Unified inbox: handle WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger in one place

Your store sells through WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook. A customer asks on Instagram, nobody sees it until the afternoon, and she writes again on WhatsApp to another advisor, who does not know what she was already told. In the end two people give her different answers and she buys somewhere else. The problem is not a lack of service: it is three inboxes that do not talk to each other.

What is a unified inbox?

A unified inbox is a single screen where messages from all your channels arrive, linked to each customer’s record. WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, email and your website chat come into the same place, and each conversation has an owner.

That way, if the same person writes through two channels, the advisor sees the whole history and does not start from scratch. If your website does not have chat yet, we explain it in live chat on your website.

What rules does each channel have?

Each network has a time window to reply freely, and knowing it prevents lost conversations. According to the WhatsApp API documentation, when a customer writes to you a 24-hour service window starts, and it resets with each new message from them. When it closes, you can only send approved templates.

On Messenger and Instagram, the Messenger policies also give 24 hours to reply, and there is the human agent tag, which allows manual replies up to 7 days later.

Channel	Window to reply freely	After the window
WhatsApp (API)	24 hours from the customer’s last message	Approved templates only
Messenger	24 hours	Human agent tag: manual reply up to 7 days
Instagram	24 hours	According to Meta’s messaging policies
Email	No window	No time restriction
Web chat	While the person is on the site	Continues by email or WhatsApp if they left their details

Watch out: the 24-hour window is not a courtesy deadline, it is a technical rule. If the conversation goes cold on WhatsApp, you can no longer send a normal message: you need an approved template, and marketing ones are always charged, according to Meta’s pricing page.

How are conversations distributed?

Each conversation is assigned to an owner, by rules or manually, and stays visible to the rest of the team. The most common rules are:

• Round robin: chats are shared among the advisors online.
• By channel or topic: sales on one side, support on the other.
• By customer: if they already have an assigned advisor, they go back to that advisor.
• AI first: an assistant answers the basics and hands over to a person when needed.

The last option is the one that relieves the team the most after hours. If you want to understand how it works, see what an AI agent for WhatsApp is.

What do I need to connect WhatsApp?

For several advisors to handle the same number from an inbox, you use the official WhatsApp API. The WhatsApp Business app on a phone does not let you split chats or connect them to a CRM in an organized way.

If you are worried about losing the phone app, there is coexistence, which in some cases lets you use the app and the API with the same number. We explain it in WhatsApp coexistence.

What changes in daily operations?

Messages stop getting lost and you can measure who replies and how long it takes. With everything in one inbox, the supervisor sees which conversations are waiting for a reply, which were closed and which channel brings the most customers.

This is the core of a unified operation, as we explain in separate tools or an all-in-one platform. In TMV One, the conversations inbox is connected to the CRM, the calendar and payments, and we configure it to match how your team works.

In short

The customer who wrote on Instagram and then on WhatsApp would have had a single conversation, with a single advisor who knows her whole story. A unified inbox puts all channels in one place, respects each network’s 24-hour windows and makes clear who answers each chat.