WhatsApp vs Webchat

WhatsApp Click to Chat

With a WhatsApp Click to Chat button, every conversation a guest starts is triggered from their own phone. Because the message arrives through WhatsApp, you automatically have the guest's phone number attached to the conversation — even before your front desk replies.

Since the guest's number is already captured, your front desk doesn't need to respond to the message right away. WhatsApp gives you a 24-hour customer service window to reply, so staff can answer when they have availability rather than being tied to instant response times.

To set it up, follow WhatsApp's official setup guide

If most of your guests don't use WhatsApp, they won't be able to start a conversation through this channel. Consider your guests' typical demographics and region before making WhatsApp your only entry point. Also, check whether your website visitors mostly use mobile phones, or desktop computers. 

Webchat

Anyone visiting your website can start a webchat conversation. However, the chat is anonymous — you have no phone number or contact details for the guest unless they choose to share one.

While your AI assistant is answering, webchat works well. The problem starts once a question needs a human reply. Guests on webchat typically expect an answer within seconds to a minute. Because the chat is anonymous, if a guest closes the browser tab or navigates away before your front desk responds, there's no way to reach them again — you lose the guest along with the conversation.

In practice, this means webchat's "open request" / follow-up functionality is unreliable: without a phone number, you have nothing to answer back to if the guest has already left the page.