Going interactive with hosting notifications

[whmcsguru]

Greetings,

I'm not sure whether this belongs in this specific forum or not, but I'll let mods decide on that.

One of the things I'm exploring doing with a current mod (for WHMCS) is working with WhatsApp. Since they've enabled a 'business' API and platform, it's possible for customers to message that and get messages back. I've got this already partially integrated into the addon (invoices created, ticket replies, etc) so the customer (and admins) will get notified. That part is easy.

The not so 'easy' part of this is understanding a way to make this more 'creative', more engaging, so that the customer would have the ability to interact as it were. Not looking for 'how to' (that's already covered, too), but more'what', and gauging interest here. I have a few ideas that I'll be implementing in the next few days, but need more input on basic ideas. So far, I've come up with one line command (ideas) :

invoices - open invoices
tickets - tickets awaiting your response
domains - domains needing renewal (maybe)
credit - credit available on account (maybe)

Security won't be that much of an issue I don't think. Client will have to login to their account manually, enable WA on their account, and add the # to their account.
Additionally, admins will have the ability to turn each of these (and the global 'bot') on / off at will

Any other ideas on what commands I might add? Input? Is this something you'd find useful from your provider?

 

[HostMarket]

I like this Idea, however I am not a user of WhatsApp but it would allow clients and staff to talk right there and then.

Cool Idea

 

[Artashes]

I don't think there is any con to having this as an option. I am a big user of WhatsApp, it'd be a lot more efficient for me to receive an update via text than email.

 

[whmcsguru]

it would allow clients and staff to talk right there and then.

In order to get as broad a response as possible, I posted this in a few discussion forums. This has come up a couple of times now.

That wasn't the original intent here (think what Artashes mentioned), but may (may) be possible to do. Definitely won't be in the first update, but I'll see if it's possible to add something in

I don't think there is any con to having this as an option. I am a big user of WhatsApp, it'd be a lot more efficient for me to receive an update via text than email.

The only 'con' I can see is that the updates won't be as informative as email. But, if that's what you like, then great

WA has really limited the capability of things when automated. No newlines (<br/> , /n , etc), no html formatting. So, it'll be treated just like a text message, short and sweet.

I have to say, the input I've received over the past 24 hours or so is great. Quite a few ideas on how to further the idea, and looking forward to getting it rolled out

 

[Artashes]

The only 'con' I can see is that the updates won't be as informative as email. But, if that's what you like, then great

WA has really limited the capability of things when automated. No newlines (<br/> , /n , etc), no html formatting. So, it'll be treated just like a text message, short and sweet.

That's a good point. I think that even if it is a notification of an answered ticket, with a link to that ticket, that is still better than email.

 

[whmcsguru]

So I did some really (really) alpha testing with this, and it turns out the information I was given is bad. Apparently, I can at least send newlines through WA, which will help. If I can get tab indentation in, and see what we can do about HTML, that'll be great.

Message formatting, especially in these stupid apps is key, but it's also very app dependent. You have no idea how many times I have to rewrite the same damn message. Now that Hipchat is gone, I can get rid of one, but ugh... that is a time consumer

That being said, I'm looking at adding in reply to ticket, charge card (if it's on file) and close ticket to the 'bot' settings

 

[Artashes]

Sounds like a relevant cool add-on is taking shape.

 

[whmcsguru]

So, it's been a couple months and I thought I'd just share a bit of the progress with this. I expect this will be ready with v2 of the messaging app (in fact, betting on it), come Q1 of 2020.... A few teasers though. Of course, more is done to it, but can't give everything away ...

Ignore the formatting, there's an odd difference between how desktop WA handles tabs and how phone/tablet WA does.

 

[DreamWebHosts]

This seems really cool. Waiting for its release to try hands on

 

[zomex]

I think you're onto a winner, WhatsApp is very popular and many companies of all industries are using it to provide support. The hosting business should be no different and there is opportunity to take advantage of that.