Conversations
This is where the messages customers write to the company's Telegram bot arrive, and you reply to them from here too. You can't start a conversation yourself: the bot only answers people who wrote to it first. The customer sees the bot's message, not your name, and next to the conversation you see their purchases, if the panel knows who they are.
Where to find it: Sidebar → CRM → the Conversations tab
Until you link the company's bot, the screen shows only the connection form. The steps are in Channels.
To reply to a customer:
- Pick the conversation from the list. At the top are the ones that have been waiting for a reply the longest.
- Type the reply in the box at the bottom.
- Send on Telegram, or Ctrl+Enter.
Under your message you see what happened to it: sending…, sent or not sent, with the reason underneath. If Telegram doesn't answer, the panel keeps trying by itself for up to a quarter of an hour, and the message stays on sending….
Your reply takes over the conversation, if it didn't belong to anyone yet. The list and the open conversation refresh themselves every 10 seconds, so new messages appear without reloading the page.
The filters
- Open — everything that isn't closed.
- Waiting for reply — the customer wrote last. The yellow badge shows how long they have been waiting.
- Mine — the conversations you took over.
- Unassigned — nobody has taken them over yet.
- Closed — the finished ones.
Each filter shows the first 50 conversations. You find the older ones with the search, by name, phone or @username.
Taking over and closing
I'll take it makes the conversation yours, even if a colleague had it; under the customer's name everyone sees who is answering. Close takes it out of the open ones, when you're done.
Closing isn't final. The conversation reopens by itself when the customer writes again or when you reply, and Reopen brings it back among the open ones without sending anything.
Who wrote
On the right you see the customer. The panel recognises them by phone number and looks for them in loyalty, in partners, in contact persons and in leads. For a loyalty customer you see the receipts and the bonus, and for a partner, how much they bought in the last 12 months.
Telegram gives the person's number only if they send it themselves. Until then, the customer stays unknown:
- Ask for phone number sends the customer a message on the spot: what you typed in the box or, if it is empty, a ready-written request. Under the message, the customer sees the "Trimite numărul meu · Отправить мой номер" button (send my number). If they press it and the number belongs to a single customer in your records, the conversation links to them by itself.
- Link to an existing customer looks the person up by phone, and you pick them from the list.
- Create a lead turns the person into a new lead, in the Leads tab, with the conversation linked to them.
If you linked the wrong one, Not them? Link another customer changes the link.
What can trip you up
Your message shows "not sent". The reason is under the message. Most often, the customer blocked the bot or deleted their Telegram account. If it says the bot is disconnected, reconnect it from Channels: its conversations continue, and you send the message again.
The customer sent their number but stayed unknown. No customer has the number, or two have it and the panel doesn't guess which one. You choose, with Link to an existing customer. A number from another country shows as an ordinary message, because recognition works only on Moldovan numbers.
A conversation is no longer in bold, though you haven't read it. A bold row means messages nobody on the team has read. Whoever opens the conversation first marks it read for everyone.
The customer sent a photo or a voice message. Only text reaches the conversations. Ask them to write in words what they need.
The reply is too long. Telegram takes at most 4000 characters in one message. Split it in two.
"You are not allowed to perform this operation." Cashiers and employees only read the conversations. For them to be able to reply, the owner or a manager gives them the Edit level on Conversații cu clienții (customer conversations), in Settings → Role permissions.