Hubspot - WhatsApp Integration

[BMansour]

Hello

I have connected my Whatsapp business to hubspot successfully and I love how the service is set up, I have few points that I need help to clearly understand ?

1- I noticed there's a conversation limit for my plan (1000 covnversations), is that a monthly limit that will reset automatically or is it a lifetime limit and I have to pay to have more conversations ?
2- Can I still activate Whatsapp business on a normal phone and use it while it's connected to hubspot or will that un-do the integration ?
3- there's a 24 hours limit to respond to any conversation and the conversation will close afterwards, Is that something you can work around in your business ?

if you have any experience with using the whatsapp integration, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. 

[maulpaurer]

Thanks to all for the insights from this thread - I have a question regarding the communication start. 

As far as I know, the contact that I am trying to reach has to proactively send a Message to my WhatsApp phone number saying "Start". 
This is a trigger that lets me send messages to them. 

Is there a way for me to proactively ask for the contact to write "start" to me? In a sense that I am proactively writing to the contact "Please write "start" to initiate a conversation" ?
At the moment I am unable to contact people without them giving me permission, but how are they supposed to know that they have to write "Start" when I am unable to give instructions?

I hope somebody has the answer. Thanks in advance!

[Asif]

Hey,
I'm not sure if anyone's answered this yet - can't see on the thread, so I'm take a go at it.

Yes, you cannot directly start a whatsapp conversation with a new contact like you would on your phone.

Rather, when connected to Hubspot, you will be required to send a template as a first message to a new contact.  This template will need to be created in the Whatsapp template manager - https://business.facebook.com/latest/whatsapp_manager/message_templates

In the contact record, click on the 3 dots ... below the contact name and look for "Create a WhatsApp Message".

Next, in the create message dialog box, it will ask you to select a template. Click that and you will be lead to your Meta account login, where all templates are stored in the Template Manager (the link provided above).

Choose a template and send from hubspot. When the recipient responds to this message, you can continue the conversation manually. However, keep in mind the 24 hr time limit to reply to messages. If you delay any more, you have to again send a template.

I hope that helps.

Cheers

Asif Ahmed

[Billseng]

@BMansour 

For what it is worth, I found out the hard way that once you integrate WhatsApp with HubSpot, your customers will NOT be able to call you via WhatsApp. Apparently, this is a (boneheaded) limitation of the WhatsApp API. Once connected, texting is it.

That said, this blog post from WhatsApp might provide a possible workaround as it allows one WhatsApp account to be shared by multiple devices. https://blog.whatsapp.com/one-whatsapp-account-now-across-multiple-phones 

I have done zero testing with this, but since the WhatsApp blog post came out after I disconnected WhatsApp from HubSpot (which allowed us to get calls again), maybe there's a way to fool WhatsApp into seeing HubSpot as "just another device". 

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Hi @BMansour,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community!

I'd be glad to help with this! 

1. The limit of 1000 covnversations is reset monthly; with other words, 1000 conversations are included for free each month. If you need more than 1000 conversation in a month, you can purchase a limit increase for 70 USD. See the pricing information here. 

2. This is a limitation of the WhatsApp integration: Once you connect a WhatsApp number to HubSpot, messages will no longer appear in the WhatsApp mobile app or web app, and will only appear in the conversations inbox in your HubSpot account.

3. That's correct, as mentioned here, after 24 hours, the session is considered closed and you will have to communicate with the customer using another channel. You could also consider sending a WhatsApp template response to the customer, as described here. 

I believe it's currently not possible to change this behaviour, but I wanted to tag other WhatsApp users to see how they manage conversations that are older than 24 hours: 

Hi @LDiP3, @Billseng, @AliAnsari, @LDretzolis, would you like to share any insights or experiences here? Thank you!

Cheers
Mia, Community Team   

[BMansour]

@MiaSrebrnjak Thank you for the valuable reply, I have a couple more questions: 
how do we arhcieve the WhatsApp conversation that we are recieving ? 
How do we initiate a conversation (Ex: Customer calls us and wants some details sent to him on whatsapp, so we are the initiator of the conversation), is that possible to do via hubspot ? 

[harsh2vyas]

Hi, @BMansour 

I can offer alternative options for integrating WhatsApp with HubSpot, enabling you to communicate with your customers seamlessly.
With these solutions, you can chat directly from your WhatsApp account and receive messages from your customers.

If you're interested in learning more about these options, feel free to reach out to me for further details.

[JWInVC1]

• Hi Harsh2vyas, my company would he interested in this. One question - can we add multiple WhatsApp accounts? 
  We would be keen to discuss. 

[harsh2vyas]

Hello Jonathan Wicks,

Yes! Vepaar allows you to connect different WhatsApp accounts with different HubSpot accounts. This helps admin users track which number facilitated specific conversions with particular customers and at what time.

[BMansour]

Thank you for reaching out, Are those alternatives part of hubspot marketplace ? 
I am not actually interested in anything that will not integrate seamlessly with hubspot, if you would like to share more details about the proposed sloutions, you can message me 

[harsh2vyas · Accepted solution]

Yes, it is available in the marketplace. Here is the URL for that product: https://ecosystem.hubspot.com/marketplace/apps/vepaar-hubspot-whatsapp-integration-896192

[LDiP3]

Hi everyone!

Thanks for your mention @MiaSrebrnjak!

Yes, all explanations are correct. 

One thing to keep in mind is signing up for each user to receive marketing communications from whatsapp using templates, in this case at the moment it has to be done manually!

Luca