WhatsApp Auto Response With Leadcatcher

WhatsApp Business is a platform meant for small and medium businesses. It allows you to set up “away messages” for when you’re not available or online.

This article from Verloop, goes through the process of deploying auto-reply away messages for your business. Below us our summary version, for more advanced users, check out the Verloop blog post.

Using away messages in WhatsApp allows you to tell your customers that you can't get to the phone right now and makes sure they don't feel like you don't care about them. It's also a great way to get them to engage with other automated sales channels, such as Leadcatcher.

Using WhatsApp Business, you can set automated replies and schedule them as per your desired timings.

The first step to doing this is to decide who gets what away message. You can decide if a single away message is sent to all your customers or if it’s just being sent to specific customers.

The second step is to schedule the away message to function at a specific time. The recommended trigger time is during the hours that your business is closed.

If a customer reaches out to you during these “away” hours, messages will be sent out based on your preferences.

STEPS TO SET AUTO REPLY:

1. Tap on the three vertical dots on the top right of your WhatsApp application. From there, click on Settings, followed by Business Settings, and lastly on Away message.
2. Now, turn on the “Send away message” toggle button.
3. Next, enter the “away” message or tap on it to edit the message which will be sent to your customers accordingly.
4.  After you edit your message, select the type of schedule for understanding when to program your messages to be deployed.
5. Next, select the recipients to whom you want to send the message.

SCHEDULING OF AWAY MESSAGES :

• Always schedule – Select this when you’re out of town and can’t talk to your customers for days on end.
• Custom schedule: This is to be selected when you want to send the away messages only during a particular duration. Set a time duration and if a customer texts you in this timeframe, you’ll trigger an away message.
• Outside of business hours: This feature is based on what you’ve specified as your business hours on your profile. Once set, away messages will be automatically sent if any reply is received outside the business hours.

HOW TO SELECT THE RECIPIENTS

• Everyone: Single template for all customers.
• Everyone excluding a few:  All customers, except for a few.
• A few out of the contacts: Only a few customers are sent the away message