WhatsApp Business in 3CX: centralise customer requests in the phone system

In Morocco, a customer would rather write on WhatsApp than call or email. The problem for a company: those conversations live on a salesperson’s personal phone, with no shared history, no follow-up, and they leave with them. 3CX solves this by integrating WhatsApp Business directly into the phone system, alongside calls and website chat.

What the integration does

The company’s WhatsApp number is connected to 3CX through Meta’s WhatsApp Business API. Each incoming message lands in a queue, like a call, and is distributed to available agents according to the PBX rules: first free, round robin, skills. The agent replies from the 3CX app, on desktop or mobile, without using their personal WhatsApp.

Concretely:

• One number for the company, on a landline or mobile, independent of staff phones.
• Shared history: the whole team sees the conversation, a colleague picks up a case without making the customer repeat.
• Assignment and transfer between agents or departments, as for a call.
• Statistics: first-response time, conversations handled per agent, peak hours, in 3CX reports.
• Customer record: with CRM integration, Odoo, HubSpot or Microsoft 365, the record opens when the message arrives.

What to know before starting

• The number must be registered on WhatsApp Business Platform, through a verified Meta Business account. A number already used on the classic WhatsApp app must be removed from it first.
• Meta enforces a 24-hour window: the company can reply freely within 24 hours of the customer’s last message. Beyond that, an approved message template is required.
• Customer-initiated conversations are free or very cheap; company-initiated ones, reminders and notifications, are billed by Meta per unit.
• A 3CX Pro or Enterprise licence is required for queues and reports.

Use cases that work

• After-sales service: photos of the fault, serial number, reply within minutes, ticket created in the CRM.
• Appointment booking for a clinic or practice, with template confirmation.
• B2B sales: quote requests land in a queue instead of getting lost across three phones.
• IT support, our own use: clients write to us on WhatsApp, the request becomes a tracked ticket.

Deployment in four steps

1. Verify the Meta Business account and choose the number.
2. Connect to 3CX and create the WhatsApp queue, with agents and hours.
3. Submit message templates to Meta: confirmation, reminder, out of hours.
4. Train the agents, one hour is enough, and set up weekly reports.

Count one week, mostly Meta’s verification lead time. For companies that do not yet have 3CX, it is often the argument that tips the telephony project, as we explain in 3CX: why this phone system wins, and our IP telephony offer includes it in the deployment.