Bow Chat channels
Compare the ways a customer can reach your team in Bow Chat — WhatsApp Web, the WhatsApp Business Platform, and Customer Rooms — and pick the right one for each job.
Pick the channel by the job, not by the feature list
Every channel in Bow Chat is an inbox. Conversations, contacts, assignment, notes, search, and reporting work the same way across all of them, so the choice is about how the customer reaches you and what the conversation has to survive.
| Channel | The customer uses | Best for | Main limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp Web connection | Their normal WhatsApp | Bringing an existing business number and its group history into a shared inbox quickly | Depends on a linked phone staying connected; group and policy behaviour follows WhatsApp |
| WhatsApp Business Platform | Their normal WhatsApp | Approved templates, campaigns, and higher-volume notification sending | Sending outside an open conversation window uses paid templates and needs approval |
| Customer Rooms | A private branded web room, no app store download | One long-running relationship per customer: status, documents, next action, and accountable owner | Controlled rollout; Boni enables it per account |
You do not have to choose one. A common shape is WhatsApp for first contact and short notifications, and a Customer Room for the relationship that has to be found again three months later.
WhatsApp Web connection
Connect the number your business already uses by scanning a QR code. Existing chats and groups sync into one inbox that your whole team can work from. See Bow Chat for the setup steps and Groups Monitoring for structured group SLA work.
Use it when the number, the history, and the groups already exist and moving them is not realistic.
WhatsApp Business Platform
The official API path. It supports approved message templates and campaign sending, and is the right base when you need to reach many contacts rather than reply to the ones who wrote first. See WhatsApp messaging for how sending, approval, and consent work.
Use it when outbound volume, template approval, or campaign reporting is the requirement.
Customer Rooms
A private room per customer, opened from a link you send once. The customer sees your brand, their messages, their documents, the current status, the next action, and who is responsible. Your team works from Bow Chat with private notes that the customer never sees.
Use it when the relationship outlives the conversation: a service job, a project, an onboarding, a claim, a recurring account. See Customer Rooms.
What stays the same in every channel
- One contact record, one conversation history, one search.
- Assignment, private notes, mentions, and follow-ups.
- Roles decide who can see and work an inbox.
- Reporting counts the conversation, not the transport.
What to check before you commit
- Does the customer need to find this again later without asking you for a link? If yes, a Customer Room is the durable surface.
- Is the work outbound at volume? If yes, plan for the WhatsApp Business Platform and its template rules.
- Does an existing number carry the history and the groups? If yes, start with the WhatsApp Web connection.
- Is the channel actually available for your workspace and market? Channel availability states plainly what is generally available and what is not.