WhatsApp

Overview

You can connect your WhatsApp business account to an ElevenLabs Agent. The agent can then handle:

• Message conversations
• Calls

Importing a WhatsApp business account

1

Import your account

Go to the WhatsApp page and click the Import account button:

2

Authorize ElevenLabs

This will open the authorization flow where you select your account and give ElevenLabs permission to manage it:

3

Assign an agent

When you finish importing your account, you will be taken to its settings page where you can assign an agent to it:

If you don’t assign an agent to your account, inbound messages will be ignored and inbound calls will be rejected. However, you will still be able to make outbound calls.

4

Configure WhatsApp Manager

Go to WhatsApp Manager to:

• Configure your profile picture, etc.: open the Phone numbers page, select a phone number and go to the Profile tab
• Allow voice calls: open the Phone numbers page, select a phone number and go to the Call settings tab
• If you want to make outbound calls, add a payment method: open the Overview page and click the Add payment method button

Message conversations

Inbound

You can send a message to your WhatsApp business account and the agent will respond:

The conversation will be ended either by the End conversation system tool (if you have it enabled on your agent) or after the Max conversation duration timeout.

Outbound

You can start a conversation by sending an outbound message.

First, go to WhatsApp Manager and create a message template.

You can then go to the WhatsApp page, select your account, and click the Outbound -> Message button. This will open a dialog where you select an agent, provide a WhatsApp user ID, as well as the message template & its parameters:

Alternatively, you can send the message via the API.

Message types

In addition to text, you can also send:

• audio
  • Inbound audio messages will be transcribed to text before being passed to the agent.
  • By default, the agent will respond to audio messages with audio messages. You can make the agent always respond with text in your WhatsApp account settings.
  • Audio messages result in extra charges for speech-to-text and text-to-speech. Pricing is the same as in the STT and TTS APIs.
• image
• document
• location
• contact

Calls

Inbound

You can call your WhatsApp business account and the agent will respond. During the call, you can also send text messages and they will be incorporated into the conversation.

Outbound

Making an outbound call requires permission from the user. You can read more about this in WhatsApp documentation. When you schedule an outbound call, we will automatically send a template message with a call permission request if necessary, and make the call as soon as the user approves it.

First, go to WhatsApp Manager and create a message template with a call permission request component.

You can then go to the WhatsApp page, select your account, and click the Outbound -> Call button. This will open a dialog where you select an agent, provide a WhatsApp user ID, and the call permission request template to use:

Alternatively, you can schedule the call via the API or schedule multiple calls with batch calling.

Next steps: personalization

We set the {{system__caller_id}} and {{system__called_number}} dynamic variables to the WhatsApp user ID and your WhatsApp phone number ID (or vice versa, depending on who started the conversation). You can use those in a tool or a conversation initiation webhook to personalize conversations.

FAQ