Some clients will only ever answer on WhatsApp
The WhatsApp integration for agencies exists because of a fact nobody chose: for a large part of the world, and for most clients under forty, WhatsApp is where work actually happens. Pretending otherwise means half the relationship lives on somebody’s phone and none of it reaches the project.
What connecting it changes
WhatsApp, once it is connected
Messages from the numbers you designate arrive on the client record beside their email and their meetings, and the reply is drafted in the same place. The thread stops being a private conversation on one person’s phone and becomes something the agency has.
Generated from the registry
Everything NeoAI can do with it
This list is not written by hand. It is the same catalogue of typed actions the operator executes through, so it cannot promise more than the product does — reads first, then the writes, each of which waits for a person.
Writes
Every one waits for a named person to approve it.
- Send a WhatsApp messageMessages a number designated for this client. Inside the 24-hour window Meta allows free text.
- Reply on WhatsAppAnswers a specific message, quoting it, so a busy thread stays legible.
- Send an approved WhatsApp templateThe only thing Meta allows more than a day after the client last wrote. Uses a template you registered.
- Send a photo on WhatsAppSends one image, with an optional caption, to a number designated for this client. Inside the 24-hour window, like any other free-form message. It cannot be unsent.
- Send WhatsApp reply buttonsSends a message with up to three tappable buttons. Tapping one sends its label back as their reply. Inside the 24-hour window only. It cannot be unsent.
What it cannot do
- Meta only allows a free-form message within twenty-four hours of the client’s last one. After that, the only thing that can be sent is a template you registered and Meta approved.
- It works with a WhatsApp Business number connected through the platform, not with a personal WhatsApp account on your phone.
- Only designated numbers are in scope, and a message from an unknown number is not a client conversation the operator will act on.
- Sending and replying are writes and wait for approval, like every outbound message.
What this changes
Three specifics, rather than a feature list
Inbound arrives as it happens
Messages from designated numbers are delivered to the workspace as they are sent, verified by signature before anything is parsed, and attached to the client they belong to.
Replies quote what they said
A reply answers a specific message and quotes it, which is what keeps a busy thread legible on a phone screen.
The twenty-four-hour rule, handled
Outside the window the operator offers an approved template rather than a message that would be rejected — and tells you that is what it is doing.
The rule that catches everybody
WhatsApp is not email and Meta enforces the difference. A business may send whatever it likes for twenty-four hours after a customer’s last message. Outside that window the only thing that goes through is a message template registered in advance and approved by Meta.
Products that hide this produce a very specific bad afternoon: a chase that was never delivered, no error anybody saw, and a client who is not ignoring you. Here the window is part of the model — the template send is a separate capability and the operator picks it deliberately.
The template is not a limitation to route around. It is the only thing Meta allows more than a day after the client last wrote.
What being in the record changes
A WhatsApp thread that only exists on a phone has three problems: nobody else can see it, it disappears when the person leaves, and nothing downstream can act on it. Put the same conversation on the client record and an approval in it is an approval, a complaint in it raises a task, and a scope change in it is attached to the project it changes.
How the connection works
Inbound messages arrive by webhook from Meta’s own servers, authenticated by a signature over the raw body that is verified before the payload is parsed. Outbound goes through the connection broker as a typed action. Both ends are scoped to the numbers you designated per client.
Questions people ask about this
Can I connect the WhatsApp on my phone?
No. This is the business platform, which is a different thing from the app on a handset — a business number, registered, with templates you can submit for approval. It is the only version that has an interface at all.
What happens if I try to send after twenty-four hours?
The free-form send is not what the operator offers there. It proposes an approved template instead, and says why. A product that quietly tried the other one would produce a message that was never delivered.
Does NeoAI reply on WhatsApp by itself?
Only if you turn on unattended replies for that workflow, and only for a reply to somebody who has just written in. It is off by default, capped per day, and stoppable from one switch.
Is a client’s WhatsApp conversation stored?
The messages that arrive from designated numbers are stored on that client’s record in your workspace, isolated per workspace at the database level, and deletable with the client.
Last reviewed on . Something out of date or wrong? Tell us and it gets fixed.
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Point it at one client and see what it prepares.
Connect a mailbox, designate the contacts for a single client, and read what the operator has drafted by tomorrow morning. Free to start, and nothing leaves without you.