Solution
WhatsApp CRM: every customer chat, tied to the deal it belongs to
A WhatsApp CRM puts your WhatsApp Business conversations next to the contact and the deal, so the whole team sees the thread and knows where the sale stands. In Naffes CRM, WhatsApp runs through your workspace's own Twilio account and lands in a shared inbox, with approved templates, bots, broadcasts and automation built in.
Why teams move WhatsApp into a CRM
Picture a real-estate agency running a listing ad. Forty people tap it over a weekend and start WhatsApp chats. On Monday, the chats are spread across three agents' phones, nobody knows which ones got an answer, and the manager cannot tell which ad produced the two viewings that were booked. Nothing is wrong with WhatsApp; the problem is that the conversations live outside the system where the pipeline lives.
A WhatsApp CRM fixes that by making each conversation a shared record owned by the company, linked to a contact, a deal and the tasks around it. When an agent leaves, the history stays. When a lead goes quiet, someone is alerted. When a deal closes, you can trace it back to the ad.
Naffes is built for teams where WhatsApp is the front door: sales teams working ad traffic, clinics and medical-tourism providers booking consultations in chat, property brokers qualifying buyers, and support teams handling after-sale requests.
A practical workflow: from the first WhatsApp message to a sales decision
A customer asks about pricing on WhatsApp. How does the team turn that conversation into a clear next step? This example uses the contact record and deal in Naffes to organize the follow-up.
Review the contact record
Open the conversation and review the contact before replying so the team understands the enquiry.
Assign an owner and a next step
Connect the follow-up to a deal, set its owner and sales stage, and record the next task, such as sending a proposal or arranging a call.
Follow up with context
Review the conversation and activities before the next message. Outside the WhatsApp customer-service window, use an appropriate approved template according to your connection settings.
Start with the WhatsApp setup guide, check pricing, or request a demo to explore the workflow for your team.
How it is wired: your Twilio account, not ours
Naffes does not send WhatsApp messages under its own name and does not connect to the WhatsApp Cloud API directly. Your workspace connects its own Twilio account. WhatsApp traffic goes through a Twilio WhatsApp Business sender, SMS goes through Twilio Programmable Messaging, and Naffes shows both in the inbox and on customer records.
- Numbers are bought in the Twilio console. Naffes registers them but does not provision them.
- Sender approval happens in Twilio as well, outside Naffes.
- Templates are written in Twilio's Content Template Builder and reviewed by Meta; Naffes imports the approved ones.
- Message fees are billed to your Twilio account: Twilio's fee on every message, inbound or outbound, plus Meta's template fee by category, which Twilio passes through. Your Naffes subscription is separate.
- Security: inbound Twilio webhooks are accepted only when they carry a valid Twilio signature.
Setting it up
A workspace admin does the setup. Plan on two stops: the Twilio console, then Naffes settings.
Prepare the sender in Twilio
Buy the number in the Twilio console and complete WhatsApp sender onboarding there until it is approved.
Connect Twilio to Naffes
Open Settings → Integrations → Channels → Twilio and paste your Account SID and Auth Token in the credentials step. The phone-number and application steps are for browser calling.
Register the WhatsApp number
On the WhatsApp Number tab, click Register number, enter it, choose the WhatsApp channel and, if you like, make it the default sender.
Wire the inbound webhook
Copy the webhook URL from the setup card into the sender's inbound settings in Twilio. The screen tracks readiness: credentials, number registered, webhook wired, ready.
Recover early messages
If customers wrote in before the webhook was wired, go to Pull recent messages from Twilio, choose the last 24 hours, 3 days or 7 days, and click Pull messages.
Import approved templates
Open WhatsApp Templates and click Sync from Twilio to import every approved template, or Add template to register one by its Content SID (it starts with HX). Deactivate any template reps should not use.
The 24-hour window and approved templates
WhatsApp's rules are simple and strict. When a customer messages you, a 24-hour customer service window opens, and every new message from them resets it. Inside the window you can reply freely. Outside it, only an approved message template is delivered. Meta groups templates into marketing, utility and authentication, and charges per template message by category; free-form replies inside an open window carry no Meta fee.
The Naffes composer shows the window state as open, closing soon (under an hour left) or closed. Once it closes, the rep is steered to pick an approved template and fill in its variables, from the conversation or straight from the contact record.
Every outbound message shows its delivery status: queued, sent, delivered, read (WhatsApp only) or failed. Common failures are explained in plain language, including a closed window, a recipient who is not on WhatsApp, and Meta's per-user cap on marketing messages. That cap adapts to each person's engagement, and messages sent inside an open service window do not count toward it.
A day in the shared inbox: from chat to deal or ticket
The shared inbox holds WhatsApp alongside email, SMS and customer-portal chat, with views for All, Mine, Unassigned, Waiting for us, Bot handling and Done, and the linked CRM record beside the open thread. A message from an unknown number creates a contact named from the WhatsApp profile, with WhatsApp as its lead source; a number already in the CRM links to the existing contact instead. Customers who hide their number behind a WhatsApp username can still be answered.
From the thread, a rep can:
- create a deal or contact, or link the chat to an existing deal;
- turn it into a help-desk ticket, so later customer messages join the ticket and the agent's public reply goes back on WhatsApp (the help desk is on Pro and Enterprise);
- set a reminder on the conversation itself;
- assign it to a teammate, which also hands over ownership of its deal, then close it with a reason such as won, lost or no response.
Deals keep pace with the chat. A rep's reply moves the deal to contacted, a bot qualification to qualified, and a booked meeting to consultation, provided the pipeline has stages by those names. Moves go forward only, and only for open deals. A rep who messages a contact with no open deal gets one created in the first stage of the primary pipeline. Reps can also read and answer the thread from the deal page, where it sits in the messages tab next to notes, calls and quotes.
Idle chats are caught by silence rules: by default the assignee is alerted after a customer has waited 2 hours, managers after 24 hours, and after 14 days of customer silence the thread closes as no response and its open deal is marked lost. Admins can change or switch off each rule.
Media works the way customers expect: images, audio, video and documents come in, and a rep sends one file per message (up to 16 MB on WhatsApp) or records a voice note in the browser, converted server-side to a format WhatsApp accepts. Incoming voice notes are transcribed automatically, so what the customer said is searchable and readable by the bot. The copilot button offers up to three ready-to-send replies when a rep wants a head start.
WhatsApp bots that qualify, book and hand over
Back to the agency: its bot greets the buyer, asks for the preferred area and budget with tappable buttons, books the viewing as a meeting hosted by the agent who owns the chat, and then passes the chat to that agent. A real-estate lead-qualification flow ships as a ready-made Arabic and English template, alongside appointment booking, general sales qualification and medical-tourism qualification.
A workspace can run several WhatsApp bots, each built in a visual flow editor under Settings → Automation → AI Bot. Steps cover messages, button menus, questions, multi-question forms, media, branches on answers, setting fields, creating the lead, moving the pipeline stage, calling an external API, timed waits, an AI turn and handoff to a person.
- Menus render as native WhatsApp buttons: quick replies for up to 3 options, a list picker for 4 to 10.
- Free text the script cannot match is answered by AI in the bot's persona, with guards that hand over when the customer asks for a human, sends nonsense or the chat starts looping.
- The bot can create a real meeting hosted by the conversation owner, or send that rep's booking link.
- Each bot has working hours and an away message.
- An agent clicks Take over to silence the bot on that thread, then hands it back when done.
Broadcasts, workflows and sequences
Broadcasts. Under Marketing → Campaigns, create a WhatsApp campaign for a saved audience built from contact filters, and add one or more message versions, each an approved template with its variables; the audience is split evenly between them. Blocked threads are skipped, nobody gets the same campaign twice, and each recipient's send status is tracked.
Workflows. A workflow can start when a WhatsApp message is received or sent, filtered by channel, by a first message from an unknown sender, or by whether the 24-hour window is open. Its steps can send a free-form WhatsApp message, an approved template or an SMS. For example: when a deal is marked won, send an onboarding template that greets the customer by first name. To protect your number, sends are paced per workspace (20 WhatsApp messages a minute by default); when the limit is hit, the run pauses and resumes on the same step, so nothing is dropped. Workflows start on the Starter plan; see automation in Naffes.
Sequences. Combine WhatsApp-template, wait, task and condition steps, limit sending to chosen hours and weekdays in the owner's time zone, and cap sends per hour. An enrollment stops for good if the contact has blocked the business on WhatsApp. Meeting invites, reminders and booking-page confirmations can go out on WhatsApp too.
Knowing which ad started the conversation
When a chat starts from a click-to-WhatsApp ad, Naffes saves the ad referral on the conversation. Contact and deal pages then show the ad and, once the ad is mapped to a campaign, the campaign behind the lead. That lets you judge ads by the deals they open, not by message counts.
There is a cost angle as well. Per Meta's pricing rules, a chat from a click-to-WhatsApp ad opens a 72-hour free entry point window if you reply within 24 hours, and messages in it carry no Meta fee. The customer service window still applies separately, so once 24 hours pass since the customer's last message, only templates can be sent.
To watch the desk itself, the manager dashboard preset tracks new, waiting and unassigned conversations, first human response time, daily inbound volume and the bot-to-human handoff rate. See dashboards.
Consent, opt-out and Saudi PDPL
WhatsApp's Business Messaging Policy lets you contact people only if they gave you their number and opted in to hear from you, and you must honour any request to stop, whether it arrives on WhatsApp or elsewhere. In Saudi Arabia, Article 28 of the Implementing Regulation of the Personal Data Protection Law requires consent before sending advertising or awareness material when there has been no prior interaction, documented so it can be verified later. The sender must be clearly named, and opting out must be free, immediate and at least as easy as opting in. Article 29 sets similar conditions for direct marketing.
Your business is the controller and carries that obligation. Naffes gives you the tools to meet it:
- Block the sender when someone asks to stop: nobody can message them until they are unblocked, broadcasts skip them and sequences stop.
- Custom fields on the contact to record where and when consent was given, so the evidence sits on the record if you are ever asked for it.
- An audit log of who changed what and when, with a CSV export that includes old and new values.
- Roles and field visibility to control who sees and exports contact data.
This is a general summary, not legal advice. Check SDAIA's official text and any later amendments, and take legal advice before running marketing campaigns.
What Naffes does not do today
- Twilio is the only WhatsApp and SMS provider: no direct Cloud API, no embedded signup, no other BSP.
- Templates cannot be written or submitted for Meta approval inside Naffes.
- New conversations are not auto-routed round-robin; they wait unassigned until a person or a bot handoff assigns them.
- The WhatsApp composer has no saved replies (snippets are email-only) and sends one attachment per message.
- Bots run on WhatsApp only, not on SMS, Messenger or Instagram.
- Duplicate threads for the same person are not merged automatically.
- Sequence email steps do not send at the moment; the WhatsApp, wait, task and condition steps do.
- Contacts are enrolled in a sequence one at a time from the interface.
- Broadcasts are sent immediately from the screen; the UI has no scheduling field.
- The silence-rule follow-up is fixed text, and its out-of-window template can only be set on the server, so on WhatsApp it is usually skipped.
Your options compared
Meta presents the WhatsApp Business app as built for small business owners, and the WhatsApp Business Platform as the API product that plugs into back-end systems such as a CRM or marketing automation. For a sales team, the practical difference looks like this:
| Criterion | Chats on team members' phones | WhatsApp through Twilio in Naffes |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the history | The rep and the device | The workspace; it stays when people leave |
| Link to the deal | Copied by hand, if at all | Contact and deal linked to the thread |
| Manager visibility | Little | Assignment, Unassigned and Waiting for us views, silence-rule alerts |
| After 24 hours | Depends on the rep remembering | Composer detects the closed window and offers a template |
| Ad measurement | Source unknown | Ad referral saved on the chat and the deal |
| Setup effort | Instant on one phone | Twilio account and approved sender, then connect in Naffes |
What it costs
Two separate bills: your Naffes plan, and the messaging fees Twilio charges your own account. Conversations are part of the core CRM; workflows start on Starter, and the help desk and the AI assistant come with Pro. Current prices and limits are on the pricing page.
To test the whole setup first, the 14-day free trial unlocks every feature with no usage caps and no card. Afterwards you carry on, data intact, on the free plan.
Questions
Questions 6
Do I need a Twilio account to use WhatsApp in Naffes?
Yes. Naffes connects to your workspace's own Twilio account and a WhatsApp Business sender approved there. You buy the number and finish sender onboarding in Twilio, connect it under Settings → Integrations → Channels → Twilio, and pay message fees to Twilio directly.
Can Naffes create WhatsApp templates or submit them to Meta?
No. Templates are built in Twilio's Content Template Builder and reviewed by Meta. Once approved, one click imports them into Naffes, or you register one by its Content SID, and they become available to reps, campaigns and workflows.
What happens when the 24-hour window closes?
The composer marks the window as closed and steers the rep to an approved template with its variables. When the customer replies, a new window opens and free-form messages are possible again.
Can several agents answer from one WhatsApp number?
Yes. The number belongs to the workspace, not to a phone, and its chats sit in a shared inbox where each thread is assigned to someone. How many users you can add depends on your plan.
Are customer voice notes searchable?
Yes. Incoming voice notes are transcribed to text automatically, and the transcript appears in the thread and on the record timeline, where search and the bot can use it.
Can I send WhatsApp messages from automations?
Yes, on plans that include workflows. A workflow step can send a free-form WhatsApp message inside the window, an approved template at any time, or an SMS, and triggers can react to messages received or sent.
Sources
- WhatsApp Business Messaging PolicyAccessed
- Meta for Developers: Template fundamentalsAccessed
- Meta for Developers: Pricing on the WhatsApp Business PlatformAccessed
- Meta for Developers: Per-user marketing template message limitsAccessed
- Meta for Developers: Get opt-in for WhatsAppAccessed
- WhatsApp Business PlatformAccessed
- WhatsApp Business AppAccessed
- Twilio: Create templates with the Content Template BuilderAccessed
- Twilio: WhatsApp pricingAccessed
- SDAIA: Implementing Regulation of the Personal Data Protection LawAccessed