Discover how you can use WhatsApp with multiple users simultaneously to manage and collaborate on chats, with your contacts, and offer customer support

Using WhatsApp for your business has never been easy: unlike Facebook Messenger and Telegram, it has not been possible – until today –  to use the messaging app in a collaborative way by a sales or customer support team.

This limit has forced those companies that wanted to integrate WhatsApp among their external communication channels to confer the responsibility of the channel to a single person, hence losing visibility and control.

The most effective solution to date is using the web version of the WhatsApp Business app, which at least allows to use reply templates and assign tags to chats.

Why, as of today, it was not possible to manage a WhatsApp account on multiple devices at the same time?

The reason why until today it has not been possible to use WhatsApp with multiple users at the same time, and therefore to manage the same phone number from more than one device at a time, is that the app did not have public APIs.

Simply put, this means that since WhatsApp uses an authentication system connected to the phone number, it was not possible to make the same WhatsApp account accessible to multiple devices at the same time.

How to use WhatsApp with multiple users simultaneously
In August 2018, something changed: WhatsApp finally announced that it would give public access to the APIs of its Business version (for this reason, if you don’t have a company or a sales team this article probably isn’t for you), through which it would have been possible to structure the company communication towards a client via this channel.

Through this release, WhatsApp wanted to give the chance to create solutions that allow the collaboration and management of the channel by several people at the same time, as well as sending transactional messages (boarding pass, password reset, push notifications etc …).

So let’s see which are the solutions that allow companies to take advantage of the WhatsApp channel to communicate, support and sell through the most popular messaging app in the world.

What are the solutions to use WhatsApp in multiuser mode?

What are the solutions to use WhatsApp in multiuser mode?

Although there are several solutions that are starting to appear on the market for the shared management of WhatsApp’s inbox, the platforms that seem to get a foothold at this time are mainly three: Callbell, WhatsApp Multi-device Zendesk.

So what are the main differences between the three solutions?

1) Callbell is the right solution for teams from 2 to 50 people: the interface is based on a live chat system, very similar to the desktop version of the app. The app allows you to automatically assign a chat to the first available operator, with the possibility of using reply templates, tags and many other features created to make collaboration easier.

You can create a free account on Callbell from here.

You can create a free account on Callbell from here

2) WhatsApp Multi-device (Beta): In mid-2021, the arrival of WhatsApp’s multi-device feature was announced. This means that today you can use the app on your computer without having to have your phone connected. This allows you to be able to use WhatsApp by connecting up to 4 devices at the same time. 

However, the default version does not allow efficient management of numerous chats, let alone teamwork.

2) Zendesk is instead the right solution for large companies: the management of requests for assistance via WhatsApp is done through a ticketing system and hence it allows to manage a very large volume of requests.

If you want to know more on this topic, we talked about the integration between WhatsApp and Zendesk in this article.

In this article we have seen how WhatsApp is slowly getting ready to become a solution that allows not only to communicate with friends and family, but also with companies from which we buy products and services.

The possibility to allow multiple users at the same time to manage this channel is only the first step in a long process that will make communication between companies and their customers easier: we just have to wait and see the future developments!

If you liked this article, don’t forget to share it and let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Thanks for reading and see you soon!

WhatsApp in multiuser mode
Frequent Questions
How to manage a WhatsApp shared inbox?
The release of the WhatsApp Business API in August 2018 finally made it possible to build solutions that would allow a team to manage a WhatsApp account in a collaborative manner. Thanks to platforms such as Callbell, it is in fact possible to use a WhatsApp number with multiple users at the same time thanks to a series of features designed for collabroration such as automatic chat assignment or the possibility of tagging and filtering contacts.
Why use WhatsApp to communicate with customers?
Communicating with customers through WhatsApp allows companies to reach customers wherever they are and with open rates of almost 100%. The advantages of using WhatsApp are not limited to the company: statistics show that in 2018 a survey conducted by Facebook shows that 67% of consumers expect to be able to use at least one messaging app to communicate with a company from here to the next two years.
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About the author: Hello! I am Alan and I am the marketing manager at Callbell, the first communication platform designed to help sales and support teams to collaborate and communicate with customers through direct messaging applications such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram and Instagram Direct