In recent years, the role of CRMs in marketing and sales strategies has changed radically. It’s no longer just about storing contacts or scheduling emails, but about building automated, personalized, and increasingly intelligent experiences. Tools that once were only used by large companies are now accessible to any SME, and the boundary between CRM, automation, and artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly blurred.
In this context, there are companies that do not just follow trends, but create them. This is the case of Clientify, a Spanish platform that has been ahead of the curve in key areas such as the integration of WhatsApp in commercial processes. We chatted with Francisco López, CEO of Clientify, to understand how they have managed to innovate in a market dominated by giants… and what we can learn from their experience.
Tell us briefly what Clientify is for those who don’t know the tool
At Clientify, we help small businesses become large companies, and with that idea in mind, we have developed something that we like to call “a Swiss army knife,” all-in-one, with all the tools that from a communication, marketing, and sales perspective small and medium businesses need to optimize their processes. Basically, making it go further by covering the entire sales funnel: from lead generation to closing and later customer retention and loyalty.
Clientify was one of the first CRMs to integrate WhatsApp when no one was talking about it. What led you to bet on this channel so early?
We believe we were the first to do it. The decision came from constant feedback from our users, we talk to them all the time. We detected a significant disconnection between the channel many of them were already using to communicate with their clients —WhatsApp— and their management tools. WhatsApp did not allow team collaboration (multi-agent) nor did it store information in the CRM, leaving everything on the seller’s personal phone. That’s why we decided to integrate it, and we also complemented it with features like bots and scheduled messages. Now we’ve added new features and even we’re surprised by the results.
How did the market react when you launched this integration? Did you feel alone at that time or did you see it as a matter of time before others followed?
The market reacted brutally, the growth we’ve had thanks to interaction with WhatsApp has allowed us to be where we are today. Obviously, at first, working with the WhatsApp API (META) was very complicated both technologically and in terms of compliance afterwards, because not everyone was granted access to the API. So yes, we felt alone, but when it became easier technologically and access opened up, we saw how many others followed our path. Now, not everyone, very few of us are META Business Partners. This is something we’ve earned through hard work.
How does this integration affect the day-to-day of the sales team? What real improvements have you detected in the processes?
Thanks to the WhatsApp integration, the sales teams are much more coordinated, as the information is no longer isolated on the salespeople’s phones. From management, there’s a more effective tracking and they get key metrics like response times. In marketing, we’ve observed open rates in WhatsApp campaigns over 80%, compared to the typical 20% of email. We could say we offer a ‘supercharged’ WhatsApp that improves processes and supervises the activity of the commercial team.
How would you define a well-planned sales funnel in Clientify? What mistakes are usually made when designing it?
One of the most common mistakes is not including WhatsApp in the sales process. There’s a tendency to overuse email, but we live in a world of immediacy. Customers look for quick answers, something that is difficult to achieve via email. WhatsApp allows for that instant interaction, and Clientify facilitates its integration into the funnel.
In a market with so many CRM solutions, what criteria do you think a company should follow when choosing the right tool?
Every CRM is focused on a specific niche. The key is to choose a tool that fits your type of business. For small and medium businesses, Clientify is a solid alternative due to its comprehensive and accessible approach. Also, it’s in Spanish, it delivers what it promises, and has no hidden charges like much of our competition.
You are now working on including new functionalities in Clientify. Can you tell us how this new functionality will work?
We are designing several automated agents that interact automatically via WhatsApp. One answers questions based on a knowledge base, another qualifies leads, another one works to reach goals (like closing sales), and we also have an agent that schedules meetings automatically using natural language. We’ve released some test bots for our clients and followers to try out real conversations, and the reactions have been incredible. The response time is incomparable to that of a human operator, and once the prompt is properly crafted and content is provided, it’s capable of having conversations that lead to a pre-configured goal autonomously.
What tasks will the automation in WhatsApp solve? Are we talking about automating messages, understanding context, making decisions…?
Yes, all of them. Automation will be able to automate messages, understand context, make decisions, sign documents digitally, and generate quotes. The possibilities are vast.
How has the development process of this functionality been? Did you create it 100% in-house?
Yes, the development has been entirely in-house, although supported by various technologies. We are agnostic about language models and use different LLMs depending on the performance they offer for each specific function.
What real use can SMEs make of automation in WhatsApp right now, without the need for large technical resources?
They can have a virtual assistant operational on their website in a matter of minutes, available 24/7, that responds with discretion, maintains a fluid conversation, and provides support. With Clientify, in just 15 minutes this bot can be up and running without large technical knowledge or programming. We design our products to be very easy to use.
What role does the feedback from your own users play in the development of the tool?
It’s essential. We’ve spent over a decade building the platform, and the new version we launched is the result of years of listening to our users and continuously improving.
What role do you think WhatsApp will play in marketing and sales strategies over the next three years?
It will play a central role. If a company doesn’t include WhatsApp in its marketing and sales strategy, it will be left behind. The arrival of the API for calls will expand the possibilities even more, allowing even phone communications directly from the CRM. That’s right, from the same CRM you’ll be able to use the WhatsApp call as another communication channel. WhatsApp is set to become the technology that brings together more communication services, and we will integrate all of them into the CRM to turn them into perfect sales tools.
If you had to give advice to a company that hasn’t integrated WhatsApp into its CRM yet, where should they start?
My advice is to start with Clientify. Our onboarding team prepares everything so that, on the same day, they can send and receive messages with their customers. It’s not just about using the channel, it’s about putting it to work with the company’s commercial intelligence. When a user sees and feels how it helps their teams and business, they have their WOW moment and become a customer.
What can you tell us about the new version of Clientify that you will launch in a month?
The new version is the result of 10 years of work and learning. It’s not just an update; it’s a complete transformation based on the accumulated knowledge of our users. We believe it will be a game-changer in the sector, and Clientify will consolidate as a reference tool in the CRM world. AI permeates the entire platform as support, agent, and facilitator, and there is a full suite of new products we are launching: Digital signature, AI-supported commercial proposals, meeting preparation, contact and company enrichment… We’ve already had an intense year developing this new version, and we keep surprising ourselves every day with the results.
What other technological trends are you closely watching from Clientify?
In addition to the internal and customer-facing application of artificial intelligence, and being a communication, marketing, and sales tool, we are closely following everything related to compliance, privacy, and security. Everything related to tracking and following everything that happens in the interaction of a user with our client’s systems. Until now, tracking a website is relatively simple with pixel tracking, but the WhatsApp environment is a different world. So, the ability to track a lead to a customer when they leave WhatsApp is challenging. We are making an effort in R&D and investing in developing technology to enable complete attribution, not just of the website as we did before, but full attribution.
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