WhatsApp Sidebar
What is the WhatsApp Sidebar?
WhatsApp Sidebar is a Chrome extension available in Chrome Web store. This extension lets you create leads, work with lead cards and chat to clients directly from WhatsApp Web. This is perfect for teams where each member uses their own personal WhatsApp account to chat with clients – all you need to do is sign into WhatsApp Web sidebar, and your chats will be synced!!
The extension is official, easy to use and totally free.
What can you do with WhatsApp Sidebar
Create leads from WhatsApp Web chats
After you install the WhatsApp Sidebar, you can create leads right from your WhatsApp chats. Just select a chat, press “Create contact” and fill out the information.
If the contact is already in Kommo, it’s even easier, just choose it from the drop-down.
Next, choose which profile you’ll save the chat in. To do that, press “Create a lead”…
…or choose an existing lead profile where the chat will be synced.
After that, all the messages from that chat will be synced with the lead profile in the Kommo every time you open WhatsApp Web. Plus, you can also create notes and move leads through the pipeline without leaving WhatsApp.
What about if one contact has several leads? For example, let’s say you’re a corporate event planner, and one of your contacts has asked you to plan a totally new event (a conference) because the last event you planned(an employee recognition banquet) was amazing. To stay organized, you create a new lead for the new event that’s connected to the same contact.
Great news: you can actually select a specific lead card to sync the conversation to! Simply choose it in the “Select a lead” drop-down list or create a new one.
Synchronizing chats
The extension automatically synchronizes open chat when WhatsApp Web is open.
☝️ But what happens if WhatsApp Web isn’t open? For example, let’s say you chat with a client during lunch on the mobile app. In this case, the chat will only be synced the next time you open WhatsApp Web.
🔄 If it’s been longer than a day since you used WhatsApp Web, syncing could take awhile, so the extension automatically suggests to sync past messages (up to 100 per chat).
🔗 Don’t want something synced? The extension imports all chats you’ve matched to a lead card, so if you don’t want some chats to be synchronized, open the chat and press “Change contact”. This way you will unlink the chat from the lead card and the system will not upload its last messages to Kommo.
Please remember a few things:
- Messages sent or received before a lead card is created cannot be synchronized
- WhatsApp Sidebar supports only text message synchronization (media will not be synced)
- After being disconnected, only the last 100 messages per chat can be synchronized
- Messages sent from WhatsApp mobile app will not be synchronized unless WhatsApp Web is open
Making notes
When WhatsApp is the main channel of communication with your clients, important information may get lost in loads of messages. To make sure you don’t miss anything, we added the ability to add notes in the sidebar. Write your note into the sidebar, press “Add a note”, and it will be added to the lead card, where it’s pinned and highlighted.
Moving a lead through a pipeline
You can move a lead through the pipeline right from WhatsApp. Choose a lead you need to move, press “Pipeline stage” and select the stage to send them to.
Here you go, lead is moved!
Passing a client to a different responsible user
Sales managers can go on vacation or take time off, but clients do not, so you need to make sure to pass ongoing conversations to another teammate and loop them into the situation.
WhatsApp Sidebar makes it smooth and easy: the newly assigned user can see all the history in the lead card and sync their chat to the same feed. Just follow the same instructions as before: select the chat in your WhatsApp chat list, choose the contact and lead. That’s it!
Getting started with WhatsApp Sidebar
To start working with WhatsApp Sidebar, you only need to do two things:
- Add the extension to your Chrome browser (download it here)
- Then open WhatsApp Web and log in into your Kommo account
Great, you’re good to go!
Looking for a different WhatsApp solution?
Different companies use WhatsApp differently! That’s why we offer multiple solutions depending on your needs:
🌱 For small businesses that want to share a single WhatsApp account for free, try WhatsApp for Small Business
🌴 For power chatters who use WhatsApp for broadcasting, check out our WhatsApp Business API providers: WhatsApp via Gupshup, WhatsApp via Zenvia, WhatsApp via Twilio
Want expert help? Hire a partner to listen to your needs and do all the heavy-lifting for you.