Companies can initiate a customer interaction with notifications like appointment reminders, shipping confirmations or delivery tracking information.
When you want to start communicating with an end user, you must set up message templates. When sending message templates, they can be personalized, translated and allow for minimal variable text through programmable variables. Every message template must be approved by WhatsApp before it can be used. Text, images and files (PDFs) are available to be used in message templates.
Attempting to send a non-approved message will be refused by WhatsApp, resulting in a delivery failure.
Advertising, marketing, and promotional messages are not permitted by WhatsApp, as per their Business Policy. These include offering coupon codes or free gifts, up selling, cold call messages, sending surveys or polls, as well as the inclusion of certain words or phrases that could make the template promotional.
Link: WhatsApp Business Policy
Each time an end user sends a message to a WhatsApp Business Account, the business has a 24 hour “support window” to reply to the end user with a message. Enterprises are free to personalize and design the communication without any approval needed or third party editing. Support windows are applicable for customer service, feedback, surveys, and more.
WhatsApp message templates are specific message formats that businesses use to send out notifications, alerts, and customer care messages to people who have opted-in to receive them. These may include appointment reminders, shipping information, issue resolutions, payment updates, and more.
When creating a message template, you must add the following:
WhatsApp allows for basic formatting in message templates. To format a message or a part of a message, use the formatting symbols described in this table.
| Formatting | Description | Symbol | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italic text | Italicize your message with an underscore on both sides of the text | _text_ | Welcome to _tyntec_ |
| Bold text | Place an asterisk on both sides of the text | *text* | Your total is EUR *19.90* |
| Struck through text | To strikethrough your message, place a tilde on both sides of the text | ~text~ | This is ~better~ best! |
| Monospace text / code | Place three backticks on both sides of the text | ```text``` | ```print 'Hello World';``` |
When submitting a text-based message template, keep in mind that you need to contain the full body of the message. There are options to add unique parameters or variables, represented as placeholders, to personalize messages to your customers.
Message templates use numbered placeholders '{{x}}' for each variable in the message. Each variable can be replaced with text that contains letters, digits, special characters and/or spaces. Each message template needs to contain at least one parameter.
Here is an example of the full body of a message:
Hi Joey! Thanks for starting your personal training plan. We’ll send you a weekly update with your new schedule. You can log in online using your training ID 123456. Stay fit!
Hi {{1}}! Thanks for starting your personal training plan. We’ll send you a *{{2}}* *update* with your new schedule. You can log in online using your training ID {{3}}. Stay fit!
Hi Judy! Thanks for placing an order at FabShoes. Your order 786564, for a total of EUR 45.00, is confirmed. The expected delivery date is May 26th.
Hi {{1}}! Thanks for placing an order at FabShoes. Your order {{2}}, for a total of EUR {{3}}, is confirmed. The expected delivery is {{4}}.
Please note: the actual content of a variable can’t contain the following:
Last but not least, WhatsApp will not approve templates with floating parameters (i.e. lines with just parameters and no texts). Please surround the parameters with information so it’s clear what kind of data is inserted. In the below, we’re referring to {{3}} and {{4}} as the floating parameters.
Example:
To input actual variables into a Message Template, you'll need to send parameter values instead of sending the full message.
For the following example Message Template:
Hi {{1}}! Thanks for placing an order at FabShoes. Your order {{2}}, for a total of EUR {{3}}, is confirmed. The expected delivery is {{4}}.
curl –XPOST https://api.tyntec.com/messaging/v1/chat/messages\ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -H 'Accept: application/json' \ -H 'apikey: API_KEY' \ -d '{ "to": "+123234234", "channels": [ "whatsapp" ], "whatsapp": { "from": 545345345, "contentType": "template", "template": { "templateId" : "order_confirmation", "language" : { "policy" : "deterministic", "code" : "en" }, "parameters" : { "default" : "Ben", "default" : "2019-0000001", "default" : "600.00", "default" : "2019-06-01" } } } }'
{ "messageId": "77185196-664a-43ec-b14a-fe97036c697f", "acceptedAt": "2019-05-17T09:45:00Z" }
With WhatsApp, you can expand text-based message templates with images and documents (such as PDFs) that can be sent as a company-initiated message. These are “media message templates”.
Initially, media messages were allowed only during the “support window”, which required users to request / reply to a message in order to receive media-based files, such as boarding passes, monthly statements and order confirmations. As companies need to anticipate customers’ needs for faster and improved customer journeys, this feature allows businesses to use rich media from the first touchpoint on WhatsApp.
Creating your media message template follows the same principle of text-based message templates. They also need to be submitted and approved by WhatsApp prior to being used. You can add your media message templates in our Setup your Message Templates form.
When adding the media message template, you will need to select the “message template type” (“standard message template” or “media message template”). Once you have selected “media message template”, new fields will pop up:
curl -X POST \ https://api.tyntec.com/chat-api/v2/messages \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -H 'apikey: <API KEY>' \ -d '{ "to": "+123214234234", "channels": ["whatsapp"], "whatsapp": { "from" : "+4923147790813", "template": { "templateId": "qr_code", "language": { "policy": "deterministic", "code": "en" }, "components": [ { "type": "header", "parameters" : [ { "type": "media", "media": { "type": "image", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Sample_EPC_QR_code.png" } } ] }, { "type" : "body", "parameters": [ { "type": "text", "text": "Peter" }, { "type": "text", "text": "tyntec post box" } ] } ]}, "contentType": "template" } }'
curl -X POST \ https://api.tyntec.com/chat-api/v2/messages \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -H 'apikey: <API KEY>' \ -d '{ "to": "+123214234234", "channels": ["whatsapp"], "whatsapp": { "from" : "+4923147790813", "template": { "templateId": "checkin_voucher", "language": { "policy": "deterministic", "code": "en" }, "components": [ { "type": "header", "parameters" : [ { "type": "media", "media": { "type": "document", "url": "https://s1.q4cdn.com/806093406/files/doc_downloads/test.pdf", "filename" : "Voucher" } } ] }, { "type" : "body", "parameters": [ { "type": "text", "text": "Peter" }, { "type": "text", "text": "tyntec demo motel" } ] } ]}, "contentType": "template" } }' With the response { "messageId": "b19f2243-0fb8-41d7-be10-1cd7914b6e43" }
As you already know, when a customer replies to one of your messages, a 24-hour “customer service window” opens, and during that time, communication with that customer is not ruled by message templates. You can exchange messages with that customer without needing to use WhatsApp-approved message templates.
There may be cases, especially when you’re using WhatsApp for customer service, that you need more than 24 hours to process an inquiry or answer a question. When this happens, you might need to send a message template to re-engage the affected customer, prompting him or her to answer it, thereby activating the “support window” again.
To handle a situation like this, you might consider creating template messages like this one:
“We have updates regarding your ticket {{1}}. Please respond back if you’d like to continue support.”
“I'm sorry that I wasn't able to respond to your concerns yesterday, but I’m happy to assist you now. If you’d like to continue this discussion, please reply with ‘yes’”
“I was able to do some follow-up based on our previous conversation, and I’ve found the answer to your question about our refund policy. If you’d like to continue our conversation, please say ‘yes’”
For companies that want to use WhatsApp for notifications only, and therefore not expanding to customer service, it’s possible to disable the Chat function. Disabling this function means dropping the incoming messages, which can be done by:
Please be aware that tyntec doesn’t store incoming messages for future retrieval, so in case there is no webhook defined, the messages can't be queried from our system.
