere.

If you have no PIN yet, you get a link to sign in the portal. What you sign is in the audit trail as "signed via WhatsApp with PIN".

Setting your PIN

You set your PIN under Account, in the WhatsApp PIN block (only visible with the add-on).

1. Choose Send me a code. We send a 6-digit code to your account's email address. It works for 10 minutes and once.
2. Enter the code, with your new 4-digit PIN (twice). A PIN like 0000, 1234 or 1212 is too easy to guess and is refused.
3. You get a confirmation by email, with a button to unlink WhatsApp if this was not you.

After five wrong attempts the PIN is blocked for 15 minutes. If that happens three times within 24 hours, it is blocked for 24 hours and you get an email. You can always sign in the portal.

Setting up the channel

This is for administrators. Under Connections, tab Channels, you find WhatsApp.

You do not need to copy any keys. The access Meta gives goes into your workspace's vault and cannot be read anywhere afterwards. If linking fails, nothing has changed. If the button is not there yet (this is not switched on for every platform), you see a calm message and you can link with your own keys.

Already have a Meta app or a Kapso account? Open Link yourself with your own keys.

• From that account you need the number ID, the WABA ID, an access token and the app secret for the signature. You also choose a verify token yourself. The keys go into your workspace's vault and cannot be read anywhere afterwards.
• Without a Support assistant the number answers every question that it does not know. On the same screen you find Create a WhatsApp assistant: it gets your brand's name and tone, and your website as its first knowledge source.
• On the same screen you choose whether a team member's reply starts with their first name.

What WhatsApp allows

• We only reply within 24 hours after the customer or the staff member wrote themselves. We never start a conversation ourselves.
• A notification to a staff member outside that window is only possible if a template approved by Meta has been set up. Without a template only staff with an open window get a message, and everyone gets the notification in the portal.
• A customer can only send text for now. An image gets a friendly request to type it instead.

What we keep

• The text of the messages: 30 days for customers, 90 days for linked staff (shorter if the Support assistant has a shorter retention period). With stop this WhatsApp data is erased at once. Personal director conversations follow portal-chat retention instead: they remain until you clear them in the portal and are deleted 180 days after clearing.
• The phone number only encrypted and as a hash. Never in a log, and a staff member only sees the last four digits of a customer.
• Every takeover, every hand back and every close is in the audit trail, with whether it went through the portal or through WhatsApp.
• Meta also receives the messages itself, and with Kapso they go through Kapso. Put that in your privacy text.

Turning it off

With Turn off we ignore all messages of that number right away. If you connected with the button, we also unsubscribe our app from your WhatsApp business account; if that fails the connection is still off and the screen says so. A turned-off number does not stop anyone else from connecting it. You can turn it on again later.

Read and continue in the portal

New director conversations also appear in your personal portal chat list, labelled WhatsApp. Only you can read them, with the same workspace permissions as other chats. Full answers remain there, including answers shortened for WhatsApp.

You can continue in either place. What you type in the portal stays in the portal and is not also sent to WhatsApp. Both channels share one session and allow one answer at a time. nieuw starts a fresh conversation; the previous one remains in your list. Clearing a chat makes the next WhatsApp question start a new one.

stop unlinks your number and erases WhatsApp channel data. Director chats remain in the portal, where you can clear them. Old WhatsApp messages, linking codes, PINs and Support conversations are not imported into this list.