Managed WhatsApp channels
People stopped reading your emails. They have not stopped reading WhatsApp.
We build and run WhatsApp channels for events, hotels, leisure businesses and wedding venues. Your customers get answers in seconds, at any hour. Your team stops answering the same question forty times a day.
Part of Capture 1, a UK digital agency working with clients since 2001.
theWhatsAppGuys · online now
Hi, is the venue free the first weekend in June, and roughly what does a Saturday cost?
Yes, 6 June is still open. Saturdays start at the summer rate and include exclusive use. Want me to hold a viewing slot?
Please. Saturday morning if you have one.
Booked for 10am and I have let Sophie know. She will meet you at reception.
Answered at 9.41pm on a Sunday, with nobody on the desk.
Real campaigns, real numbers
What happens when the message lands where people actually look
75%
clicked the prize-draw broadcast
Aldwark Manor Estate
2,021
opted-in contacts in six weeks, from zero
Aldwark Manor Estate
76%
clicked the eve-of-show broadcast
Retail Technology Show 2026
99%
of live chat questions answered automatically
Nineteen Group shows
Figures from channels we built and ran. Each one is set out in full in the case studies below.
Who we work with
Four sectors. One playbook.
The channel is built the same way every time. What changes is the conversation, and we know yours.
Events and exhibitions
Thousands of registrations, a six-week run to the floor, and attendees who never open the emails.
44,000+ broadcast sends at close to 100% delivery
WhatsApp for eventsHotels and hospitality
Independent hotels and country-house estates whose guest communication is spread across systems that do not talk.
Zero to 2,021 opted-in guests in six weeks
WhatsApp for hotelsLeisure and membership
Gyms, swim schools and attractions, where an enquiry left until morning is an enquiry already lost.
The right answer at the moment of interest
WhatsApp for leisureWedding venues
Couples enquire with a handful of venues in one evening. The first useful reply usually gets the showround.
79% of couples book within four weeks of first contact
WhatsApp for weddingsWhat we build
More than a chatbot. A channel that does the work.
WhatsApp Business API, ManyChat, AI trained on your business, and the joins to the systems you already run. We build the whole thing and run it for you, or hand it over once it is humming.
Marketing on WhatsApp
Competitions, launches, seasonal campaigns and lead capture from your website. Every route leads into the channel, and once contacts are in, they stay.
Automation and workflows
Registration flows, agenda menus, pre-arrival and post-stay sequences, and nudges for the bookings that stall. Set up once, working every day.
AI-trained live chat
Trained on your business, so routine questions are answered instantly and in your words, and the genuinely tricky ones reach a person in seconds.
Enquiry arrives, any hour
AI answers in your words
Your team picks up what matters
Follow-up until they book
"I've always thought about it from the customer's perspective. How do I want to be communicated with? And like most people now, the answer is WhatsApp."
Richard Smith, Marketing Director, Aldwark Manor Estate
Free guides
Take the research before you take a meeting
Reduce event no-shows
What happens between registration and show day, and how to use that window.
Get the guideTrade show lead generation
Turning stand conversations into leads your sales team can actually work.
Get the guideGym membership enquiries
What happens to an enquiry after your team has gone home, and how to catch it.
Get the guideWedding venue report 2026
How UK couples research, shortlist, enquire and book, in 41 pages.
Get the report
Who you will actually work with
A 25-year digital agency, pointed at one channel
theWhatsAppGuys is a brand of Capture 1 DVP Ltd, a UK agency that has been helping clients communicate better since 2001. For the last four years almost everything we do has been WhatsApp marketing, automation and AI-trained live chat.
We have built channels for trade-show organisers running events for thousands, for hotels rebuilding the guest experience from the ground up, and for membership businesses where every enquiry has to count.
Helen Nurse leads the work. You may know her on LinkedIn as theWhatsAppWoman, where she has been showing what good looks like in this space for some time.
The best way to understand it
It takes two taps.
Reading about a WhatsApp channel is the slow way to judge one. Join our Insights channel and we will show you the real flows, the real screens and the use cases for your sector, inside WhatsApp itself.
Two-tap entry. No forms. Unsubscribe any time.
Proof
Two channels, set out in full
Events
Retail Technology Show 2026
- 7,500+ contacts across a five-month campaign
- 76% click-through on the eve-of-show broadcast
- Live chat handled by AI, with people brought in when needed
Registration, agenda planning, session reminders, badge support and exhibitor lookups, before, during and after the show.
Read the case study
Hotels
Aldwark Manor Estate
- 2,021 opted-in contacts from zero, in six weeks
- 75% click-through on the prize-draw broadcast
- 39% referral rate, built into the entry flow
A luxury countryside estate with a 20,000-name email list nobody opened, and no permission-based audience. We built one.
Read the case study