Support use case: Automatically assign WhatsApp conversations

With ActiveCampaign, you can automatically assign WhatsApp conversations to your agents, ensuring that customer queries are handled promptly and efficiently. By setting up teams and using the “Team” step in a WhatsApp flow, you can streamline your support process and provide better service to your customers. 

This article explains how to create a team, the available assignment strategies, and how to use the Assign Team Step in a flow.

What are Teams?

Teams let you group agents by role or department, such as Support, Sales, or Technical Assistance. By organizing agents into teams, you can streamline conversation assignment and ensure queries are directed to the right people.

Create a Team

From your ActiveCampaign account:

1. Click WhatsApp > Settings on the left menu.
2. Click “Teams.”
3. Click the “+ New team” button.
4. Complete the information on the next page, including:
   • Team name - For example, Marketing, Sales, etc.
   • Users & Permissions - Click the dropdown or type user names into the field provided. These users are part of the team you’re creating
   • Select an assignment strategy - You can choose from round robin, least busy, or use the default:
     • Round robin - Assigns users in a round robin fashion, starting from the first to the last, then back to the first
     • Least busy - Assigns the user with the least active conversation (those in “New” or “In progress”
     • User default: Always assigns the same user. If you select this option, a dropdown menu will appear where you can select the default assignee
   • Optional - Click the reassignment toggle to set it to the “On” position (only available if you select Round Robin or Least Busy). This option reassigns the conversation to another person if the original agent was not able to answer the conversation within a period of time you set
5. Click the “Create” button.

Your new will appear on the Teams page. From here, you can update or delete the team.

Use the “Team” step in a WhatsApp flow

You can use the “Team” step in WhatsApp flows to automatically assign conversations to a team based on the chosen assignment strategy. Here’s how to set it up:

1. Click WhatsApp > Messaging Flows on the left menu.
2. Edit or create a new Messaging Flow.
   • If editing a flow, click a flow > Update > Steps. Click a node (+) in the builder where you want to place the action. A modal window will appear. Click the "Team" option, then click the “Add” button
   • If creating a new flow, click “New Messaging Flow.” Give your flow a short and descriptive name, then set up the trigger. Click “Steps” to navigate to the Flow builder. Learn more about creating WhatsApp flows
3. Add the “Team” step to your flow.
4. In the “Team” modal that appears:
   • Click the pencil icon and give your step a name. We recommend using unique names that are short and descriptive
   • Select the team that should be assigned the conversation
   • Optional - add conversation and contact tags:
     • Click the “Append tags?” toggle to add additional conversation or contact tags. Note that if you do not click this toggle, then any tags you add here will replace existing ones
     • Click the conversation tags dropdown and scroll or type the tag(s) you want to use
     • Click the contact tags dropdown and scroll or type the tags you want to use
5. Once you're done building your flow, click the "Publish" button to make the flow active. 

Define a more advanced assignment logic in your WhatsApp flow

You may want to add more advanced assignment logic to your flow. For example, you can:

Add Conditional Steps (Optional)

If you want to assign conversations based on specific conditions, add “Conditional” steps before the assign team step. Configure conditions to check for specific criteria, such as the content of the conversation or the contact's properties. 

Add Additional Steps

You can add other steps before or after the “Team” step to create a more complex flow. For example, you can add “Message” steps to send responses or “Update Contact” steps to save additional information. 

Example Flow Structure

Your flow might look something like this:

1. Trigger: Any incoming message.
2. Conditional Step (Optional): Check for specific criteria.
3. Message Step (Optional): Send a response to the user.
4. Update Contact Step (Optional): Save additional information to the contact.
5. Assign Team Step: Assign the conversation to the appropriate team