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WhatsApp Lead without Phone number

  • Feb 28, 2023 12:21 PM UTC
  • 1 reply
  • 177 views

Hi,

I connected my facebook business WhatsApp account with Intercom. The message is getting received in the intercom, and I can respond. But the user data for the incoming conversation creates a lead with no phone number in the data.

 

All I see in user data is the name of the person and a user-id field filled with Whatsapp------- some random mix of alphanumerics. Is it working as intended? Should it not fetch the number of the person who sent a message in the data?

 

Also, if I try to start a Separate NEW conversation with this lead, I cannot do so, as I do not have the number.

    1 reply

    Tarek Khalil
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    • Tarek Khalil
    • Active User
    • Oct 18, 2026 9:59 AM UTC

    Hey ​@User1454 !

    Late reply, but this is the same thing a lot of people hit.

    As far as I know, natively, Intercom keeps a WhatsApp contact's number in a separate WhatsApp number attribute and doesn't copy it into the Phone attribute, and Outbound WhatsApp only uses Phone, so a lead like that can't be messaged from there. Turning on Identify existing users in WhatsApp settings merges the lead into a user with a matching phone, and you can also write Phone yourself via the API.
     

    If you're open to a connector, Octopods works differently (disclaimer, I built it). From its docs, it matches an incoming WhatsApp sender by phone number against Intercom's standard phone field, in international format, and if nothing matches it creates a Lead with the name and number the channel gives it. For leads who have no phone number at all, its template API also accepts a WhatsApp user ID instead of a number. I'd test with one number first and check how the Lead looks in your workspace before moving over, since I can't promise it matches your exact setup.

    Hope this is useful!

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