To initiate a conversation with a customer, the customer should send a message or you must have to send a template message to the customer, which means that sending templates is the only way for you to initiate a conversation with a customer via WhatsApp business.
Before you can get started make sure you have setup your Meta business account and integrated it with Serviceform.
When creating WhatsApp message templates make sure to comply with the WhatsApp Business policies in order to avoid template rejections. Let's get started :
1. In the Dashboard, navigate to Settings -> Social Inbox -> WhatsApp and click the edit icon on the WhatsApp integration which you have created.
2. Click on Templates and create a template. You would be re-directed to the WhatsApp manager site (Login if required).
3. Click on Create template.
4. Select Marketing -> Custom, name your template, and select your preferred language. Click on Continue.
5. Enter your preferred text in Header, Body, and Footer and add buttons if required. Click on Submit once you are done and confirm the language.
The template message will be reviewed for approval, which would take up to 24 hours. Thereafter, you can start sending template messages to the customer.
The quality score would depend on the engagement and customer feedback, which means the template would be disabled if it has a poor quality rating.
Once the template messages are created, you can start to send them to the customers one by one or in bulk (Campaign).
Let's learn how to send template messages individually :
1. Head over to your Serviceform dashboard and click on Chat -> WhatsApp. Finally, click on Start chat.
2. Enter your customer's number and select the phone number from which you want to send the message. Click on Preview.
3. Preview the message and click on Send.
Once the template is sent, a new chat would appear in your Social inbox. You can send another template to the same customer by clicking on Send template message :
In this scenario, you will be able to join the conversation only if the customer sends a WhatsApp message before or after the template message is sent :
After having a conversation, if the customer does not send a message for 24 hours, you will have to initiate the conversation again by sending a template message and wait till the customer responds.
WhatsApp campaigns involves sending template message to a group of customers via WhatsApp at once.
With Serviceform's WhatsApp campaign tool, you can easily add your audience and send messages to them all at once with a few clicks.
Before getting started, make sure you have :
• Created WhatsApp template messages
In order to send messages in bulk, you will need to specify your audience by updating their contact details. Let's get started :
1. In your Serviceform dashboard, click on Campaigns -> Audience. Click on Create an Audience.
2. Name your audience list.
3. You can add contact information individually by clicking on Add person to list and enter the information manually.
4. You can also Import audience list by uploading a CSV document which has the contact information. It is recommended to use the CSV template to add your contacts.
5. Once you are done updating the contact information, click on Save audience.
6. Once the audience list is created, you can edit the audience list if required.
You can use WhatsApp campaigns to send template messages to the audience list which you have created before. Here is how you can do it :
1. Click on Campaigns and Create your first campaign.
2. Name your campaign, select WhatsApp under campaign type, select the audience list, and finally select the number (Optional)from which you want to send the template message.
3. Select your WhatsApp template message and the WhatsApp bot. Click on Save.
4. Navigate to the top of the current page and click on Send campaign.
5. Agree to the statement and click on Confirm.
An overview of the campaign's performance can be seen in the campaign dashboard :
In order to get a detailed report of the campaign's performance :
1. Click on the eye icon.
2. Click on Audience logs.
You will be able to check individual chat conversations of each person from your audience list by clicking on View chat :
The page will be redirected to the Serviceform social inbox. The customer's chat conversation be viewed and you can join the conversation if the customer has replied :
Great! Now you can start running WhatsApp campaigns along with WhatsApp bots to provide a more engaging experience to your customers.
The pricing structure of WhatsApp Meta is based on conversations (Not messages). A conversation window lasts for 24 hours.
A Conversation is created only when your business sends a template message/ free-form message and when it gets delivered. This behavior differs based on the type of template message used.
To keep it simple, refer to the conversation types along with some examples :
• Marketing - Product updates, discount offers, new feature announcements, etc.
• Utility - Payment reminders, delivery updates, opt-in confirmations, etc.
• Authentication - Account verification, recovery, and other requests to verify the identity.
• Service - Resolving customer inquiries, i.e. the service conversation is created when the customer initially sends a message and you join the conversation.
Note that except Service conversation, all other conversations can only be opened with the use of template messages.
You will be charged when you send template messages to your customers in the first instance, assuming that there is no other conversation window. Refer to this article to know more about the charges per template message.
The following are the instances when you will not be charged :
• When a customer sends a WhatsApp message in the first instance and you will be able to join the conversation and send free-form messages (Normal replies). In this scenario, a service conversation window is opened only if there are no other open conversations in any other category - marketing, utility, or authentication - and would last for 24 hours from the time you replied. You will be able to have 1,000 service conversations free of charge each month.
• When a customer sends a WhatsApp message via call to action buttons on Click to WhatsApp ad or Facebook pages using a mobile device and when you reply to the message (deliver) within 24 hours, a free entry point conversation is opened for 72 hours time period. Thus, from the time the message was delivered a conversation window is opened for 24 hours within which you can send free-form messages. Once this 24 hour conversation window is closed, a template message needs to be sent and customer must reply for you to join the conversation. Note that sending message templates within the free entry point - 72 hours - time period will be free of charge.
You need to add a payment method to your WhatsApp business platform in below scenarios.
1. To initiate any 'business conversation' (marketing, utility, or authentication)
2. For 'service conversations' that exceed 1,000 per month (up to 1,000 is free)
Refer this article to know more.
Note :
• You can customize the template messages by adding Media (Images, documents or videos) and buttons.
• Template name can consist of 512 characters (Maximum).
• Template content can consist of 1,024 characters (Maximum).
• Businesses which are not verified can create up to 250 template messages.
• Verified businesses with approved Business name (In Meta), which uses their business phone number at least for one of its WhatsApp business accounts can create up to 6,000 template messages.
• Make sure to get the customers' consent before sending campaign messages in order to comply with GDPR's policies and WhatsApp policies. Refer this article to know more.
For more information about WhatsApp templates, refer to this article.
Congratulations, you are all set now to use WhatsApp business with Serviceform.
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