WhatsApp Is the CRM

Every lead lives in someone's phone.

01
Situation
A travel company gets most enquiries on WhatsApp. Each consultant keeps their own chats. When a consultant leaves, their customers go quiet.
02
Evidence
- No single list of open enquiries
- Response times vary by consultant
- Nobody knows the conversion rate
- Customer history leaves with staff
03
The decision
Buy a CRM, or first define how an enquiry should move from first message to booking?
04
Analysis
A CRM would store the chaos, not fix it. The Customer Process cell is undefined, so any tool would reflect whatever each consultant does.
05
Framework
Pipeline design: stages, entry and exit criteria, owner and next action.
06
Resolution
The team agrees five stages and a response rule, then connects WhatsApp Business to a simple CRM that enforces them.
07
Founder exercise
Apply it to your own business:
- Write your pipeline stages
- Define when a lead moves between stages
- Measure response time for last week's enquiries

Situation