WhatsApp for customer service: what you actually need
Number, Meta app, permanent token, webhook and app secret: the setup in order, and the point where the channel sends but never receives.
Your customers are writing to you on WhatsApp anyway. The question is not whether to use the channel, but where the message ends up: on a phone in somebody’s pocket, or in the system that also holds the quote, the order and the ticket. This is what the second route takes, in the order it has to be done, and where the setup usually gets stuck.
WhatsApp Business on a phone is not enough
The free app is built for one person. It is tied to one device, it does not know your customer record, and when a colleague is on holiday the conversation goes on holiday too. Above all, nothing of that exchange ends up in a file anyone can read later. Using WhatsApp for business means the official route, Meta’s WhatsApp Business Platform, and that starts in the Meta console, not in the app.
What to get first
Three things, and none of them is created inside your software:
- A verified Meta Business account. Without business verification you stay on the test-number limit and only reach the contacts declared there.
- A phone number that is NOT already active on WhatsApp. Not on WhatsApp Business either. A number already running in the app has to be unlinked first, and the chat history does not survive the move, so in practice you use a dedicated service number.
- An app on developers.facebook.com with the WhatsApp product added. That is where the identifiers your software will ask for live.
The four values you copy across
In the WhatsApp section of your Meta app, under the API configuration, you will find the Phone Number ID and the WABA ID. Both go into your software’s settings.
The access token is where many setups quietly break a few days later: Meta shows a
temporary one that expires in 24 hours. For continuous operation you create a system
user in Meta Business, give it access to the app, and generate a permanent token with
the whatsapp_business_messaging and whatsapp_business_management permissions.
The webhook is the address Meta delivers incoming messages to: you copy it from your
software and paste it into Meta. Along with it goes a verify token that you make up
yourself — the exact same string on both sides, used only so the two ends recognise each
other the first time. Then, still in Meta, subscribe to the messages field, or nothing
will ever arrive.
The point where the channel sends but receives nothing
There is a fifth value, and it is the quietest one: the app secret, in the basic settings of the Meta app.
Your software uses it to verify that an incoming message really comes from Meta. When it is missing, something unpleasant happens: the connection test reports success, outgoing messages work, and every incoming message is silently discarded. No error, no red light, just a channel that never answers. So when you check a setup, check two separate things: that Meta responds, and that incoming messages can be verified.
Who is allowed to write
Before the first customer writes, one decision is left: which numbers get served. An allowed-numbers list is not an optional filter, it is the cost brake and the spam defence of the channel. Start with your own number, walk through the flow, and open it up afterwards.
Two limits come from Meta itself and apply whatever software you use: writing outside the 24-hour window after the customer’s last message requires a template approved by Meta, and while the app is in development mode only the numbers declared there are reachable.
How Blina Desk does it
In Blina Desk the channel does not sit next to the system, it sits inside it. An incoming message becomes a recorded conversation, the reply can be automatic, and the AI works with the data that is already there: contacts, orders, invoices, tickets, appointments. What it is allowed to do is a short list you decide: answer, open a ticket, log a task, look up where an order stands.
A daily cap per contact keeps AI spending in check, and auto-reply can be switched off: then messages are only recorded and a person answers. Setup is the company administrator’s job, in a single screen, with the step-by-step procedure written next to it.
The difference shows up a few weeks later. Not in the fact that messages get answered, but in the fact that six months on, inside that customer’s record, you can read what was said on the phone, by email and on WhatsApp without opening three programs.