WhatsApp API is amazing, but one of the trickiest things to understand and get around. One of the most basic questions after you set up the WhatsApp business API is:
How to send the first message to a customer?
How to send a message to a customer after the conversation window has expired?
WhatsApp's conversation window
WhatsApp's charge per conversation, not per individual message. Conversations are 24-hour message threads between you and your customers. They are opened and charged when messages you send to customers are delivered. The criteria that determine when a conversation is opened and how it is categorized is explained below.
Conversations are categorized with one of the following categories:
Marketing — Enables you to achieve a wide range of goals, from generating awareness to driving sales and retargeting customers. Examples include new product, service, or feature announcements, targeted promotions/offers, and cart abandonment reminders.
Utility — Enables you to follow-up on user actions or requests. Examples include opt-in confirmation, order/delivery management (e.g., delivery update); account updates or alerts (e.g., payment reminder); or feedback surveys.
Authentication — Enables you to authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges).
Service — Enables you to resolve customer inquiries.
Marketing, utility, and authentication conversations can only be opened with template messages. Service conversations can only be opened with free-form messages. See Opening Conversations below.
Easiest way to start a conversation with a customer on WhatsApp
Create a marketing template with the following details
Template Name: initiate_conversation_whatsapp
Template Category: Marketing
Header Type: Text
Language: Whatever you prefer :)
Header Text: Hey, we'd like to send you a message
Body: Greetings {{1}}, we'd like to send you a message. Please use the buttons below if you wish to receive.
Quick Reply Button: Sure
Submit the template and wait for approval. Usually takes a minute or two.
Head to the contact you want to message
You can also create a contact, if they're not in your database.
Fun fact: When you install Spur & connect WhatsApp. All your contacts from Shopify is synced with Spur automatically!
Create contact if needed
Now let's head to the chat and send our first message!
When you open the chat for this:
Select the initiate_conversation_whatsapp template:
Ticketing in Spur
After hitting send you'll also notice that a ticket was created. This was done because you manuallly sent a message that requires human intervention. The automation for this customer will be paused for the next hour, you can further extend this by clicking the "+Add Delay" button as well.
To learn more about our shared inbox, checkout this guide.
What the customer would see (Customer's POV)
This is how the conversation on WhatsApp would look like, of course, the window only opens if the customer presses the button! You can modify the template language as per your liking.
Now you can send your customer whatever you want for the next 24 hours :)
Conclusion
Why is this process so lengthy compared to the WhatsApp app?
We understand, this process is a bit lengthy, but conversation windows enable WhatsApp to reduce spam and not become like SMS.