The team
This education counselling team in India helps students choose a course and institution, then guides them through admission. New counsellors were joining, and enquiries arrived faster than anyone could track by hand.
Most of those enquiries came in on WhatsApp. The team already ran its business number through Gallabox, a WhatsApp business provider, and was happy with it. They did not want to move their number, rebuild their approved templates or learn a new messaging tool just to get a CRM.
What they lacked was everything around the conversation: who owns a student, which stage they have reached, when the next call is due, and whether the team as a whole is keeping up.
What they needed
- Keep Gallabox. No change of WhatsApp provider, number or templates.
- Stop copying numbers. Every new WhatsApp enquiry had to land in the CRM as a lead without a counsellor retyping it.
- Give counsellors clear lanes. Each counsellor works their own students, with a branch-wide view at one stage.
- Show managers the day at a glance. Who has follow-ups overdue, who is on top of today, and how each counsellor is doing, without asking for a spreadsheet.
- Go live as one team, not a few early adopters while everyone else stayed on old habits.
How we set up their operations on Xale
Gallabox connected, not replaced
We connected their existing Gallabox account from Xale's integration settings using their Gallabox API credentials. From that point, a new WhatsApp enquiry to their number creates a lead in Xale automatically, marked with the Gallabox source. A background catch-up sync regularly checks recent conversations for enquiries the live connection missed.
To be clear about the limits: with Gallabox, counsellors still reply to chats inside Gallabox. Replying to Gallabox conversations from the Xale inbox is not available yet. Xale holds the lead, the owner, the stage and the next follow-up.
Template messages sent through Gallabox by automation
We set up automations that send the team's approved WhatsApp templates through Gallabox when something happens on a lead, such as a new lead arriving or a lead moving to a particular stage. Template variables are filled from the lead's own fields, custom fields and deal details, so each student gets their own details, not a generic blast. Automations can be kept to business hours and given cooldowns.
Counsellor roles: edit on most stages, manage on one
We built the Counsellor role in Xale's role wizard, where permissions are set stage by stage on a five-level dial: admin, manage, edit, view or deny.
- Edit on most stages. At these stages a counsellor sees and works only the leads assigned to them. They can update details, add notes, set follow-ups and move leads within their rights.
- Manage on one stage. At that single stage, counsellors see every lead in their branch, not only their own. That was the one point in the journey where the team wanted everyone to have the full picture.
Move and rollback rights are set per stage too, and admins see the whole organisation. Each lead has one active owner per role, and reassignments keep the full ownership history.
Follow-ups that belong to a person
Follow-ups in Xale are role-based. Each role on a lead keeps its own follow-up, so one person's callback date never overwrites another's. Overdue, Today and Later are counted in Indian calendar days. Due-time reminders reach the person who holds the follow-up as a browser popup, mobile push and in-app inbox alert.
Dashboard: follow-ups by user and user performance
On the dashboard we set up the follow-up view broken down by user, which shows overdue, today and later for each counsellor, alongside the user performance and ranking views. In reports, each counsellor's scorecard follows every lead they were given (whether new, reassigned or re-enquired) through to its outcome. Every number opens the exact list of leads behind it, and each viewer sees only what their role allows.
The whole team onboarded together
We set up users, roles and branches and connected Gallabox first, then walked the whole team through the workspace together. Every counsellor started on the same day, under the same rules.
How the team works day to day
A counsellor's morning starts on the dashboard. They clear Overdue first, then work through Today. New WhatsApp enquiries are already in Xale as leads, so nobody hunts through chats to find who messaged overnight.
Conversations happen on WhatsApp through Gallabox as before. The record lives in Xale: after each conversation the counsellor logs a note, moves the lead to the right stage and sets the next follow-up. Routine template messages go out through Gallabox by automation, so nobody retypes them.
Team leads use the follow-ups-by-user view to spot who is falling behind and rebalance work early, and the user performance view to follow each counsellor's progress. When a number looks odd, they open the matching report and click through to the students behind it.
Why it matters for teams like theirs
Many education teams already run WhatsApp through a provider they trust, and switching isn't needed to get a proper CRM. If that provider is Wati, Gallabox or UrbanChat, Xale connects the account you already use, so enquiries become leads while your number and templates stay put. See how this works across providers on our WhatsApp CRM for education page.
The rest of the setup carries over to most counselling teams:
- Stage-by-stage access that keeps counsellors in their own lane without hiding what they need. See role-based access for multi-branch teams.
- Follow-ups owned by a named person, counted in calendar days. Read more about follow-up management.
- Counsellor-level reporting where every number opens its list. See CRM reports and analytics.
- A ready pipeline and default roles to start from. See the Education template.
- A single, planned go-live for the whole team. See how we onboard your team on the Xale platform.