Hand over an Inbox to a client
Set WhatsApp up for someone else and leave them with something that works without you.
If you are an agency, a dev shop or an integrator, you are often the one who sets WhatsApp up and never the one who answers on it. The job is to hand over something a non-technical client can run on their own — and not become their permanent operator.
1. Enable the Inbox, even if the client will mostly automate
It costs nothing on Premium and it gives the client a human fallback from day one. A number with an API integration and no inbox means every question that the automation cannot handle goes nowhere — and comes back to you.
See the Quickstart.
2. Create logins in the client's own domain
This is the step that decides whether the handover holds. Create accounts for the people who will actually answer, on the client's own email addresses — not one shared login, and not your agency's address with the password passed along.
If the only login is yours, you are still the operator six months from now.
3. Get their first templates approved before you leave
Templates need Meta approval, which takes time and can be rejected. Do not leave the client to discover this on a Friday afternoon when they need to send a delivery update.
Get the obvious ones approved while you are still engaged: a greeting, an order or booking update, a reminder. Show them where templates are created in the Hub — Channels → their channel → Templates — so they can add more. See Templates for more details.
4. Set up how the bot and the humans share the number
If you built an automation, decide what happens when it cannot answer, and make sure a human sees those conversations. Your integration and the Inbox are looking at the same conversations, so the handover can be as simple as the bot going quiet and a person picking up in the Inbox.
See our Messaging API to build any custom integration, or directly leverage our native Zapier, n8n or Make apps.
5. Walk them through it once, on their own screen
Twenty minutes, on their machine, with their login. Cover four things and nothing else:
Where conversations appear and how to reply
Assigning, if more than one of them will answer
How to send a template when a conversation has gone cold
Who to contact for support
6. Leave them a one-page note
Which number, which logins exist, which templates are approved, what the automation does, and what to do if something stops. It is the difference between a client who calls you and a client who does not.
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