How to create Follow-up Automatic Replies on WhatsApp
Automatic replies are a useful Wassenger feature that allows you to respond automatically to customers who contact your WhatsApp number in different scenarios. Today we’ll show you how to create a follow-up automatic reply message on WhatsApp
Note: to properly use Wassenger automatic replies, please disable automatic replies in your WhatsApp Business app. This will prevent duplicate messages.
👉 In case you need inspiration to compose your automatic replies, make sure you check this article.
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Requirements
- Connect your WhatsApp number to Wassenger: free trial available
Where to find the automatic replies tool on Wassenger
- In the dashboard, click on the settings icon of the number where you want to use the automatic replies.
- By clicking on each section title, you can open or close the section itself.
- On the right side of the automatic replies title bars, you can find a switch icon that allows you to activate and deactivate each type of automatic reply quickly. The switch is also useful to see rapidly what automatic replies are currently active at a glance.
How to configure a follow-up message
- Click on the “Follow-up message” title bar to display the section and compose your message as described above in the “How to configure automatic follow-up message” paragraph.
- Optionally, select the recipients category that can receive the automatic message.
- Optionally exclude sending automatic messages to chats based on their internal state:
- 3.1 Exclude pending chats: exclude all pending chats that were not replied to by anyone in your team.
- 3.2 Exclude resolved chats: exclude all chats that were resolved.
- 3.3 Exclude assigned chats: exclude all chats that were assigned to a team member. - Optionally, choose one or more labels that will define the list of recipients. The contacts that have these labels applied will receive the follow-up message. Note: if one contact has more than one label, they will receive only 1 message.
- Determine how much time after the last exchanged message you want the automatic follow-up message to be sent.
- Exclude specific contacts from the list of recipients that you have defined earlier by typing the complete phone number including the country code:
+12345678901. - If you want to see how your message looks like for your customers, you can click on “Send test message” and you will receive it to your phone number.
Note: no matter what you have defined as the recipients list of the message, you will be the only one to receive the test message. - Optionally, define the labels to add to chats that were automatically replied to. This may help you better categorize and identify chats that were followed up.
- Click on “Enable follow-up message” to activate this specific automatic reply.
Important! Follow-up messages are only available in Business and Enterprise plans. Find more information here.
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FAQs about automatic replies
How can I see whether a message in a chat has been written by a person in my team or it’s an automatic reply?
Within the chat, an automatic reply message is marked with a special icon representing a robot
If a new chat comes in and it’s replied automatically, will it be marked as read and answered?
No, the new chat that comes in and gets an automatic reply will be marked as not read and it will show that it contains new messages that need your team’s attention.
Are automatic replies a chatbot?
Not exactly, although they serve the similar purpose of automating the messages that a business sends to a customer in a web chat session, an automatic reply is limited to just one message in one of the specific situations described above, that is: to welcome customers, to inform that the customer’s message has reached the business outside of their support hours, and to follow up with a previous conversation.
Automatic replies do not need a complicated dialogue flow and the customer understands that they are receiving an automatic message (that is not a personalized one) for a specific and limited reason.
How does it differ from the WhatsApp Business built-in tool?
Firstly, WhatsApp Business has only two kinds of automatic replies: greetings and away messages. Our automatic replies tool offers follow-up messages as well, which are a potent asset for engaging with customers even after a conversation.
Secondly, our tool offers an uncomplicated yet precise interface to define with a much higher level of detail the recipient list and the timing of your automatic messages.
Additionally, unlike WhatsApp Business, with Wassenger you can also conveniently include images in your automatic replies.
