Create Help Scout Conversations from WhatsApp Chats
This recipe makes sure every support case raised in chat ends up in Help Scout, with the details your team needs to work on it. Part of connecting Help Scout to WhatsApp and AI chat.
What happens today
A customer explains a problem on WhatsApp. The person replying copies parts of it into Help Scout, or means to and forgets. The agent who picks it up asks the customer to explain again. Cases raised in chat go missing from your queue and your reports.
The flow that works
- AeroChat answers what it can from your knowledge base.
- When the customer still needs your team, it asks for their email, order number and a short description.
- It checks Help Scout for an open conversation about the same problem, so a repeat message updates that conversation.
- It creates a conversation in the right inbox from that customer, with a summary, the order number and a chat tag, plus a note for your team.
- It tells the customer the conversation number and what happens next, and hands the conversation to your team.
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
When a customer reports a problem with an order or a service, follow these steps.
- If our knowledge base answers the question, answer it and stop there.
- If the customer still needs our team, ask for their name, the email they want replies sent to, their order number if there is one (example), and a short description of the problem.
- Search Help Scout for open conversations from that email. If one is about the same problem, add the new details to it as a message from the customer instead of opening a second one.
- Otherwise create a conversation in our Support inbox (example) from that customer, with a one-line subject, a summary of the problem and the order number as the first message, and the tags chat and the channel they used. Add a note with anything from the chat your team should know.
- Add the tag urgent (example) if they say the problem stops them using what they bought, or mention a safety issue. Otherwise leave it out.
- Tell them the conversation number and that our support team will reply within one working day (example), then hand the conversation over.
Ask for each detail once. Write the summary in the customer’s words. Reply in the customer’s language.
Change the inbox, tags, urgent rule and reply time to the ones your Help Scout account uses before you paste it.
What to connect
- Help Scout. A user who can see the right inboxes creates an app under Your Profile, then My apps, and copies its app ID and app secret. Paste them in when AeroChat asks.
- Your knowledge base. Upload your product, delivery and returns details to AeroChat so it can answer before it opens a conversation.
After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect Help Scout, add your knowledge base, then switch it on. If it built the connection from Help Scout’s public documentation, the checklist asks you to check it once against the current docs.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What you still decide
- Which details AeroChat asks for, and which Help Scout fields and tags it fills.
- When a case is urgent.
- The reply time it promises, and who gets the handover.
The result to expect
Every case raised in chat is in Help Scout with the customer’s details and a clear summary, without anyone typing it. Agents start work without asking the customer to repeat themselves, and chat shows up in your support reports.
Measure it with your own numbers: conversations created from chat, and how often an agent has to ask the customer for missing details, for a month before and after.
Next: check a support conversation in chat.
Works on every chat channel
This workflow runs the same way on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, the chat on your website and email, with the same Help Scout connection behind it. See what each channel does on the Help Scout integration page.
Send your first chat case to Help Scout
Paste the recipe, add your Help Scout app ID and secret, and report a test problem in the chat.