The Ultimate WhatsApp Business API Guide

With the API, you can:

• Leverage WhatsApp through your company’s infrastructure and access via custom UI or third-party interface, e.g., CRM.
• Connect thousands of agents as well as bots to interact with customers programmatically and manually.
• Option to verify account (green checkmark).
• Integrate with numerous back-end systems such as CRM and marketing automation platforms.

How do companies leverage WhatsApp? Businesses can leverage WhatsApp throughout the customer journey:

• Discovery: promotional messages, guided shopping, product recommendations, inbound marketing

• Purchase: payment links, order confirmation, and fulfillment

• Customer retention: service, loyalty, feedback, upselling.

Check essential use cases here 🌟

Business-initiated notifications

• Order confirmations
• Purchase receipts
• Delivery notifications
• Delivery tracking

User-initiated

• Return or refund request
• Order update or change
• Product availability request
• Billing or product service inquiry

Business-initiated

• Fee notice
• Reaching credit limit alert
• Two-factor authentication
• Appointment reminder
• Transaction approval
• Policy change

User-initiated

• Statement request
• Loan balance inquiry
• Credit limit inquiry
• Lost/stolen card reporting
• Account-related service request

The Business Policy provides guidance related to the user experience and main elements of the WhatsApp Business Profile and messaging.
 

• Business profile: a company commits to maintaining its WhatsApp Business profile with accurate and up-to-date contact information. 
• Opt-in: To initiate a WhatsApp message to a person, you must first receive their opt-in permission. See Opt-in Tutorial for more information.
• Business initiated chats: You may only initiate chats via approved message templates. 
• User-initiated chats: If a person initiates a chat with you, you may continue that conversation via WhatsApp for up to 24 hours after the last message sent to you by that person without charge or message templates. 
• Automation: You must have direct escalation paths to human agents in case automation is used. 
• Opt-outs: You must respect all requests by a person to block, discontinue, or otherwise opt-out of communications from you via WhatsApp. 

The Commerce Policy provides guidance related to terms, taxes, transaction processing, and what industries are allowed or forbidden to use WhatsApp.

When a user initiates a message (or responds to company-initiated messages), the 24-hour support window opens. During this time, a company can communicate with the user without an approved message template or opt-in.

Ideal for:

• Customer service
• Clienteling
• Other high interaction use cases. 

Used by a company to initiate conversations with users, message templates are preformatted, non-editable messages reviewed and approved by WhatsApp.

Ideal for:

• Notifications, e.g., appointment reminders, shipping updates
• Non-transactional, e.g., promotional messages
• Customer re-engagement, follow-ups.

 Let’s get down to the specifics of message templates in the next section! 💬💬💬

#2 - Can I send a message template with promotional content?

It depends on the country where the brand is based. Non-transactional messages (aka marketing) are available for selected countries. The submission process is the same as any other message template. 

#3 - How can I create a message template?

Get to know the elements message templates are composed of: 

• For text-only message templates, all you need is body text. 
• For media message templates, you can use all the elements at your disposal, including a header caption for your media, footer text, and interactive buttons. 

#4 - Is there anything else I should know about creating media message templates?

Yes! In addition to requiring approval for your message template by sending a sample of your media component, you need to integrate a code to enable the content types you wish to send a media message template. 

#5 - How can I submit my message templates for approval? 

You can use the following options:

• Message Template API: self-service API to get current and request new templates, etc. It takes ca. 15 minutes for approval. Check the API 
• Message Template Manager on tyntec's customer portal (my.tyntec.com): web interface to submit and manage Message Templates. It may take 2-3 business days for approval. Check instructions

Your WhatsApp business account Quality Rating shows the message quality your customers received in the past 24 hours. Your phone number status can be: 

• Pending: Your phone number hasn't been approved yet.
• Connected: Your phone number is online and functioning normally.
• Offline: Your phone number is currently not reachable.

Under the Quality Rating column, there are three different quality states:

• Green: High quality
• Yellow: Medium quality
• Red: Low quality

Suppose your Quality Rating reaches a low state or your phone number status changes. In that case, you will receive an email and notification in Business Manager as a warning, and your status will change to Flagged or Restricted.

• Flagged status occurs when the quality rating reaches a low state. If the message quality improves to a high or medium state and maintains this for 7 days, your status will return to Connected. If the quality rating doesn't improve, your status will still return to Connected, but you'll be placed in a lower messaging limit tier.
• Restricted status occurs when you reach your messaging limit. During a Restricted phase, you can’t send any notification messages until the 24-hour window is reset. You can still respond to any messages customers initiate.

These ratings indicate how WhatsApp views your business’ conversation quality. To avoid getting a number blocked or being reported by contacts, companies have to ensure they are sending only high-quality Message Templates.

When blocked, your phone number quality rating will drop from high (green) to medium (yellow) or low (red). Consequently, your phone number will be moved to a Flagged status when your number quality rating is low (red).

Once it improves to medium or high in 7 days, your phone number status will return to Connected. If your quality rating does not improve in 7 days, WhatsApp will still reinstate your status to Connected but impose a lower messaging limit on your number.

Messaging limits define how many unique users your business can send messages to daily.

In summary, WhatsApp imposes three tiers of messaging limits on businesses:

• Starts - Tier 1: Allows your business to send messages to 1K unique contacts in a rolling 24-hour period.
• Then - Tier 2: Allows your business to send messages to 10K unique contacts in a rolling 24-hour period.
• Finally - Tier 3: Allows your business to send messages to 100K unique contacts in a rolling 24-hour period.

Note that the messaging limit does NOT:

• Limit the number of messages your business can send, just the number of users you are trying to message. 
• Apply to messages sent in response to a user-initiated message within 24 hours.

Note that businesses can upgrade their phone number to the next tier if their quality rating is not low.

If a client reaches the daily messaging limit, the client will receive error code 471 when attempting to send a message template.

As stated in the Business Policy, a company can initiate a WhatsApp message only to a person that has opted-in (or given permission to receive a message). 

Follow the Opt-In guideline:

✔ Communicate the value of receiving essential updates on WhatsApp.

✔ Be explicit about the types of messages a customer is opting into.

✔ Collect an active opt-in (customer must actively show their consent by entering/editing a phone number or checking a box)

✔ Opt-ins can be obtained via SMS, website form, in a WhatsApp thread, etc.

WhatsApp requires that companies automating conversations provide human escalation options to the user. Some acceptable escalation methods include human agent handoff, phone number, email, web support form, and prompting in-store visits. However, indirect channels such as social media, a help center webpage, or a link to an app do not meet this requirement.

How WhatsApp enforces this policy:

• Businesses without a valid human escalation path may receive a low (red) phone number quality rating.
• Enforcement has started with clients that send less than 1,000 notifications but will expand to all clients in December.
• If you do not create a valid human escalation path after receiving our notice, we may lower the messaging limit for that business phone number.

If your business number is flagged for not having a human escalation path, you will be advised by email and a notification from the Business Manager.

In-the-know companies are ready to leverage WhatsApp and need a strategy to let their customers know this new channel is available for every step of the customer journey. From conversation starter buttons on their website to product packaging in local supermarkets, companies can get creative about letting their customers know that they can use WhatsApp to converse with them.

Here are the main strategies to increase your WhatsApp presence:

#1 – Organic entry points: social media

Add a persistent click-to-chat link on social media, enabling users to quickly get in touch via WhatsApp without getting lost in Stories.

#2 – Organic entry points: website

The easier it is to find an entry point into WhatsApp on a website, the easier it is to start a conversation. Tapping a link or scanning a QR code is faster and easier than manually typing in a phone number.

The more prominent the placement, the more likely people will choose WhatsApp to engage with your business.

Deep links allow the business to trigger different chatbot responses or connect to otherteams to provide additional context to a conversation.

#3 – Paid entry points: sponsored posts on Instagram & Facebook

Reach users outside of a business’ own/organic properties to generate leads. With one tap on the “Send Message” button, the user will open a conversation on WhatsApp.

The experience in WhatsApp needs to offer benefits of messaging—there needs to be a reason to take users out of Facebook and into messaging. Example: Bot that will ask customer questions to make a personalized product recommendation then.

#4 – Paid entry points: packaging

Users scan the QR to connect without entering the number into their device, enabling n easy offline access. Because contacting a brand via WhatsApp might be new to some users, including the phone number alongside the QR code is recommended.

You can use this entry point to collect feedback on a product, share further information about the benefits of its usage, etc.

Option #1 – with Conversations Inbox

Try out WhatsApp with the Conversations Inbox for 30-days – for free. Also included: 1,500 complimentary WhatsApp messages. Start here.

Option #2 – with WhatsApp API

Get your live WhatsApp Business Profile and enjoy 1,500 complimentary other teamsmessages to test. Create account.