Creating WhatsApp Templates

Use WhatsApp templates to ensure you are sending proactive messages backed by platform's explicit approval. Only those who have permitted communication should receive your message.

This protocol ensures that contacts remain engaged and informed in a professional manner.

ReplyCX gives you effortless access to WhatsApp's approval process for templates, quickly creating and submitting yours, then tracking their progress as they're Accepted or Rejected.

Guidelines:

Before we start with creating the template with ReplyCX, let us first go through the guidelines on the WhatsApp template message set by the Meta team that the user needs to follow:

• Clarity: Be specific and clear. The reviewers at Meta team may not know about the business and hence needs more clarity.

• Avoid Promotion: Upselling, cold call message, sending poll to collect the data & including certain phrases that sound promotional are all considered promotional.

• Spelling: Check for spelling and grammatical errors and proper formatting.

• Template Name: Make template name clear. Instead of using names like template or template0123 etc., use names like welcome_new_user.

• Clear context: Remember someone at the Meta team will be reviewing the templates and hence giving more clarity will give the reviewers more context about how the template will be used.

• Appropriate Category: Choosing the appropriate category will increase chances of getting the template approved from the Meta team. Various categories are Transactional, OTP & Marketing.

• Header: Adding a title or media file which will serve as the header of the message. Users can use Title, Image, Video or PDF as the header.

Building a WhatsApp Template:

1. Go to 'Channel Configuration -> WhatsApp -> Template Messages'.

   
2. Click on 'Add Template' to create a new template.

   
3. Here you can add new templates for WhatsApp.

   
4. You can set the template name of your choice.

   

Since we cannot use “Space” in the template name, for better understanding and identification, “_” can be used.

The message template name field is limited to 512 characters.

WhatsApp Business Account can have up to 250 templates & each of them can have multiple language translations. For example: welcome_new_user translated in two languages counts as a single message template in regards to this limit.

Avoid using template names like template123, templatenewuser, etc.

1. Select the 'Template Category' from the list of available categories.

   
2. Selecting the 'Language' from available list.

   
3. Select the type of 'Header' from the available options.

   There are 4 types of categories available under Header:

   1. Text: Allows user to add “Text” as a header to the message with 60 as the character limit.

   2. Image: Image will allow the users to add Image as a header to the message.

   3. Document: Users will be able to add “Documents” as a header of the message.

   4. Video: Users can add “Video” as a header of the message.

   

All the files with the extension .jpg, .jpeg, .png are supported as image

Only the video files with extension .MP4 will be supported and not larger than 50 MB

1. Adding a message under 'Body' tag. Users can also format the text using various available formatting options like Bold, Italics or add emoji to the same.

   

The character limit allowed under “Body” tab is 1024

1. Adding Footer: Users can add notes as footers under the tab available. Footer notes act as additional information related to the message sent.

   

Footer note is optional and cannot be more than 60 characters

1. Select type of action on message: Users can select what type of response they are seeking from the message, that is, do they want visitors to call them for more information or visit their website or have no response at all.

   
2. There are three types of action that you can select for the message:

   1. No Buttons:

      The user can opt to have no response back on the message that has been sent out to the visitors by selecting “No Buttons”.

   2. Call to action:

      Call to action buttons allow the user to provide options to visitors to either visit the website or call the customer care number.

   3. Quick reply:

      It allows the user to provide an option to the visitor to quickly reply back to the message that has been sent.

   

By default, “No Buttons” is selected.

Users will only be able to add two buttons. In-order to configure the website and phone number, the user will need to configure the same by clicking on “URL” & “Phone” icon. Maximum up to three buttons can be added with the message

1. Select the desired Business WhatsApp number.

   

The number will only be visible here if it is configured. “Click here” to know more.

Best Practices:

Here are a few suggestions to maintain high quality for your messages:

• Ensure your messages are in-line with WhatsApp's guidelines to keep customer communication compliant and streamlined.

• Reach out to those who have given you the green light – keep your communications purposeful and meaningful.

• Tailor your messages to visitors - make them highly personalized and useful. Optimize quality over quantity by avoiding open ended communications.

• Strengthen your customer engagement by finding the perfect message balance! Ensure messages are sent out to visitors with consistent frequency throughout the day, but don't overwhelm them.

• To ensure effective communication, informational messages should be crafted with a perfect balance of content and brevity.