Palby CRM
Updated 10 min read

WhatsApp Business labels: sort every chat by the next step

Labels are names and colours you put on chats in the WhatsApp Business app, up to 20 of them, and on many phones they're now called lists. Here's how to set them up on each device, where they went if they vanished, and a seven-label set that turns your chat list into a follow-up list.

By Leo Tan, founder of Palby CRM

What WhatsApp Business labels are

WhatsApp Business labels are names, each with a colour, that you put on whole chats so you can filter your chat list down to one group of customers. To add one, tap and hold a chat, tap Add to list (on Android, the label icon) and pick the label. You can make up to 20. WhatsApp is turning labels into lists, and it's rolling the change out gradually, so on many phones the same feature now sits under Tools, then Lists.

The harder part is deciding what to label. Most people label by topic: VIP, friends, suppliers. If you sell, label by stage instead, so every label answers one question: what do I do next with this person? A filtered list then works as a call list. Before your first call, open Quote sent and work down it, oldest chat first.

Know one limit before you start. A label tells you where a chat stands. It never tells you when to follow up, and that gap shapes the label set further down.

How to create and apply labels on each device

WhatsApp's help pages give a different path on each device. The Android page still shows the older Labels menu, while the iPhone and Web pages already show Lists:

StepAndroidiPhoneWeb
CreateChats, More options, Label chatTools, Lists, New listTools, Lists, Add new list
ApplyHold the chat, label iconHold the chat, Add to listChat menu, Add to list
FilterChats, More options, Label chatTools, ListsTools, Lists
ManageChats, More options, LabelsTools, ListsTools, Lists

If your app already shows Lists:

  1. Tap Tools, then Lists, then New list.
  2. Type the label's name and tap Done.
  3. Go back to Chats, tap and hold a chat and tap Add to list.
  4. Tick every label that chat belongs under.

A chat can hold more than one label, and WhatsApp shows them stacked on the chat row. From the Chats screen, tap a customer's profile photo to see every label on that chat at once.

Name each label for the action, not the mood. "Waiting" means nothing on its own. "Waiting on deposit" tells you who to message and what to ask for. Two or three words is enough, and short names stay readable on the chat row.

Set the labels up in one sitting, then label your last 30 active chats before your next prospecting block. Lists with three chats in them get ignored. Lists with every live deal in them get opened. Your lists come with you to the laptop too, once you've logged in to WhatsApp Business Web.

Why your labels disappeared: they're lists now

If the Labels option vanished after an update, your labels most likely became lists. WhatsApp's labels page now opens with a note that labels are now lists and that the change is rolling out gradually, which is why one phone shows Labels while the next shows Lists.

Lists do the same job with a few extras. WhatsApp's page on using lists sets them out:

  • You create one under Tools, then Lists, then New list, and either type a name or take one of WhatsApp's suggestions.
  • You pick a colour and add people or groups as you create it, so you don't have to label chats one by one afterwards.
  • WhatsApp offers default and recommended lists too, if one of them already fits a stage you use.
  • You can drag lists up and down, so the stage you work first sits first.
  • The cap stays at 20.

If you can't find Labels or Lists anywhere, work down these in order:

  1. Check you've opened WhatsApp Business. Labels belong to the Business app, and personal WhatsApp has lists of its own, covered below.
  2. Look under Tools, then Lists, as well as the menu on the Chats tab.
  3. Update the app from your app store and open it again.
  4. On a laptop, check it's still linked. WhatsApp's linked devices page says a linked device logs out if your phone goes unused for over 14 days.

Do this on a Friday afternoon, because finding out during Monday's pipeline review costs you the review.

Edit, recolour or delete a label

On an iPhone, tap Tools, then Lists, tap the label and tap Edit. Change the name, tap the colour to pick a new one, and tap Done. To delete it, tap the label, then Delete list, then Delete. On Android the same jobs sit under Chats, More options, Labels. Tap the label and you'll find Edit label and Choose color, with Delete label beside them. On Web, click the label under Tools, then Lists, make your change and click Save list.

Rename a label when only the wording is wrong, so you don't have to put it back on every chat. Before you delete one, open it and move its chats to the label that replaces it.

Give the labels five minutes in the last pipeline review of each month. Delete any label nobody used, and merge two that mean the same thing. If you catch yourself asking "Deciding or Quote sent?" on a chat, the two names are too close.

A label set that follows a sale

Seven labels cover most selling. Give every chat one stage label, and swap it the day the situation changes, so each chat sits in exactly one stage list.

LabelAdd it whenYour next move
New enquirySomeone writes for the first timeReply today with one question about their need
Call bookedA call or meeting has a dateConfirm the time and what you'll cover
Quote sentYour price or proposal is with themFollow up on day two if there's no reply
DecidingThey've replied but not said yesAsk what's left to decide, and by when
Waiting on paymentThey said yes and money hasn't landedSend payment details once, then check on the due date
WonPaid or signedSend next steps and a thank you
Went quietTwo follow-ups and no replySet a date for one more try, then leave it

That leaves 13 of your 20 spare, and two or three of them earn a place as lead sources, like Referral or Website, because your month-end review then shows which source sends people who buy. Leave the rest empty. Each extra label adds a decision to every chat, and on a busy day you'll skip it.

Went quiet does more work than any other label. Without it, a cold chat sits in Quote sent for months and your follow-up list fills with people who've moved on. With it, Quote sent stays short enough to clear in one morning, and Went quiet becomes a 20-minute block on Friday. For how many tries to make and what to say on each, read the sales follow-up process.

Stage labels by job

The stages change with what you sell. Start from the row nearest your work and rename freely:

JobStage labels
Sales repNew lead, Demo booked, Proposal out, Negotiating, Won, Went quiet
Property agentNew enquiry, Viewing booked, Offer in, Deposit due, Closed, Went quiet
Coach or trainerEnquiry, Intro call, Trial session, Payment due, Client, Past client
FreelancerNew request, Quote sent, Brief due, In progress, Invoiced, Paid
Small teamUnassigned, With a rep, Needs the manager, Won, Lost

On a shared number, the small-team row comes first, because the worst outcome is a chat two people both think the other is answering. Unassigned should be empty by lunch every day.

Aisha's week: six quotes, one yes

Made-up example: Aisha sells office catering contracts, and on any given day 40 of her WhatsApp chats are deals she's working.

At 8:30 on Monday she starts her pipeline review in Quote sent, where six chats are waiting. Two quotes went out last Tuesday with no reply, so those are her first two messages of the day, each naming the menu that office asked about.

At 11:00 an office manager writes asking for a lunch quote for 25 people. Aisha labels the chat New enquiry and asks for the date and any dietary needs. By 3pm the quote is out and the label is Quote sent.

On Wednesday one of Monday's follow-ups writes back to say they're comparing two caterers and will choose by Friday, so Aisha moves them to Deciding.

On Thursday a chat in Quote sent has had two follow-ups and nothing back, so it moves to Went quiet and Aisha puts a reminder in her calendar for the first Monday of next month.

On Friday the office that was deciding says yes. Aisha swaps the label to Waiting on payment and sends the invoice once. The deposit lands at 4pm and the chat moves to Won.

In her Friday 1:1, her manager asks how the week went. She reads it straight off her lists: six quotes out, two deciding, one won, one gone quiet.

The labels didn't remind Aisha of anything. Her calendar did, and so did the Monday review. What the labels gave her was the answer to "where does this chat stand?" the moment she looked, without scrolling back through a week of messages.

Automatic labels and what they switch off

WhatsApp Business can label chats for you. Turn on auto-created lists and WhatsApp puts new orders and leads under labels for you, as they arrive. To switch it on, go to Tools, then Lists, and tap Auto-created lists are turned off.

Read WhatsApp's page on automatic events first, because switching it on changes more than your lists:

  • It disconnects every linked device. That includes WhatsApp Web on your laptop, and while most devices can be linked again after setup, WhatsApp for Windows and WearOS can't.
  • Your greeting and away messages can stop working, as can disappearing messages, broadcast lists and the option to edit or delete what you sent.
  • Your chats are then managed through a secure service from Meta, and they carry the line "This business uses a secure service from Meta to manage this chat."
  • You can turn it off whenever you like, and the features it blocked come back.

If you answer leads from a laptop during your calling block, or lean on an away message while you're in client meetings, try it on a quiet afternoon and not on a Monday morning.

Messaging everyone under a label

On Android, open a label and tap Message customers to send one marketing message (a business broadcast, in some countries) to everyone in it. Before you tap it:

  • WhatsApp charges for each message delivered within five days of sending.
  • A broadcast made from a label goes to individual customers only, never to groups.
  • WhatsApp shows how many customers read it and replied.
  • It's only offered in some countries so far.

For follow-ups, write one chat at a time, because a quote follow-up gets a reply when it names the quote, as in "Hi Sam, did the Friday lunch menu suit your team, or shall I swap the hot dishes?", and one message sent to twelve people can't do that. So open the label, start with the oldest chat and write two lines to that person before you move down the list. If you have real news for many customers at once, compare a broadcast list and a group before you send.

Labels in personal WhatsApp, and member tags

Personal WhatsApp has no labels, because labels are a WhatsApp Business feature. What it has is lists, which filter your chats the same way a label does. WhatsApp's page about lists names four built in (All, Unread, Favorites and Groups), and you can add your own. Swipe down on the Chats tab to see them. If you sell from your personal number, build the same stage lists there.

If you searched "WhatsApp label" and meant the tag beside your name in a group, that's a member tag, and it works differently. WhatsApp's January 2026 announcement lets you give yourself a tag in each group you're in that tells the others your role. A tag describes you to a group, and it sorts nothing. In an industry group, a rep who tags themselves "Sales, Brightside Catering" gets asked the right questions by the right people.

What labels can't do

Labels sort chats, and that's all they do. These parts stay with you:

  • A label carries no date, so a chat can sit in Quote sent for three weeks without anything telling you.
  • There's nowhere for notes, so the headcount and the budget stay buried somewhere up the chat.
  • You can't see when a chat moved from one stage to the next, which hides the stage where your deals stall.
  • Each Business account keeps its own labels, so a team on three numbers has three sets and the manager sees none of them in one place.

You've outgrown labels when you find promises by scrolling, when Went quiet holds more chats than Quote sent, or when a teammate has to cover your chats while you're on leave. From then on, every person needs a next step and a date in a CRM, so the follow-up lands on the right day's list.

ActivityTracker's WhatsApp integration links the number you already use as a device. Its CRM keeps each chat on the client's record with the follow-up date, and its inbox has a Needs you filter for every one-to-one chat where the customer wrote last. It isn't one of WhatsApp's own apps. WhatsApp's linked devices page warns that "linking your device through unofficial apps or websites may put your account at risk." So ActivityTracker spaces out the messages your number starts on its own, and stops them if WhatsApp warns the number.

When a label can't tell you the day to follow up, ActivityTracker's CRM keeps each WhatsApp chat on the client's record with the follow-up date beside it.

See how the CRM works

What to do this week

Before your next call, make the seven stage labels and give one to every chat that's had a message in the last 30 days. Then open Quote sent, start with the oldest chat and send that one person a line about what they asked for. On Friday, give Went quiet the same 20 minutes.

Keep reading

Questions people ask

Sources

Label by the next step.

Then open Quote sent before anything else.

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