Solo Mode vs Team Mode: Which to Use and How to Set Up Each

At the top of Dashboard → Takeover Settings sits the Staffing mode switch, and it's the first real decision you make:

• Solo mode — one person (you) runs everything, with the AI as your assistant.
• Team mode — several human reps share the number, and the AI becomes the team's drafting engine. Nothing is ever sent automatically.

This tutorial explains both, and when to switch.

🎬 2-minute demo path — showing this live?

1. Solo: flip between Suggest and Watch, show the mode pill change on the session list.
2. Flip to Team mode → show the same customer message arriving in a Telegram group with a Claim button.
3. Claim it, type a reply in the topic → it reaches the customer's WhatsApp.

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Solo mode: you + AI

In Solo you pick one of three AI behaviors:

Suggest — the AI writes every reply as a draft; you approve, edit, or reject. Start here. It's fast (approving takes seconds, even from your phone) and nothing goes out without you.

Auto — the AI sends replies on its own. Switching it on asks for confirmation — "Every customer reply will be sent immediately, without your review… a bad reply can't be unsent" — and while it's on, an AUTO MODE banner stays visible so there's never any doubt. Move to Auto once you've been approving 90%+ of drafts unchanged for a while.

Watch — the AI never sends a reply on its own. It still reads incoming messages and keeps your CRM current, and in some cases it prepares a draft for your review: a message it held back and retried later, such as one that arrived while the app was closed or shortly after you replied yourself; something you promised a customer that falls due; and, with Catch-up on startup on (the default), chats from the last 24 hours still unanswered when the app opens. Otherwise you type the replies yourself — with one big assist: Enter-to-translate turns your words into the customer's language as you send. This is the mode for people who want the intelligence without the automation.

Two companions to know:

• Catch-up on startup — when you open the app, messages that arrived while it was closed (last 24h) get queued as drafts. Drafts only — catch-up never auto-sends.
• Limit takeover to a schedule — let the AI take over only After hours, Weekends, or All day. Great for "AI answers at night, I answer by day."

✓ You've got Solo right when the mode matches your trust level: Suggest while learning, Auto for routine traffic, Watch if you only want the brain, not the pen.

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Team mode: your reps + AI drafts

Flip Staffing mode to Team mode and the logic changes completely: every customer message becomes an AI draft routed to your human reps — nothing is ever sent automatically. The AI drafts; humans decide. The Auto/Suggest/Watch picker disappears because it no longer applies.

Under Team channel, pick where your reps work — one channel at a time: Telegram, Slack, or the Enterprise web Inbox, where reps work from a browser. Teams in mainland China can also run it on WeCom — see the end of this section.

Telegram

Set it up in three moves, all in the same tab:

1. Connect the bot — the same Telegram setup under Auto-forward as solo. One bot serves both modes.

2. Add seats. In Team seats, click Add seat, name the rep, and send them the invite link — they tap it, press Start, bound. (There's also a short code they can text to the bot; codes expire in 10 minutes.)

3. Bind the claim-pool group. Create a Telegram group with your reps, add the bot, and bind it. Unclaimed conversations post there for anyone to take.

Do yourself a favor: enable Topics on that group. With Topics on, every customer gets their own thread, and a rep replies by simply typing in the thread — no claim tap needed, no reply gesture. It's the smoothest version of Team mode by far.

How the day-to-day works

• New customer message → AI writes a draft → it lands in the customer's topic (or as a group summary with a Claim button).
• A rep answers by tapping Approve, tapping a fix chip, or just typing their own reply — whatever they type goes to the customer through your WhatsApp number.
• Claimed a conversation you can't finish? Return it — it goes back to the pool for someone else, draft intact. Claims idle for 24 hours return automatically.

Slack

1. Connect Slack — the same Slack setup under Auto-forward as solo, with yourself as the owner.

2. Add seats. In Slack seats and team channel, pick each colleague from your workspace. They get a Slack message saying they were added.

3. Pick the team channel. Each customer gets a thread there; a seat claims it and replies right in the thread. Everyone in the channel can read the drafts, so pick one with just your team in it. A private channel only shows up once the bot is in it: open it in Slack, type /invite @ plus the bot's name, then refresh.

Day to day it works like Telegram with Topics: Claim / Return on the thread's first post, the same Approve, Reject and fix buttons, and typing in the thread replies to the customer.

WeCom

For teams in mainland China. Connect it under Auto-forward first; to have your reps claim and reply from WeCom, contact us and we'll switch Team mode on for your bot.

✓ You've got Team right when a test message flows: customer → your team channel → claim → reply → customer, without anyone touching the desktop.

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So which one?

One switch, flip anytime. Going back from Team to Solo instantly stops routing customer traffic to seats — the bindings stay for next time.

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Next: What's in Enterprise →