Guides for running a phone shop · Customers
WhatsApp for a phone repair shop: answer fast without leaving the counter
Your customers already message you on WhatsApp: at lunch, at 11 pm, with a photo of a cracked screen and two words, "how much?". Answering fast wins the repair. Answering everything by hand takes your front desk away from the counter. Here's how to keep both.
· 6 min read
Use one number, the shop's
When customers have the owner's personal number, the technician's and the old manager's, the conversation is split three ways and lost when someone leaves. Put one WhatsApp Business number on the sign, the tickets, the invoices and Google, and have everyone answer from it.
Answer "how much?" honestly
A price for "a screen" is a guess until you know the exact model and which part the customer wants, and the customer will hold you to the guess. Ask for the model and a photo. If you give a figure, give a range and say what decides it: "Screen for that model is 250 to 320, depending on the part you choose. We confirm when we see the phone." A range you keep is worth more than a low number you can't.
Answer the other questions before they're asked
Most of the rest are one of four: "Is my phone ready?", "How much do I owe?", "Do you have it in stock?" and "What time do you close?" Each one you answer without being asked is a message you don't have to read.
- Send a short message when the device moves stage: diagnosed, waiting for the part, ready.
- Send the estimate as a link they can approve, not a photo of a screen.
- Send the amount due with the "ready" message, so nobody is surprised at the counter.
- Put your location and opening hours in the WhatsApp Business profile.
Never take a passcode in chat
Customers will offer it: "the code is 1234, just fix it". Don't accept it there. A chat is open on several phones, stays for years and can be forwarded with one tap. Take the screen lock at the counter, in person, and keep it where only the people working on the device can see it.
Keep ready replies short and human
Quick replies save typing, but customers can tell a template. Keep them short, use the customer's name, and add one line that is only about them: "Ahmed, your phone is ready. The new screen has a 90-day warranty from today."
Decide what happens at night
A message at 11 pm doesn't need a price, but it does need an answer: "Thanks, we've noted it. We open at 10 and will message you by 11." Taking down the phone, the problem and a good time to call is most of the job. The rest is for the morning team.
Messages worth sending first
- Ready. The one message every customer is waiting for.
- After the repair. Two or three days later: is everything working? It catches problems early and earns a review.
- Before the warranty ends. Useful to them and fair to you.
- An offer, now and then, to the customers it suits: a battery for phones you last saw two years ago, not a blast to the whole list.
Promotions to your whole list every week get your number blocked and reported. Send fewer, better-timed messages, and honour anyone who says stop, at once and for good.
What an assistant should and shouldn't do
An automatic assistant is useful for greeting, asking the right questions (which phone, what's wrong, when it suits them) and recording the answers. It should never promise a price it can't keep, never ask for a passcode, and go quiet the moment a person on your team replies. Customers forgive a bot that takes their details. They don't forgive one that quoted 150 when the repair is 400.
How SolderDesk does this
Link your shop's own WhatsApp number once. The assistant greets customers in their language and dialect, at any hour. It records the customer, the device and what they want as an inquiry for your team: a repair, a quote, an appointment, a part or an accessory, to buy a phone, or to sell or trade one in. It answers "is my phone ready?" and "what do I owe?" from your records, and steps aside as soon as anyone on your team replies. It never quotes prices and never asks for a passcode in chat.
Estimates go out as links the customer approves. Follow-ups tell the customer the device is ready, ask after the repair and remind them before the warranty ends. Offers go to a list you filter, paced so your number stays safe, and a customer who asks to stop is never sent an offer again. Start the trial and link your number.