One WhatsApp for the whole company: how it works, what it takes

Many companies serve customers on WhatsApp with one number per department: one for collections, another for loans, another for customer service. Customers do not know which one to write to, and no one inside the company sees the whole conversation. A single number for the whole company fixes both, as long as it is built on Meta’s rules and on data protection law.

How a single number works

The customer writes to one number. An AI agent works out what they need and resolves it with the information and systems of the right department: the certificate with accounting, the balance with collections, the application with loans. If the customer changes topic, the agent switches departments without sending them to another number.

When a case calls for judgment, the agent hands the conversation to a person in that department. Every request is recorded with the department that handled it, the response time and the outcome.

The official route and its rules

The WhatsApp Business app suits a small business replying from a phone. To connect an agent and the company’s systems to the same number, Meta offers the WhatsApp Business Platform and its official API, the Cloud API (an API is the connection two systems use to exchange information).

There are unofficial tools that automate WhatsApp Web or the phone app. They install quickly and breach WhatsApp’s terms. The risk is concrete: the number can be banned, and the company loses the channel its customers know it by. For a supervised institution, it is also hard to defend before an auditor a conversation that went through an unauthorized system.

The official route comes with three rules worth knowing:

• Business verification. It confirms to Meta that the company exists, with legal documents and contact details. A new business starts with a low daily limit on how many customers it can message first; verification is one of the ways to raise it.
• The 24-hour customer service window. When a customer writes, a 24-hour window opens. Within it, the agent and the team can reply freely.
• Approved templates. Outside that window, the company can only write using templates: fixed-format messages that Meta reviews before they can be sent. That is why the messages the company initiates (a payment reminder, a notice that a certificate is ready) are defined and approved before going live.

Consent and personal data

WhatsApp’s business policy sets two conditions before messaging anyone: the person has given the company their number, and they have agreed to receive its messages on WhatsApp. It also requires honoring any request to stop.

In Colombia, Law 1581 of 2012 adds its own layer. Processing personal data requires the prior, express and informed consent of the data subject, save for the exceptions in the law, obtained in a way that can be checked later. The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce oversees compliance. For a channel run by an agent, that translates into three practices:

• The customer knows what their data will be used for before consenting.
• The company keeps proof of that consent and of the opt-in to messages.
• The agent uses the data only for the authorized purpose, and every lookup is recorded.

Handing over to a person

WhatsApp’s policy also requires a business that automates its service to offer a clear, direct way to reach a person. Meeting it well takes two decisions.

The first is when the case moves, and it is worth putting in writing: the customer asks, the case falls outside the department’s rules, there is a complaint or the agent cannot find the information.

The second is the context it arrives with. Whoever takes the conversation should see who the customer is, what they asked, what the agent replied and which documents it consulted. That way the customer does not repeat the story, and the team does not start from zero.

What to measure

Four figures to review every month, by department:

• Resolution without human intervention. The share of requests the agent closes on its own. At Cootradecun, members’ requests arrive over WhatsApp and email, and 85% are resolved with no human intervention.
• Response time. From first message to solution, against the previous period.
• Cases handed to a person. How many, from which department and why. Recurring reasons show what information the agent is missing.
• Number quality. Meta rates each number based on how customers react to its messages, such as blocks and reports. When the rating drops, the company is usually writing too often or without clear consent.

How Xplouse does it

Xplouse is a Meta Tech Provider and works on the official WhatsApp API. With your team we define what the agent resolves in each department and when it hands the conversation to a person, with the full context. Every action the agent takes is recorded. From diagnostic to production in 30 days. See the conversational layer.