How to get Instagram enquiries into your CRM

A familiar picture for business in Uzbekistan: enquiries arrive in Direct, a manager replies from their phone, some conversations get lost, and only what somebody remembered to copy across by hand ends up in the CRM. The job is to make every enquiry get recorded automatically.

What's needed on the Instagram side

Automatic transfer requires a business account linked to a Facebook page and access to the Messenger API. A personal account can't be connected this way — that's the first constraint people trip over.

The second matters more: you can only reply automatically without restriction within 24 hours of the user's message. After that, only pre-approved templates. This shapes the flow: you can't chase a client a week later with an automated message.

What data should reach the CRM

• The conversation id and a link to the thread.

• The username and whatever contact details are available.

• The first message — it shows what the enquiry is about.

• The source: direct, comment, ad, story.

• The time of the enquiry — for measuring response speed.

The duplicate problem

The same person may message on Direct, then call, then fill in a form on the site. If every channel creates a new deal, the statistics break. A practical approach is to look for an existing contact by phone number or username, and decide on a new deal by elapsed time: an enquiry six months later probably is genuinely a new job.

What usually breaks

• The access token expires and the integration silently stops working. That needs monitoring, not hope.

• A manager replies straight from their phone, bypassing the system — the reply exists, but not in the CRM.

• Messages from ads are indistinguishable from organic ones, making ad performance impossible to assess.

A realistic expectation

You won't remove manual work from Direct entirely — some of the conversation will stay a live exchange. The integration's job is more modest and more useful: guarantee that no enquiry is lost and that each one has an owner and a next step.

If enquiries arrive through several channels and fall between them, we can build a single collection point that feeds the CRM.