Get missed call alerts on WhatsApp

A missed call is only lost if nobody notices it in time. The trouble is where the notice lands: a voicemail you listen to at 7pm, an email in an inbox you open on Sunday, a red number in a call log you scroll past. Meanwhile WhatsApp is the app many owners check between jobs: a roofer back down the ladder, a gardener between gardens, a pest control technician back at the van. Moving the alerts that matter onto WhatsApp is one of the simplest changes a busy business can make.

The free options, first

• Your phone’s call log. It records missed calls, but only on that phone, and only if you look.
• Your network’s missed call texts. Many UK networks can text you about calls that arrived while your phone was off or had no signal. Check your network’s settings; it will not cover calls you simply could not answer.
• Voicemail to email. Some networks and many internet phone systems can email you a voicemail or a missed call notice. Useful, if you read that inbox often.
• Ring back fast. Whatever tells you, a missed call returned within the hour is rarely a lost customer.

All of these tell you a call was missed. None of them tells you what the caller wanted, and none of them lands on WhatsApp. Our guide to how to stop missing business calls covers the wider fixes.

Why WhatsApp needs a proper service

WhatsApp does not let a phone or an app quietly forward notices into a chat. A business message that starts a conversation has to be sent through the WhatsApp Business Platform, using a short template that Meta has reviewed and approved. That is why alerts on WhatsApp come from a service with its own approved templates, rather than from a setting on your phone.

How Ringmere does it

Ringmere answers your calls, so most calls are not missed at all: the caller is booked in, answered or taken as a message. What reaches your WhatsApp is the part that needs you. In Settings you link your own WhatsApp number with a one-time code sent from your phone, and from then on your alerts come there:

• A call nobody answered, with the caller’s number and whether a text inviting them to get back in touch has gone to them.
• An urgent call or a message for your team, with who called and what they need.
• A new booking, as it is made.
• A summary after each call, if you switch it on.
• One message a day, if you want it: calls answered, bookings made, messages, missed calls and what still needs you.
• Booking requests with Approve and Decline buttons, for a hotel or B&B that confirms each one, so the guest hears back while you are out.

It is on every plan, Starter included, and it is separate from answering customers on WhatsApp, so it needs no business number connecting. If WhatsApp cannot deliver an alert, it comes to you as a text instead. Reply STOP on WhatsApp at any time and your alerts go back to texts; email alerts carry on as before.

Pair it with a text-back for the caller

An alert helps you; a text helps the caller. With missed-call text-back switched on, a caller whose call could not be answered gets a short text from your business inviting them to get back in touch, and your alert tells you it has gone. Between the two, the call that would have been lost becomes a conversation. See the features page for each alert, or plans from £49 a month.

Frequently asked questions