WhatsApp calling

WhatsApp calling is planned for HLB. It would let your team place and receive WhatsApp voice calls from inside HLB, so you could move from a chat to a live call in the same conversation without switching apps. As planned, this capability would start in closed beta and work on the web only.

For a local service business, this would help with customer questions that would be easier to answer by voice, such as a service request or an appointment detail. Call history would sit alongside the chat messages, so your team would have the full conversation in one place.

As planned, setup would include these options:

• You would pick a connected WhatsApp number and give it a friendly name, such as Front Desk.
• You would choose which users would ring for inbound calls, with a primary user and backups.
• You could turn on voice calls, and optionally let customers request a callback after a missed call.
• You could show a call button on your WhatsApp business profile.
• You could set available and temporarily unavailable hours for your team.

On an incoming call, an alert would appear in HLB and you could accept the call there. After the call, the time, duration and outcome would be saved to the customer's conversation, and you could add a disposition to log the result. As planned, outbound calls would start from the contact's WhatsApp conversation. Customers would first need to give your business permission to call them on WhatsApp.

There would be limits. Coexistence (the WhatsApp Business App and the platform on the same number) would not be supported. Outbound WhatsApp calls would also not be supported in some countries, including the United States and Canada.