How to Integrate WhatsApp with Pipedrive CRM
Learn ways to integrate WhatsApp with Pipedrive CRM to improve your sales process, sales productivity, and increase revenues.
Let’s look at how to integrate WhatsApp with Pipedrive and other CRMs.
Introduction
Most businesses use email, calls, and texts for selling until they meet prospects and customers in person. All these channels work and will continue to work in the future too.
But WhatsApp is where the world is today.
With every passing day, more and more conversations are moving to WhatsApp. You connect with anybody on the internet and they want to continue the conversation on WhatsApp.
It has become ubiquitous, with new people joining the platform every day.
Why use WhatsApp for Sales?
A WhatsApp chat is always on, is asynchronous, and lends us all modes of communication text, audio, and video (except in-person). It also provides almost instant feedback on how receptive people are to what we have to communicate.
It is therefore imperative that businesses use WhatsApp in their communication strategy with their customers. If used well, it could be a game-changer for your sales team. It can significantly improve sales team productivity and thus result in increased revenues.
This article focuses on businesses that are using Pipedrive CRM for their sales efforts and how they can integrate with WhatsApp for their day-to-day sales activities.
Problem
Pipedrive and WhatsApp are two, separate standalone applications.
And the question on everybody’s mind is obvious.
Does Pipedrive integrate with WhatsApp?
There is no out-of-the-box integration between the two.
We, therefore, have to get creative with trying to set up an integration between Pipedrive and WhatsApp.
Before we talk about Pipedrive and WhatsApp integration, let’s get one important question out of the way.
Can you send SMS or texts with Pipedrive?
Short answer?
Not really. Pipedrive text messaging or SMS messaging is not supported in Pipedrive out-of-the-box.
Pipedrive texting is still relatively new. But there are third-party apps in Pipedrive’s marketplace that allow you to send SMS and texts from Pipedrive. These apps offer SMS integration with Pipedrive. Needless to say, you can use these apps for sending texts and SMS from Pipedrive. Some of these apps are:
This article lists some apps to integrate LinkedIn with Pipedrive.
This article lists some apps to integrate calling apps with Pipedrive.
This article lists texting apps for Pipedrive.
This article lists conversation intelligence apps for Pipedrive.
I have also provided a comprehensive review of other add-ons for Pipedrive.
Here’s a complete guide to learn how to use Pipedrive.
You can use any of these Pipedrive marketplace apps to send texts to your prospects and customers from Pipedrive.
But, we are looking at integration options between WhatsApp and Pipedrive because we believe it’s a better communication channel than SMS or texts.
How to integrate WhatsApp with Pipedrive?
The solution ranges from several simple options to a few sophisticated, automation options.
Official integration between Pipedrive and WhatsApp
Pipedrive recently announced an integration with both Messenger and WhatsApp, both Meta products. It allows answering queries from a single place, the Inbox section of Pipedrive Leads. You can read about this announcement here. This integration is brought to the Pipedrive ecosystem by Twilio.
Clickable WhatsApp links
The easiest Pipedrive and WhatsApp integration involves creating clickable WhatsApp links. When you click this link, you’re automatically taken to a chat window with the person on WhatsApp with just one click. It works in your browser, with WhatsApp desktop, and also with WhatsApp on your phone.
Does Pipedrive have an app?
Yes. Both on iOS and Android. When you click the WhatsApp link in the Pipedrive app on your phone, you will be directly taken to a chat window with the person who the phone number is associated with.
You can set up this automation to create clickable WhatsApp links using Make or n8n or Zapier.
Here’s how this automation looks in Make at a high level.
Clickable WhatsApp links with pre-filled texts
You can take this idea one step ahead. You can create clickable WhatsApp links with pre-filled texts. You have to use URL encoding to create clickable links with text. This utility is freely available on the internet.
When you click this link, the pre-composed message will appear in the chat window, and you just have to press the enter/return key on your keyboard to send that message.
Tip: At this stage, you can edit the message if you want to before hitting send.
Pipedrive is a CRM with WhatsApp Integration
Pipedrive enables small and medium-sized businesses to set up long-term, scalable business processes. Explore how the WhatsApp integration with Pipedrive works by signing up for Pipedrive.
This article by WhatsApp explains the structure in which these links need to be created.
Send Automated Acknowledgements
As soon as you receive a new lead, you can set up a Make scenario to send them an acknowledgment using SendPulse, Twilio, or Wati.
WhatsApp as a CRM using Cooby
If you want to keep your WhatsApp organized, you can use Cooby. It’s almost a CRM.
Access Pipedrive details in WhatsApp using Pipechat
Pipechat, like Cooby, is a Chrome Browser Extension. It allows you to access deals, contact, and organization deals from Pipedrive from within Pipechat. It comes in handy when you receive responses from your prospects on WhatsApp.
Sync WhatsApp messages to Pipedrive using Timelines.AI
The best feature of Timelines.AI is that it allows you to sync conversations with prospects back to Pipedrive in the form of activities. You can set up the frequency at which the messages are synchronized back with Pipedrive.
Tip: Use coupon code AMITS to get a 10% discount on your Timelines.AI subscription.
Conclusion
There are a number of things one could do with a Pipedrive and WhatsApp integration. It depends on the extent of the sophistication you need in your sales workflow. In fact, you could be using more than one of the solutions described above as part of your sales process.
I would pick automated acknowledgments, and clickable WhatsApp links, and synchronize daily WhatsApp conversations back to Pipedrive using Timelines.AI.