Lynomia Chat is a **shared inbox for talking to customers**. Every message your business receives — on WhatsApp, on
your website, by email — arrives in one place, where your whole team can see it, answer it, and hand it to each other
without forwarding screenshots.

It is built around WhatsApp, because that is where customers in this region actually are.

## What you get

- **One inbox for the whole team.** No more one person holding the phone.
- **Context next to the conversation.** Who this customer is, what they have bought, what they asked last time.
- **A way to reach people on purpose.** Send an order update to one customer, or a message to a group of them.
- **A way to stop doing the same thing by hand.** Rules that route, reply, tag and assign while you sleep.

## What it is not

- **It is not a marketing blast tool.** WhatsApp decides what you may send and when, and sending the wrong thing
  costs you the channel. [The WhatsApp 24-hour window](the-whatsapp-24-hour-window) explains the rule everything else
  follows from.
- **It is not a CRM.** It knows your customers through their conversations and, if you connect a store, through their
  orders. It does not manage deals, quotes or pipelines.
- **It is not your store.** [Commerce](commerce-overview) reads from your store so an agent can see an order without
  leaving the conversation. It does not replace it.

## The five things to set up first

Do these in order. Each takes a few minutes, and each one makes the next one useful.

1. **[Set up your account](set-up-your-account)** — your business name, your timezone, your language.
2. **[Invite your team](invite-your-team)** — the people who will answer messages, and what each of them may do.
3. **[Connect your first channel](connect-your-first-channel)** — for most businesses this is WhatsApp.
4. **[Handle your first conversation](your-first-conversation)** — reply, assign, label, resolve.
5. **[Connect your store](commerce-overview)**, if you have one — so an agent can see what a customer ordered.

## Who can do what

Setting up an account, connecting channels and inviting people are **administrator** jobs. Answering conversations is
what an **agent** does. [Roles and permissions](roles-and-permissions) covers the difference, and what a custom role
can change.

## Which language?

Three different languages are involved, and it helps to keep them apart from the start:

| | What it is | Where you set it |
|---|---|---|
| **Your dashboard language** | what *you* read while working | your own profile |
| **Your account language** | the default for everyone in the business | account settings |
| **A WhatsApp template's language** | the language the *customer* receives | on the template itself |

They are independent. An Arabic-speaking agent can work in an Arabic dashboard and send an English template to an
English-speaking customer.

## Next

→ **[Set up your account](set-up-your-account)**