A practical guide to Freshdesk assign WhatsApp tickets to a group

We all know customers love firing off a quick message on WhatsApp. It's easy, it's on their phone, and it feels instant. But for support teams on Freshdesk, juggling messages from different WhatsApp numbers can turn into a real headache. Maybe you have one number for sales questions, another for tech support, or separate lines for different countries. Before you know it, you're manually sorting and forwarding tickets, which is slow, messy, and a recipe for mistakes.

You just need a solid way to get those conversations to the right team, every time, without someone having to play traffic cop.

This guide gets straight to the point of how to assign WhatsApp tickets to a group in Freshdesk. We’ll look at what Freshdesk can do on its own, where it falls short for this specific job, and then walk through a much smarter, automated way to handle your WhatsApp support.

Understanding the Freshdesk WhatsApp integration

First, a quick refresher. The Freshdesk WhatsApp integration is what lets you connect your WhatsApp Business Account to your helpdesk. When a customer messages your business number, Freshdesk turns it into a ticket. Your agents can then see and reply to everything right alongside their emails and other support channels in one neat inbox.

It’s great for keeping all your conversations in one place. But the real test is whether it fits with how your team actually works, like getting tickets to the right specialists. And as many teams have found out, this is where the standard setup starts to feel a bit clunky, especially if you're using more than one WhatsApp number.

A screenshot of the Freshdesk multichannel inbox, which is central to the process of how to assign WhatsApp tickets to a group in Freshdesk.

The main problem: Routing tickets from multiple WhatsApp numbers

Here’s the snag most support managers hit. You have different WhatsApp numbers for good reasons, but Freshdesk sees them all as coming from a single "WhatsApp" source.

For example, you might have:

• A number for sales questions and a separate one for technical support.

• Different numbers for different countries (like a US and a UK number).

• A special line for VIP customers that your senior team needs to handle.

Having to manually assign these tickets is a huge time-drain and it's easy for things to slip through the cracks. It slows down your response times and, let's be honest, makes for a pretty frustrating customer experience. This isn't just a minor inconvenience, either. For years, people in the Freshworks community have been asking for a way to build automation rules based on the specific WhatsApp number a ticket came from, but a built-in solution still isn't available. This gap leaves teams stuck with manual work or complicated setups that are a pain to manage.

Using Freshdesk's built-in automation

You've probably already tried diving into Freshdesk's automation rules. They let you do things like assign tickets to groups or add tags when a new ticket comes in.

For WhatsApp, you can set up a rule where the condition is "Source is WhatsApp." This works perfectly if you want all your WhatsApp tickets to go to one big queue. But it doesn't help when you need to get more specific. The automation builder in Freshdesk doesn't give you an option to check which WhatsApp number the message was sent to.

A screenshot of Freshdesk's no-code automation builder, highlighting the limitations when trying to assign WhatsApp tickets to a group in Freshdesk based on the number.

That means you can't create simple rules like:

• "IF the ticket is from WhatsApp number "+1-555-123-4567", THEN assign it to the "Sales Group"."

• "IF the ticket is from WhatsApp number "+44-20-1234-5678", THEN assign it to the "UK Support Group"."

This one missing feature is the main reason why it’s so tricky to properly assign WhatsApp tickets to a group in Freshdesk. You're left with an all-or-nothing system that just doesn't work once your business starts to grow.

A quick look at Freshdesk pricing plans

It's helpful to know where things stand with Freshdesk's plans, especially since AI features are usually part of the more expensive packages. But as we've seen, even those don't quite solve this particular WhatsApp routing issue.

Here’s a simple breakdown of what the Freshdesk Support Desk plans look like if you pay annually.

Plan	Price (Billed Annually)	Key Features
Free	$0 for up to 10 agents	Integrated ticketing across email and social, knowledge base, ticket trend report.
Growth	$15/agent/month	Everything in Free, plus automation, collision detection, custom email server, and 1000+ marketplace apps.
Pro	$49/agent/month	Everything in Growth, plus custom roles, custom reports & dashboards, round-robin routing, and CSAT surveys.
Enterprise	$79/agent/month	Everything in Pro, plus skill-based routing, sandbox, audit log, and an agent-assist bot (Freddy AI).

This pricing is based on info from the official Freshworks website in late 2024. For the latest details, you should always check the Freshdesk pricing page.

A better way to assign WhatsApp tickets: Using AI

Since Freshdesk’s own tools can’t quite get this job done, the best approach is to add a smart automation layer that works with your helpdesk. This is exactly where a tool like eesel AI comes in. Instead of duct-taping a bunch of different apps together, you get one clean solution that connects to Freshdesk in minutes.

How AI Triage helps

eesel AI connects to your Freshdesk account with a single click and can instantly see ticket information that Freshdesk's own automations can't, including the specific WhatsApp number a message was sent to.

Using eesel AI's AI Triage feature, you can set up a simple and direct workflow:

1. A new WhatsApp ticket lands in your Freshdesk inbox.

2. eesel AI reads the ticket data, including the phone number it was sent to.

3. It checks the number against a rule you created (e.g., "+1-555-123-4567" = "Sales Group").

4. The ticket gets assigned to the right group automatically. No one has to lift a finger.

The best part? You can set this all up yourself. There are no long sales calls or demos required; you can connect it and get it running in a few minutes, which is a breath of fresh air compared to other AI tools that have long setup processes.

eesel AI's Triage feature seamlessly integrates with Freshdesk to assign WhatsApp tickets to a group.

Beyond ticket assignment: Automating the whole conversation

Getting the ticket to the right place is just the start. What if you could also automate the reply? This is where eesel AI’s AI Agent can step in. It learns from your past tickets, help center articles, and other knowledge sources like your team's Google Docs or Confluence pages.

From there, it can:

• Draft accurate replies for your agents to quickly review and send.

• Answer common questions all on its own (like "Where's my order?").

• Perform actions, like looking up order details in Shopify or adding the right tags to tickets.

Unlike some of the rigid, built-in AI bots out there, eesel AI lets you decide on its personality, tone of voice, and exactly what it's allowed to do. You can even run a simulation on thousands of your past tickets to see how it would have performed before you turn it on, so you know exactly what you're getting.

Stop sorting and start automating your WhatsApp support

Freshdesk is a solid helpdesk, but its inability to assign WhatsApp tickets to a group based on the phone number is a major roadblock for any team trying to offer great support across different channels. Sorting tickets by hand just doesn't scale. It wastes time, causes mistakes, and makes customers wait longer for a reply.

Instead of hoping for a new feature that might not be coming, you can fix this problem right now with an AI platform built for the job. eesel AI works with your existing Freshdesk setup to give you the smart, flexible routing you've been missing. And it doesn't stop there, giving you a full set of tools to triage, draft replies, and solve customer issues automatically.

Ready to see how much time you can get back? You can simulate eesel AI on your past tickets to get a precise count of how many conversations you can automate, completely risk-free.

Try eesel AI for free and fix your WhatsApp routing in minutes.