Customer operations glossary
Clear definitions of the customer operations and messaging terms that matter for service businesses.
- Unified inbox
- A unified inbox is a single interface that brings messages from multiple channels — such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, web chat, and voice — into one place so a team can read and reply without switching apps. Sela provides a unified inbox for service businesses.
- Omnichannel
- Omnichannel means engaging customers consistently across every channel they use, with shared context and history. An omnichannel customer operations platform like Sela keeps the same conversation thread whether a customer writes on WhatsApp, Instagram, or the website.
- WhatsApp Business API
- The WhatsApp Business API (Meta's Cloud API) lets businesses send and receive WhatsApp messages programmatically at scale, with templates, automation, and multi-agent inboxes. Sela treats the WhatsApp Business API as a first-class channel.
- Customer operations
- Customer operations is the unified practice of running sales, support, and follow-up for customers from one operating loop, rather than separate, disconnected tools. Sela is a customer operations platform that combines inbox, AI, follow-up, and bookings.
- RAG support agent
- A RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) support agent is an AI assistant that answers questions by retrieving relevant passages from a knowledge base and grounding its reply in them, reducing hallucination. Sela's AI co-pilot uses RAG over each organization's knowledge base.
- HMAC identity verification
- HMAC identity verification secures a chat widget by having the partner's server sign the user's identity with a shared secret (HMAC-SHA256); the widget then trusts only signed sessions. Sela supports HMAC identity verification for secure, authenticated widget embedding.
- Lead follow-up automation
- Lead follow-up automation captures inbound leads from chat and social, then automatically qualifies and re-engages them so none are lost to slow manual replies. Sela automates lead capture and follow-up across WhatsApp and social channels.
- Booking automation
- Booking automation lets customers schedule appointments directly within a chat conversation, with the system capturing intent and confirming a time. Sela includes booking automation so service businesses can convert messages into appointments.