If yourWhatsApp account has been added to Zendesk Support, you can communicate with end users about support requests using WhatsApp messages. This articles details important information about working with WhatsApp tickets, including the WhatsApp 24-hour rule for replies.
For more information about handling social messaging tickets, seeUsing social messaging channels.
This articles includes these sections:
Understanding how the WhatsApp channel works
If you are working WhatsApp tickets, you should understand how the channel works.
You can’t use the WhatsApp channel to do the following:
- Send or receive WhatsApp phone calls.
- Send messages proactively to end users through WhatsApp.
WhatsApp has certain rules that prevent us from making proactive messaging possible. We refer to this as theWhatsApp 24-hour rule.
The following rules apply to the WhatsApp channel:
- TheWhatsApp 24-hour ruleaffects whether the end user receives your replies. It’s very important that you review the information about how this works.
- If the WhatsApp 24-hour rule hasn’t been observed, the reply fails and is not delivered to the end user. Error messages about any failures display in the upper-right portion of the agent interface and in the Events log.
- Macros work as long as WhatsApp 24-hour rule is observed.
- There aretriggers and automations that affect WhatsApp tickets. Check with your administrator to see if your company is using these.
- Pictures and file attachments are allowed.
- If you have set up social messaging, credit card numbers are automatically redacted from WhatsApp and other social messaging tickets, even if automatic ticket redaction isn't enabled in your account. You can disable credit card redaction in this case using theUpdate App API.
About the WhatsApp 24-hour rule for outbound marketing communication
在你回复WhatsApp票,进口ant to understand how replies are affected by WhatsApp’s 24-hour rule. This is a WhatsApp rule (not a Zendesk rule) that applies to all WhatsApp accounts (seethis article from WhatsApp).
This rule states that:
- You have 24 hours from when the end user sent the message via WhatsApp to reply to that message. After that, you can’t reply.
- You can only send outbound business initiated messages (marketing, reminders, and the like) to customers who have opted-in. Business are required to use a pre-approved message template for business initiated messages. More information about bypassing the 24-hour rulehere.
This means the following:
- The starting point for the 24-hour window is when the end user sent the message from WhatsApp. It’s not when the message was received by Support and the ticket was created, for example.
- If you fail to reply within the 24-hour window, you can’t reply to the end user until the end user sends another message, reopening the 24-hour window. The 24-hour period restarts every time the end user sends a message.
- If you reply after 24 hours, the reply is still added to the ticket and appears in the ticket interface, but the end user doesn’t actually receive the reply (meaning a reply in WhatsApp or an email ticket notification).
Error messages about the failure display in the upper-right portion of the agent interface and in the Events log.
- If you don’t reply within 24 hours, it may be difficult to reconnect with the end user. If this happens, you may want to ask your admin about whether your company uses the (paid) templated messages feature in WhatsApp.
- Messagessent automatically through the auto-respondermeet the criteria for WhatsApp's 24-hour response times.
The end user experience on mobile devices
In WhatsApp, a reply is called amessageand achatis a series of messages to a single contact or group.
It’s important to know that if an end user forwards a single message from a chat to your WhatsApp phone number, only that message is forwarded to your Support account. You do not receive all of the earlier messages and attachments in the chat, but your end user may incorrectly assume that you do.
Here’s an example. This is what happens when an end user forwards a message on an iPhone:
- The end user taps on a single message in a chat and choosesForward.
- The end user is prompted to choose a contact.
This can be an individual contact or an existing chat with an individual or group.
- The end user selects your WhatsApp phone number.
If the end user has never had a chat with you before, a new chat is created and immediately opens. The forwarded message appears at the top.
If the end user has chatted with you before, your previous chat opens. This chat includes all of the messages the end user has sent to your WhatsApp phone number. The forwarded message appears in the chat.
Bypassing the 24-hour rule
If you have a Sunshine Conversations license, you can bypass the WhatsApp 24-hour rule.
With the Sunshine Conversations license, accounts can set up and send WhatsApp templated messages. See therules about WhatsApp templated messages.
You can use these messages to follow up and to re-engage the customer, in case the issue has not been resolved.
- 代理将会重返他们的结局ers by sending templated messages, even after 24 hours of the last end user response.
- Account should create shortcuts / macros withSunCo shorthandfor templated messages.
- If the message is not a WhatsApp templated message, there will be a delivery failure indication.
Known limitations
- There will be no check in the editor to verify if the message is a pre-verified templated message or not. Message delivery fails if the message is not a WhatsApp templated message and general delivery failure error is displayed.
- Sending templated messages using Automation is not supported.
14 Comments
Hello,
Is there a possibility to convert a WhatsApp ticket to an email one, merging all the previous conversations, if, for example, we need to escalate the customer's query to another department?
Many thanks in advance
Hi Ksenia,
If there's an email address added to requester's user profile, then you should see the option to switch to and reply via email. Just click on the 'Email only' button on top of the comment box/composer.
About the merging of tickets, you'll need tomanually mergeother requests into a ticket, and then just continue the conversation through the email ticket thread.
@...thank you so much, Gab. Appreciate the response. Just another question, if I may please, when a whats app ticket comes through and an agent picks up the query and responds to the customer within 24 hours, the ticket will be automatically assigned to a said agent. Quite often our response will be around getting more information from the customer in order to help them further. So when, for example, the customer responds back a few days later, will the response come through off the back of the originally raised ticket? and in that case will the ticket be by a default assigned to the first agent? If the case is there an option for an agent to un assign themselves from the ticket to ensure other agents will pick up the query in a prompt manner and not assume the first agent still owns the query? Apologies for a long winded query, please reach out if needing further clarification. Many thanks in advance
Hi Ksenia,
The end user will be able to reply to the same ticket thread even after the 24 hour window. And yes, the agent will remain as the assignee unless you change the ticket assignee. You can reassign the WhatsApp ticket to a group or another agent either manually or via triggers or automations. For example, if a WhatsApp ticket hasn't been updated after 24 hours, you can have an automation run and assign the ticket back to the group so that it will be listed again under the groups's unassigned queue/view. You can refer to this section to see the conditions that you can use for WhatsApp tickets when building views, triggers and automations:Adjusting views and business rules for WhatsApp tickets.
Hi,
is the agent reply on whatssap consider as public comment and calculated as First time reply.
I was an admin. I have difficulities to see average as Fist time reply report as all was got it no reply bracket.
thank you
Unfortunately, FRT is not available for whatsapp yet, but there is an ongoing Beta for social messaging FRT. If you are interested, you can initiate aconversationwith us to opt in.
May I please confirm if we've set up a auto-responder to Whatsapp. Which the auto-reply will treat it as the first reply and the whatsapp message will not be applied to the 24 hours rule?
In regards to your question, the 24hr rule will still apply. But with the help of the autoresponder, it will count as a reply on the ticket.
Thank you!
Kind regards,
So if there is auto-responder setup for weekend, agents can still followup the chat on Monday right?
Since the 24hr rule will still apply even if there's an autoresponder set up,If you fail to reply within the 24-hour window, you can’t reply to the end-user until the end-user sends another message, reopening the 24-hour window. The 24-hour period restarts every time the end-user sends a message.
The agent can still followup the chat but If they reply after 24 hours, the reply is still added to the ticket and appears in the ticket interface, but the end-user doesn’t actually receive the reply (meaning a reply in WhatsApp or an email ticket notification).
Thank you!
Kind regards,
Thanks April. This brings me now to another question. Our client has configured the Owner as an executive and which we see as a risk because tomorrow if the executive leaves the organization it can hamper the working. My question to you is:
1. If we have to change the owner, should we change the owner first and then configure the whatsapp number with the generated ID or we will have to get another ID from your end. Can you please help as we have not yet configured it.
I do see that this ID might get expired and we will need another ID. Will you be able to generate the id in that case?
Thanks and Regards,
Yogesh
how if customer doesn't reply whatsapp chat more than 24 hours?
are agent still can send a chat?
Hello everyone,
I just came across an article from Meta where the 24-hour reply rule was being extended to 72 hours.
Here is the document which if I am correct, became effective March 1st, 2023:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/updates-to-pricing?locale=en_US
Can someone please confirm if this is accurate and if so, update this article?
HiUlises Soto,
Thank you very much for your comment!
In response to your message => The 72 hour window is only relevant for the specific Ad use cases described on the pagehere
(Section:Changes to free entry point conversations: Effective March 1, 2023)
A business initiated message will have the same standard 24 hour conversations window for a response that it used to have.
I hope it helps!
Pleasesign into leave a comment.