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Team inbox

One number. Three people. No shouting across the shop.

WhatsApp was built for one phone and one person. Here is a Tuesday on one number with a team behind it.

9:04 AM
HANDED OUT

Somebody owns it before anybody has read it.

In turn, by skill, or by rule. Whoever it goes to sees it in their list with their name on it — which is what stops two people answering the same customer and, more often, stops nobody answering at all.

9:12 AM
A NOTE

The thing the customer must not see.

Left in the thread where it belongs, and drawn differently enough that nobody sends it by accident. This is where "rate tight rakhna" and "this one always argues" live, so the next person does not start from nothing.

1:30 PM
HANDOVER

The next person reads the morning, not a summary of it.

Shift changes, somebody takes lunch, somebody leaves. The conversation moves with everything in it — the messages, the notes, what was promised. Nothing has to be explained twice.

3:02 PM
QUICK REPLIES

The things you type forty times a week.

Type /advance and the text drops in. Yours, not Meta's templates — these only work inside the 24-hour window, and inside it they cost nothing.

9:20 PM
Window shut — they last wrote at 1:41 PM. Only a template will reach them.
THE 24-HOUR WINDOW

The thing every other tool hides.

WhatsApp only allows ordinary messages for 24 hours after the customer last wrote. After that a normal message says sent and reaches nobody — which reads as a delivery failure rather than a rule, and costs people days before they work it out.

So it is on the composer, with the time left. When it is shut, the box is replaced by the templates that will actually arrive.

Who is on

New chats go to whoever is actually there.

Somebody marked away is skipped rather than given work that sits unanswered — which is the version of "fair" that customers notice.

RK
Ravi Kumar
Online · 3 open
PS
Priya Shah
Online · 5 open
RM
Rahul Mehta
Away since 1pm
What it looks like

One list. Everybody's.

inbox-screen Screenshot: the inbox — conversation list on the left with assignment chips, a thread open, the customer panel on the right.
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