Telegram Business Account

What it is

Telegram Business Account — Secretary Mode in Telegram's own terms — lets you connect a bot to a business owner's personal account. The bot receives messages from the owner's private chats with customers and, where the owner has granted the right, replies on their behalf.

The key difference from an ordinary bot: the customer writes to you, not to the bot, and sees the reply arrive from your account. To them it looks like a normal private conversation with a person.

In Botconsole this is not a separate channel but a mode of an existing Telegram connection — the "Business Account" tab in the connection settings.

What it is for

Secretary Mode closes the gap between "the owner's personal account" and "a bot with automation". Typical jobs:

• Answering outside working hours. You handle the day, the scenario covers nights and weekends.
• First-line qualification. The bot clarifies the task, budget and city; you join a conversation that is already warm.
• Routine questions. Prices, address, opening hours, delivery terms — answered instantly.
• One conversation history. Every private dialog lands in the Chats section alongside bot, widget and other channels.
• Nothing is lost. A customer's message is recorded in the CRM even if you never got to it.

This is not a broadcasting tool. Telegram only lets you reply to people who wrote to you first — see the limits below.

How to set it up in Telegram

Step 1. Enable Secretary Mode for the bot

1. Open @BotFather.
2. /mybots → pick your bot → Bot Settings → Secretary Mode.
3. Turn it on.

Without this step Telegram refuses to attach the bot to a business account and returns an error.

Step 2. Connect the bot to your account

1. In Telegram: My Profile → Chat Automation.
2. Find your bot by @username and add it.
3. Choose which chats the bot may access:
   • new or existing conversations;
   • contacts or non-contacts;
   • specific exclusions for individual chats.
4. Grant the rights:

Botconsole never asks for access to your profile, gifts, Stars or stories — none of that is needed to serve customers.

You can change the rights and the chat list at any time on the same screen. It is also where you can pause the bot in one specific conversation without disconnecting it entirely.

How to set it up in Botconsole

Open Bots → your bot → Settings → the Telegram connection → the Business Account tab.

Step 1. Allow the account

Technically anyone on Telegram can attach your bot to their own business account. A connection is therefore recorded but inert until you allow it.

• Your own account is allowed automatically — it is matched against the Telegram identity linked to your Botconsole profile.
• Any other account appears in the "Connection" card as "Awaiting approval". Until you press Allow, its messages are not processed and never reach your chats.
• Advanced settings include an "Allowed accounts" field — a list of @logins or numeric Telegram IDs that are approved on sight. Useful for agencies running several client accounts.

If your Botconsole profile has no Telegram linked, your own connection will also queue for approval — just press Allow.

Step 2. Prepare the scenario

A business account answers with its own scenario, not the bot's main one. That is deliberate: private chats have no bot commands and no working buttons, so the logic is built differently.

1. In the Scenario field click + Create a scenario — a "Business scenario" is created and the constructor opens.
2. Build the logic. Lean on text: a greeting, conditions on message text, AI replies, handover to a human.
3. Press Publish. An unpublished scenario never runs.
4. Return to the tab and press Save.

In the constructor such a scenario carries a blue BA badge.

Publishing a BA scenario does not replace the bot's main scenario and does not change the command menu — ordinary bot dialogs keep working exactly as before.

Step 3. Enable and configure

Flip Enable business account, then set the core options:

Advanced settings cover auto-resume, mark-as-read, scenario-error behaviour and allowed accounts.

Working hours come from the bot's Business Profile, along with breaks, holidays and timezone. There is deliberately no second schedule here — two of them would drift apart. If no hours are set, the bot answers around the clock and the tab says so.

Human takeover

The most important setting. Without it you get this:

1. You answer the customer yourself.
2. The customer sends a follow-up.
3. The bot cuts in and answers over you.

With Stop the bot in this dialog, your reply typed directly in Telegram halts automation for that conversation and marks the dialog as handed over. You can return it to the bot manually in Chats, or automatically after 30 minutes, 2 hours or 24 hours.

Replying from the Chats section behaves the same way: the dialog is claimed and the bot goes quiet in it.

How it differs from talking to the bot directly

Message limits in Secretary Mode

• 24-hour window. You may only reply in a private chat where the customer wrote to you within the last 24 hours. You cannot start a conversation.
• One bot per account. Telegram allows a single business bot per account.
• Private chats only. Groups and channels are not supported.
• Button presses are not processed. Inline buttons do render in a business chat, but tapping one neither runs the scenario nor counts as a reply. Build BA scenarios around text.
• No broadcasts or auto-messages. Business contacts are excluded from both: the person wrote to the owner, they did not subscribe to a bot. Using this channel for cold outreach is against Telegram's rules.
• Rights can be revoked. The account owner can change rights or pause the bot in a given dialog at any time. If the reply right is withdrawn, the tab shows a warning.
• Trial period. On the free plan a business account works for 30 days from the bot's creation date. The remaining days appear next to "Business Account" in amber, turn red when spent, and message processing stops.

Jumping from a business chat into the bot

In every managed chat Telegram shows the owner a Manage Bot action bar. Tapping it opens the bot and sends /start bizChat<id>, where <id> identifies the customer from that conversation.

Botconsole recognises the jump and adds a system note — "Arrived from the private chat with …" — naming the customer. The name is clickable and opens their contact card.

Telegram's rules

Running bots on Telegram is governed by the Telegram Bot Developer Terms of Service. For business accounts Section 5.4 matters in particular — read it before you launch.

Troubleshooting

Customers get no replies. Check in order: Business Mode is on in @BotFather; the account is allowed on the tab; the "Reply" right is granted; a scenario is selected and published; the trial has not expired; the customer wrote within the last 24 hours.

The bot answers over me. "After the owner replies" is set to "Keep replying". Switch it to "Stop the bot in this dialog".

The bot is silent although everything is on. If "Working hours only" is selected but the Business Profile has no hours set, check the warning on the tab.

Someone else's account attached my bot. That is expected: the connection is recorded but inert. Do not press Allow unless you recognise the account.