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WhatsApp reporting — Qatar

What's in it for the business

Reception reading and triaging tenant WhatsApp messages runs 2–3 hours a day per desk — roughly half a front-desk role (a Doha front-desk salary is ~QAR 4,000–7,000/month) spent routing messages. And that's per desk: with 24/7 cover a busy tower runs 3–4 reception staff, and a management company usually runs several. Across a handful of towers that's tens of thousands of riyals a month of paid time on message triage. The AI does the first pass around the clock, so that time goes back to work only humans can do. Indicative figures; every portfolio differs.

In the Gulf, tenants don't email — they WhatsApp. Connect your agency's WhatsApp Business number and tenant messages land in the same PMFriend inbox as emails: the AI reads each one, classifies the issue and urgency, matches the sender's number to your tenant list, and drafts the work-order scope. Unknown numbers queue for a quick manual match. One tap promotes a message to a dispatched job.

The unified inbox — WhatsApp messages and emails land in the same classified queue Where to find it: sidebar → Inbox — WhatsApp messages ride the same pipeline, so there is one queue to work, not two.

Two things worth knowing about how this is set up:

  • Your tenants keep the number they already know. Your existing WhatsApp number becomes the intake — nothing changes on the tenant side; the AI simply reads the messages before anyone at reception has to.

  • You keep ownership of your number. Each agency's WhatsApp number is its own; messages route by which number the tenant texted, so your inbox only ever contains your tenants. At scale you connect your own WhatsApp Business Account through Meta's standard partner flow — your number, your billing, PMFriend's AI on top.

  • Tenants get an instant confirmation — in their own language. The moment a known tenant's message arrives, PMFriend replies on WhatsApp that the report has been received and is being worked on — in Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, Tagalog or whichever language the tenant wrote in.

  • The confirmation asks what the tradie will need. With the confirmation, PMFriend asks one or two short questions about the report: a photo if there isn't one, where exactly the problem is, since when, or how to get in (the gate, the watchman, when someone is home). The questions are in the tenant's language. They never give advice, times or prices. Every message ends with "Reply 0 at any time to talk to a person." A "0" puts "Tenant asked to talk to a person" in your notifications and tells the tenant someone will reply. Emergencies skip the questions: your on-call person is already alerted. Works the same for Australian agencies on WhatsApp.

  • Photos come through and the AI reads them. A tenant photographs the leak instead of describing it; the photo lands in the inbox with the message and travels onto the maintenance request, where the AI uses it to suggest category and urgency — and all the way to the contractor's job page, so the plumber sees the leak before leaving the van. Photos are shared with the contractor by default; you can exclude any unrelated shot with one click on the request.

  • The inbox is a conversation. The tenant's message, your reply, their answer — one thread, in order, with the photos in the message they came with. A tenant's second message within a day joins the same thread, so "Yes" sits under the question it answers. When you promote the thread to a maintenance request, the whole conversation goes with it, so the contractor's brief carries the clarifications you asked for.

  • You reply without leaving PMFriend. Every inbox message has a reply box — your answer goes straight back to the tenant on WhatsApp (within Meta's 24-hour reply window).

  • Tenants hear about progress automatically. When you triage the report, dispatch a contractor, or the work completes, the tenant gets a WhatsApp update — in their own language — without anyone typing it.

  • The tenant closes the loop with one digit. The completion update ends with "Reply 1 if the problem is fixed, or 2 if it is not." A "2" (with whatever they add after it) puts "Tenant says it's not fixed" at the top of your Attention Inbox and counts against the contractor's track record. No forms, no app — one character in the chat they already have open.

  • Emergencies wake somebody. A report the AI classifies as an emergency (burst pipe, gas leak, total AC failure in the summer heat) immediately alerts your on-call number on WhatsApp — set it once in Settings. The 2am burst pipe doesn't wait for morning.

  • Contractors on the same number. A message from a mobile that belongs to one of your contractors isn't a tenant report — it goes to that contractor's card as a chat thread, and you answer from there. See Contractors → Message a contractor on WhatsApp.

  • Voice notes, second numbers, and watchmen — see Connecting WhatsApp for the full intake behaviour.

Text, photos and voice notes all work today — a voice note is transcribed automatically (the language is detected for you), and the PM can play the original next to the transcript. Video messages are on the roadmap.

Mixed-language messages. Tenants often mix languages. When a message mixes Arabic or another script with English ("AC خربان since morning"), the acknowledgement goes out in the non-English language. Arabic or Hindi typed in Latin letters (Arabizi, Hinglish — "el AC mesh shaghal") is sorted and triaged normally, but the acknowledgement goes out in English, because it can't be told apart from English reliably. Your team always sees the original message.

See also​

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