With the WhatsApp Business API, you need to have a so-called “Customer Service Window” in order to communicate with your customers.
What is a Customer Care Window?
The Customer Care Window is a given time frame in which you can communicate freely with a given customer.
A Customer Care Window has a rolling duration of 24 hours, from the last message sent by the customer. This means that after your customer has sent you a message using WhatsApp, you have 24 hours to respond.
Replying or Initiating conversations outside a Customer Care Window
To start a new conversation with a customer using Whatsapp outside of an active Customer Service Window, or to follow up a previous conversation, you can also request a new Customer Care Window by sending a special Template Message to the customer. These have to be pre-approved by WhatsApp/Meta.
As default when you sign up for WhatsApp with Superagent, you will have the following default template:
Hi there 👋 We'd like to follow up on our previous conversation regarding {{1}}. Are you okay with this? <Sure>
{{1}} is a placeholder where you can insert whatever you’d like. When received by your customer, the message could look like this:
When the customer clicks “Sure”, or writes a custom reply, a Customer Service Window is created, and you can then communicate freely for 24 hours.
Can I add other Template Messages?
It’s possible to add additional template messages, depending on your needs. For example, if you regularly send order updates, booking confirmations, shipment tracking codes or similar to your customers, it’s absolutely possible to create Template Messages for these use cases.
Keep in mind, however, that Template Messages are subject to approval by WhatsApp/Meta, so the messages need to be in compliance with their terms and conditions.
Please reach out to [email protected] if you want to request additional Template Messages for your account.