WhatsApp, built into ServiceM8
Your customers already message on WhatsApp. This add-on brings those conversations into the ServiceM8 account your team already works in — so an enquiry becomes a job, and the whole thread stays with it.
What it does
How it helps
Enquiries land in ServiceM8
A WhatsApp message from a new customer appears in your ServiceM8 Inbox, ready to turn into a job or a quote with the contact details already filled in.
Reply from the job
Open any job and you see the whole conversation. Reply from the business number, and the thread stays against the job for the rest of the team to read.
Suggested replies you approve
Optional AI drafts a reply from your business details and the conversation so far. Your staff read it, change it if they want, and decide whether to send. Nothing is ever sent automatically.
Keep your number and your app
Connect the number the business already uses. On the coexistence route the WhatsApp Business app on your phone carries on working, and up to six months of your existing chats come across with it.
How it works
Getting set up
- Decide how you want to connect — coexistence to keep the app on your phone working, or Cloud API to run everything through ServiceM8. The comparison below walks through both.
- Press Install now. It opens ServiceM8, adds the add-on to your account, and asks you to approve the access it needs. (It will also be in the ServiceM8 Add-on Store once listed.)
- Connect your WhatsApp Business number through WhatsApp's own secure signup.
- Messages flow both ways — into your jobs and the ServiceM8 Inbox, and back out to your customers.
Built on the official WhatsApp Business Platform from Meta. There are two ways to connect. Coexistence keeps the app on your phone working, Cloud API does not. Both need the ServiceM8 Inbox. They suit different businesses and the choice is awkward to reverse, so read the comparison before you start. Meta charges for WhatsApp Business Platform messaging separately, on its own published rates.
The product
At a glance
Private beta · Web
ServiceHQ Chat
Two-way customer messaging, inside the job
Customer WhatsApp messages land in your ServiceM8 Inbox ready to become jobs, and your team replies from the job itself. Nothing gets lost on somebody's personal phone.
Detail
Worth knowing
Want to see it before you read about it? How it works, screen by screen, with a two-minute tour.
Why this one first
Every trade business we speak to has the same leak. A customer messages the mobile, someone answers it between jobs, and that conversation never reaches the office. The quote gets forgotten. The follow-up never happens. Nobody can find what was agreed.
WhatsApp is where those conversations already happen, so that is where we started. The point is not to add another inbox to check — it is to put the messages in the same place as the work.
What it is not
On a job, a person sends every message: the Chat Assistant drafts, you decide. On a new enquiry, if you switch it on, the assistant answers and books, and hands anything urgent or unusual to a person. It does not replace your WhatsApp app or ask your customers to install anything. And it does not move your number anywhere: you keep it.
Read next
Related guides
Add-ons
Two ways to connect WhatsApp: which one is right for you?
There are two ways to connect a business WhatsApp number to ServiceM8. One keeps the app on your phone working, the other puts every engineer on it. Here is what each involves and how to choose before you start.
Read the guideAdd-ons
Should your customer messages run through ServiceM8?
Customers message on WhatsApp whether you like it or not. Here is how to decide whether to bring those conversations into ServiceM8 — and what changes when you do.
Read the guideWho provides it
Built and supported by ServiceHQ
ServiceHQ is a trading name of OnSpec Software Ltd, an independent British software company registered in England and Wales, company number 17328057. More about us.
Full documentation, including setup, the 24-hour reply rule, templates and billing: WhatsApp help and FAQs.
This add-on has its own privacy policy covering the data it processes inside your ServiceM8 account: add-on privacy policy. The website privacy policy covers this site.
Want it in your business?
Tell us your trade, roughly how many jobs a week you run, and whether your ServiceM8 account has the Inbox add-on enabled. We will tell you what getting started looks like.