Alternate phone numbers

Keep every number a customer uses on one contact, choose which number you message or call, and see how extra numbers are imported, exported and counted.

A contact can hold one primary number and several alternate numbers, so a customer who reaches you from a personal mobile and an office line stays one person, with one chat, one history and one profile.

Alternate numbers are rolling out gradually and are not yet switched on in every workspace. If you don't see the Phone numbers card on a contact, it hasn't reached your workspace yet. Until then each contact holds one number, as before.

Add and manage a contact's numbers

Open Contacts and open the contact.
On the Details tab, find the Phone numbers card. The primary number comes first, then the alternates with their labels.
Choose Add a number and enter it, like +91 98765 43210.
Add a label such as "Office", "Home" or "Wife" if you like, then save.

On the same card you can also:

Label a number, or clear its label. A label can be up to 40 characters.
Make a number primary. The old primary stays on the contact as an alternate and keeps its label.
Remove an alternate. The primary can't be removed: make another number primary first, so the contact never loses the number your business messages reach.
Move an alternate to its own contact, with the split icon on its row (see Moving a number to its own contact below).

A number belongs to one contact only. If you add a number another contact already holds, WA.cr refuses it and links to that contact. That is almost always the same person, so merge the two contacts instead.

Your plan sets how many numbers one contact can hold: 10 by default, the primary plus nine alternates. A contact already over that limit keeps its numbers; it just can't take another until one is removed.

Teammates who can't see full numbers see each number masked, and can still add a number they already know. See Number masking.

Which number gets what

The primary number receives everything your business starts: broadcasts, automations, and order and appointment notifications.
An automatic reply goes to the number the customer wrote from. When a customer messages you from their office phone, a flow, the AI agent or an auto-reply answers the office phone. In the chat, a message on any number other than the primary carries a small tag naming that number.
In the chat, you choose. The message box sends to the number shown under Send to, which you can change.

Choose which number to message or call

On WhatsApp, each number a customer writes from has its own 24-hour window. A reply to the office phone can go out as a normal message while the mobile only takes a template.

When a contact holds more than one number, the channel menu above the message box has a Send to section. It lists the primary first, then the alternates with their labels. On a WhatsApp channel each number shows its own window: open, with the time left, or closed (template only). The message box follows the number you pick.

The default is the number the customer last wrote from, while its window is open. Otherwise it is the primary.
Replying to a message sends the reply to the number that message came from. Reply to this number in a message's menu switches to that number without quoting the message.
Reactions go to the number of the message you react to.
Templates, scheduled messages and approved AI drafts go to the number picked when you sent or scheduled them. If that number is removed from the contact before a scheduled message goes out, the message fails rather than going to a different number.
The window check follows the message. A recent message from the office phone does not open the window for a message going to the mobile.

On a phone line, the same Send to section picks the number to call. Teammates who can't see full numbers can call too, without the number being shown.

Broadcasts reach the primary number only

A broadcast goes to each contact's primary number, never to its alternates. When you pick a group or segment in a broadcast's audience step, WA.cr tells you how many contacts in that audience have alternate numbers that won't receive it.

To reach one of those numbers in a broadcast, move it to its own contact, or make it the contact's primary.

Merging and moving numbers

Merging two contacts keeps every number

When you merge two contacts, no number is lost:

The merge window's Primary number choice lists every number of both contacts, with their labels. The number you pick becomes the primary.
Every other number stays on the merged contact as an alternate, keeping its label. The other contact's primary, if it had no label, is labelled with that contact's name.
If the merged contact would hold more numbers than your plan allows on one contact, the merge is refused until you remove some.
Unmerge moves the same numbers back, with their labels, and gives each contact its own primary again.

Moving a number to its own contact

Sometimes an alternate belongs to someone else, like a family member or an assistant. Move to its own contact on that number creates a new contact with it as the primary, named after its label (you can change the name).

The number's messages move with it: what the customer sent from it and what you sent to it, with their pins and stars. So do its calls. Internal notes stay where they were written.
If the original contact has opted out, the new contact is opted out too.
The primary can't be moved, and the move is refused when your workspace already has as many contacts as your plan allows.

A notice then offers Open contact and Undo. The new contact's page also shows a lasting "Split from …" banner with Undo split for as long as the move stands. Undo puts the number back on the original contact, along with anything the new contact received in the meantime.

Finding and blocking

Search finds a contact by any of its numbers, not just the primary.
Blocking a contact on WhatsApp blocks every number it holds at that moment, and unblocking reverses all of them. A number added later isn't blocked until you unblock and block again. A number removed while blocked stays blocked, so unblock before removing it.

Import alternate numbers

When you import contacts from a spreadsheet, two more column choices appear: Alternate phone and Alternate phone label.

Map each extra number column to Alternate phone. You can map several. The first Alternate phone label column labels the first alternate phone column, the second labels the second, and so on.
One cell can also hold several numbers, the way an export writes them: numbers separated by semicolons, each with an optional label after a |, like +919876543210|Office; +442079460000|Home. A label column only labels a cell that holds one number with no label of its own.
A number that is the same as the row's primary, or appears twice on the row, is skipped without an error.
Alternate numbers need a primary phone number on the same row.

WA.cr guesses the columns for you. A column named like "Office phone", "Other mobile", "Alternate number" or "Phone 2" is guessed as Alternate phone, and "Phone 2 label" as Alternate phone label. When a file has two plain phone columns, the second is guessed as an alternate. When a file has no plain phone column, the first column that looks like an alternate, such as a lone "Phone 2", is guessed as the primary number instead. Check every guess before you continue.

The preview marks a row as invalid, and it isn't imported, when an alternate number isn't valid, a label is longer than 40 characters, or the row has alternate numbers but no primary phone.

During the import, a contact is still added or updated when one of its alternate numbers can't be added: because another contact already holds that number, or because the contact would go over your plan's limit. The import then finishes as Partial. Its error report lists those rows, marked as inserted or updated, with the number that wasn't added and why.

If the preview says alternate phone columns can't be imported right now, set those columns to Ignore this column and preview again.

Export alternate numbers

In the export window, tick Alternate phones. The export gets one column with every number a contact holds besides its primary, oldest first, in the same format the import reads: +919876543210|Office; +442079460000. Importing that file again picks the column up as Alternate phone on its own.

A | or ; inside a label is written as /, so the cell always reads back as the same numbers and labels.
Teammates who can't see full numbers get each alternate masked, the same as the primary.

How alternate numbers count towards active conversations

Your plan counts active conversations: each contact you talk with in a calendar month (India time) counts once. Alternate numbers fit in like this:

A customer writing in counts once, however many of their numbers they write from.
Replying stays free. A message you send to an alternate number that has written to you this month, or in the 24 hours before, counts with the contact. It adds nothing.
Starting a conversation with an alternate that hasn't written in counts as one more active conversation for that month, the same as if that number were a separate contact. It counts once a month, however many messages you send it.
Messages you send from the WhatsApp Business app on your phone, when your number is connected to both, count the same way as messages sent from WA.cr.
Broadcasts never reach alternate numbers, so they never add one.

If your plan hides conversations past your allowance when your wallet can't cover them, an extra active conversation from an alternate number can hide that contact's whole chat until you top up or upgrade.

Who can

Anyone who can open a contact sees its Phone numbers card. Adding, labelling, promoting, removing and moving numbers, and undoing a move, need permission to manage contacts. Merging and unmerging contacts is for owners and admins. Every change is recorded in the audit log.

If it doesn't work

If there is no Phone numbers card, alternate numbers aren't on in your workspace yet.
If a number is refused, another contact already holds it. Open that contact and merge the two.
If you can't add another number, the contact has reached your plan's limit. Remove one first.
If you can't remove a number, it is the primary. Make another number primary first.
If a broadcast didn't reach a customer's other phone, that number is an alternate. Move it to its own contact, or make it the primary.