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Help Customers in WhatsApp

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

  • Exchange WhatsApp messages with customers from the Service Console.
  • Send messaging components in an enhanced WhatsApp messaging session.
  • End or transfer an enhanced WhatsApp messaging session.

Activate Your WhatsApp Channel

Maria knows her channel is ready for business. It’s time to activate it so that Ursa Major Solar’s support team can start helping customers over WhatsApp. Here are the steps she takes.

  1. In Setup, go to the Messaging Settings page and click the channel’s name.
  2. At the top of the page, click Activate Channel.
    Ready to activate your channel window with View Checklist and Activate buttons
  3. Click View Checklist and verify that all channel setup steps are complete.
  4. Click Activate.

Accept a Customer’s WhatsApp Message

It’s a big moment in the Ursa Major Solar office. Maria sits down with an experienced support agent, Jessica Tanaka, to test out their new enhanced WhatsApp channel. Maria will be sending messages to Ursa Major Solar from her personal WhatsApp account, and Jessica will respond from the Service Console. 

First, Jessica goes online in Omni-Channel so that she can accept incoming messages. Here are the steps she follows.

  1. ClickApp Launcher icon and select the Service Console app.
  2. Click Omni-Channel in the footer of your screen to expand the Omni-Channel utility.
  3. Click the dropdown menu and select your status. Jessica selects Available—Messaging. When a green dot appears next to the status, you’re ready to chat with customers.

Maria sends a WhatsApp message to Ursa Major’s WhatsApp number. She receives the auto-response prompt to opt into receiving messages, and sends the keyword. Maria’s messaging session then appears in the New tab in Jessica’s Omni-Channel utility. Jessica clicks the checkmark to accept the message, and the messaging session is active!

Omni-Channel utility with incoming messaging session

Now, let’s experiment with sending different types of content in the channel.

Send Messages in WhatsApp

To create a stellar customer experience, Maria wants Jessica and the rest of the Ursa Major Solar support team to be familiar with the many types of content that they can send and receive in enhanced WhatsApp channels. Here’s how they test out the channel.

Send Text and Emojis

Sending text works exactly how you’d expect. To send an emoji, click the emoji icon. 

Emoji selector

Send Quick Text

To send a quick text snippet, click the quick text icon and search for the snippet you need. 

Quick text selector

Send Images, Videos, and Files

To send an image, video, or other type of file, click the paperclip icon. Select the file, then press Send.

Messaging window with sent image and attachment icon circled

Send Voice Messages

Give your web browser access to your microphone. Then, click the microphone icon (1) and start talking. Click the stop icon (2) when you’re done. At that point, you can play back (3) or discard your message (4). When you’re happy with it, send it to the customer (5).

Audio message recording tool

Send Messaging Components

To send a messaging component with static content, like the Contact Reason component that Maria created, click the messaging component icon in the messaging window. Then, click Send

Messaging component action in messaging window

Optionally, use the filter at the top to show only components of a certain type. Select your component in the list, and then click Send.

When the customer clicks an option, it’s sent as a response.

Messaging session showing question component and response

To send a messaging component with dynamic content, like the Order Selector component that Maria created, find the corresponding Flow component and run the flow to insert the component into the message field. Then, click Send

Flow component in console with Next, Insert Message, and Finish buttons

When the customer clicks an option it’s sent as a response message.

Messaging session showing question component and response

Get Help from a Supervisor

To get help from a supervisor without the customer being aware, click the flag icon and enter your question. Supervisors are alerted in Omni Supervisor and can “whisper” an answer. Click the icon again to lower your flag. Jessica’s particularly excited about this feature, which will give their remote agents an easy way to get help from a supervisor who’s in a different location. 

Messaging session showing agent flag raise

Tip: Admins can also use Einstein Conversation Intelligence to automatically raise an agent’s flag whenever an agent or customer sends a certain word or phrase.

Transfer or End Your Messaging Session

After perfecting the WhatsApp customer service experience, Jessica decides to say goodbye (to the customer, that is). Agents can wrap up a WhatsApp messaging session in several ways.

Mark the Session Inactive

Sometimes customers stop responding to messages, and agents aren’t sure why. Possible reasons include boredom, distraction, drowsiness, and passing ice cream trucks. Regardless of the reason, here’s one way to mark a messaging session inactive to free up your capacity. 

  1. Click the dropdown menu in the messaging window.
  2. Select Customer Inactive.

Messaging session showing Customer Inactive option

If the customer sends a message after the session is marked inactive, the session is rerouted to the next available agent. Inactive sessions are automatically ended after approximately one day.

Transfer the Session

If you aren’t able to help a customer, don’t leave ’em hanging. Transfer them to another agent, queue, or Omni-Channel routing flow to get their issue resolved. 

  1. Click the transfer icontransfer icon in the lower-left corner of the Conversation component.
  2. Search for and select an agent, flow, or queue. The transfer window shows up to five transfer recipients in alphabetical order. Agent status isn’t shown.

Messaging session transfer with Transfer icon circled

When the selected agent accepts the transfer, the original agent is removed from the conversation.

End the Session

If you resolved the customer’s issue…awesome! Just click End Chat in the messaging window and close the session tab.

End Chat button

With a successful WhatsApp test complete, the Ursa Major Solar customer support team is ready to help customers over WhatsApp. Jessica records a quick training video for the rest of the support team, and Maria prepares a plan to publicize the WhatsApp channel on the website and in outreach materials. Next step: solar market domination. Well done, Ursa Major Solar, and well done, you!

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