Enable conversational components

It is possible to set up conversational components (welcome messages, ice breakers and commands) on each WhatsApp phone number. This gives customers quick actions to start or resume a conversation with your business.

When a customer opens a new conversation with your business, clicks on an ice breaker or sends a command these can be processed as text messages in Flows for further automation or responded to directly in Inbox

Welcome messages

You can be notified when a WhatsApp user opens a chat with you for the first time. This can be useful if you want to reply to these users with a special welcome message of your own design.

Welcome Messages are great for service interactions, such as customer support or account servicing. For example, you can embed a WhatsApp button on your website or by using a chat widget. When users tap the button, they will be redirected to WhatsApp where they will receive a welcome message that provides context on how they can interact with you.

In addition the welcome message triggers a customer service window which allows you to respond with free-form messages when responding to customers.

Ice breakers

Ice Breakers are customisable, tappable text strings that appear in a message thread the first time you chat with a user. For example, "Plan a trip" or "Create a workout plan".

Ice Breakers are great for service interactions, such as customer support or account servicing. For example, you can embed a WhatsApp button on your website or by using a chat widget. When users tap the button, they will be redirected to WhatsApp where they can choose from a set of customizable prompts, showing them how to interact with your services.

Commands

Commands are text strings that WhatsApp users can see by typing a forward slash in a message thread with your business.

Setting up conversational components

To set up conversational components you need to:

1. Head to Account tools > phone numbers

2. Navigate to the WhatsApp Business manager

   
3. Find the phone number you want to set a welcome message for

4. Click the gear icon and open the automations tab

   
5. You will then find all the automations listed. See the following sections for how to configure each

   

Configure welcome messages

To set up welcome messages just Turn them on. When a customer starts a new chat with your business you will receive an incoming text messages as follows:

The user has opened a new WhatsApp thread with your business

You can then either respond to the customer from Inbox or set up a conversational flow or use an AI agent to automatically welcome the customer

Configure Icebreakers

To set up ice breakers click edit and then you can add up to four ice breakers. Make sure to hit save once done editing

When a customer starts a new chat with a business they will be presented with ice breaker options

When the customer selects an ice breaker these will be received by your business as a text message

You can then either respond to the customer from Inbox or set up a conversational flow or use an AI agent to automatically welcome the customer

Configure commands

To set up command click edit and then you can add up to thirty commands. The command text is what will be sent to the business the description will give more of a hint to the user about what the command does. Make sure to hit save once done editing

When a customer is in a messaging thread they can type / at any time to get a list of commands. When the customer selects a command this will be sent to the chat as a text message. The text message will always be prefixed with a / e.g, /shop

You can then either respond to the customer from Inbox or set up a conversational flow or use a AI agent to automatically welcome the customer