A hospitality staffing agency filled shifts by phoning down a list — for hours. We built a WhatsApp broadcast engine that offers each shift to qualified, available temps and books the first to tap Accept. Median fill time: 18 minutes.
Typical results
96%
Fill rate, up from 86%
4 hrs/day
Coordinator phone time eliminated
2x
Shift volume, same team
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
When a hotel needed three waiters for tonight, coordinators started dialing. Each shift took around two and a half hours of calls and callbacks, double-bookings crept in, and 14% of shifts went unfilled — billable work the agency simply lost. Evening and weekend requests were the hardest to cover exactly when clients needed them most.
Before and after
Time to fill a shift
−88%Unfilled shifts
−71%Shifts handled weekly
2×The automation
Client requests from email or the portal are parsed into structured shifts. Make filters the temp pool by skill, certification, availability and weekly hour limits, then broadcasts the shift over WhatsApp to everyone who qualifies. The first temp to tap Accept is booked instantly; everyone else is stood down, confirmations go to both the temp and the client, and the booking syncs into the roster and billing automatically.
How it works
- 01
Request lands
A client emails or submits the portal form; the shift is parsed into role, venue, time and rate.
- 02
Smart shortlist
The engine filters the temp pool by skill, certification, availability and weekly hour limits.
- 03
Broadcast
Matched temps get the shift on WhatsApp; the first to tap Accept is booked.
- 04
Everyone confirmed
Instant confirmations go to the temp and the client, and the rest of the list is stood down.
- 05
Straight to billing
The booking writes itself into the roster and the billing system — no retyping.
Starts from
- Client shift requests
- Temp pool with skills & availability
Delivers
- WhatsApp broadcast — first tap wins
- Confirmations to temp and client
- Roster synced to billing
The impact
Median fill time collapsed from two and a half hours to 18 minutes, and the fill rate climbed from 86% to 96%. The same coordination team now runs 420 shifts a week — double the old volume — with four hours of daily phone work gone and every booking already synced to billing.
Questions about this automation
How does the engine decide who receives a shift offer?
Each shift request is parsed into role, venue, time and rate. The engine then filters the temp pool by skill, certifications, availability and weekly hour limits, so only people who can legally and practically work the shift receive it on WhatsApp. Coordinators can adjust the filters per client.
What happens when several temps accept at the same time?
The first acceptance received books the shift and closes the offer. Everyone else who replies gets a message that the shift is already filled, and the rest of the list is stood down. The booked temp and the client both receive a confirmation, which prevents double bookings.
Which systems does the shift engine connect to?
It reads client requests from email and the portal form, uses the temp database with skills and availability, sends offers through the official WhatsApp API and writes each booking into the roster and billing system. It is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting with broadcasts.