Two heads are better than one, let alone an entire team! No need to rely on a single person to respond to messages. Update 5 integrates seamlessly with WhatsApp & SMS making it possible for your entire team to collaborate and respond to incoming client messages. We’ve also added predefined message templates to shorten response times even further. Also, don’t forget to check out our exciting new Live chat features!

Answer WhatsApp & SMS messages as a team

Group messaging alleviates delayed responses and removes the reliance on specific users to answer messages. Unlike with WhatsApp Business, you can route incoming WhatsApp messages to all users or selected groups of agents to respond. The agent can take ownership or transfer to other more skilled agents, allowing for quicker and better resolution of customer queries.

Set up the integration easily using our WhatsApp integration guide.

SMS gets a complete overhaul

Particularly important for our US customers, SMS integration has received an overhaul with Update 5, drastically improving reliability and ease of use. Now configuration is done directly in the SIP Trunk config. You do not need to configure numbers twice and SMS will be auto-configured for all DIDs.

Important: Previous SMS configurations in the Management Console must be deleted and re-created after installing V18 Update 5. See the simplified method in our SMS configuration guide or check out the guides for our SMS providers that were supported on our old messaging proxy: Bandwidth, Flowroute, Telnyx, Twilio. We strongly recommend moving to preferred providers!

All users using PREFERRED providers don’t need to do anything: Skyetel, Voxtelesys, Wavix.

Supercharged live chat features and styling

3CX Live Chat has taken another leap forward with more options, customization, and styling. Included with this release:

• Additional styles: Choose from 3 bubble icons and chat box animation (Slide up, slide from the side & fade in)
• Greeting customization: Set up your own intro greeting and online/offline greetings. Automated responses at the beginning, first message, and end of the conversation.
• Agent options: Choose if you want to show your agent’s name and avatar or select a default ‘generic’ team agent name and image.

Pre-defined message responses

Users with ‘Manager’ permissions can now create and modify as many quick response templates for their group as needed. All agents in the user group will have full visibility of the templates making responding to any type of chat message simple and fast. Navigation is easy using the categories and language filters.

Original Post: https://www.3cx.com/blog/releases/v18-update-5/