Managing WhatsApp Conversations: A Guide to Categories, Duration, and Free Entry Point Conversations

Efficient communication with customers is essential for maintaining engagement and providing timely responses. WhatsApp offers a structured way to manage conversations by categorizing them into marketing, utility, authentication, and service conversations. This article will explore how these conversation types work, their benefits, and how to use them effectively to enhance communication with your customers, all within Referins.

Key Features and Benefits:

• Organized Conversations: Conversations are categorized to help you manage customer interactions effectively—marketing, utility, authentication, and service.
• Flexible Messaging: Depending on the type of conversation, free-form and template-based messaging ensures the right message reaches your audience at the right time.
• Customer Service Windows: Respond to customers within 24-hour windows to keep conversations open and responsive.
• Extended Free Entry Point Conversations: Special 72-hour conversations initiated through Click to WhatsApp Ads or Facebook Call-to-Action buttons allow more flexibility and reduced costs.
• Cost Efficiency: Understanding how conversations are charged helps you manage communication expenses.

Important Note:
Conversation-Based Pricing: We charge based on conversations rather than individual messages. A conversation is a 24-hour message thread between you and your customers, initiated and billed when your message is delivered. The guidelines for when a conversation begins and how it is categorized are outlined below.

How to Use WhatsApp Conversations

Step 1: Understanding Conversation Categories

• Marketing Conversations: Used for promotional or sales-driven messages, such as product announcements, targeted offers, or cart abandonment reminders. Only template messages can open a marketing conversation.
• Utility Conversations: Ideal for follow-ups on customer actions like order confirmations, delivery updates, or payment reminders. Utility conversations are initiated through template messages.
• Authentication Conversations: Used for sending one-time passcodes or account recovery messages. Like the other categories, these conversations require template messages to be opened.
• Service Conversations: These are opened when you send free-form messages in response to customer inquiries within a 24-hour window. Service conversations cannot be opened using templates.

Step 2: Opening Conversations

• Marketing, Utility, and Authentication: Conversations open when a template message is delivered as long as no other open conversation exists in that category.
  • For instance, sending a marketing template message opens a marketing conversation that lasts 24 hours.
  • If you later send a utility template message, a separate utility conversation opens, both being charged individually.
• Service Conversations: These open when you send a free-form message after a customer initiates contact, allowing you to continue the conversation without requiring a template.

Here's an example:

• Hour 0: You send a marketing template message to a customer. Since no active marketing conversation is open, a new 24-hour marketing conversation is initiated.
• Hour 4: The customer responds, opening a customer service window that allows you to send free-form messages for the next 24 hours.
• Hour 5: You send a free-form message to the customer. A new service conversation has not been created since an active marketing conversation has already been opened.
• Hour 24: The marketing conversation ends as the 24-hour period expires.
• Hour 25: The customer service window is still active, so you send another free-form message. With no open conversations, a 24-hour service conversation is now started.
• Hour 26: You send a third free-form message, but no new conversation is initiated since the service conversation is already open.

Understanding Customer Service Windows

Every time a customer messages you, a 24-hour Customer Service Window opens, during which you can send free-form messages. If this window closes, you must use a template message to reopen communication.

Utilizing Free Entry Point Conversations

• A free entry point conversation is opened if (1) A customer using a device running Android or iOS messages you via a Click to WhatsApp Ad or Facebook Page Call-to-Action and if (2) you respond within 24 hours. This opens a Free Entry Point Conversation. This lasts 72 hours and allows you to send any message type without additional charges. However, you can only send free-form messages if there is an open customer service window between you and the customer.

Note: If you do not respond within 24 hours, a free entry point conversation is not opened, and you must use a template to message the customer, which opens a marketing, utility, or authentication conversation, per the category of the template.

• Free-entry point conversations close all other open conversations, and no new conversations will be opened until the free-entry point conversation expires.

For instance, if a customer contacts you through a Click to WhatsApp Ad at 10 am, and you reply with a template message at 10 pm that same day:

• The free-entry conversation will start at 10 pm and last for 72 hours.
• During those 72 hours, you can send template messages without extra charges.
• You can send free-form messages until 10 a.m. the next day, when the customer service window closes. If the customer messages you again, a new 24-hour window will open, allowing you to send more free-form messages.

Conversation Duration

Marketing, utility, authentication, and service conversations last 24 hours unless closed by a newly opened free-entry point conversation.

Free-entry point conversations last 72 hours.

Example 1: Sending two templates from the same category results in a single conversation charge.

A utility conversation begins at 9:00 when a utility template message is sent. Later, at 11:00, another utility template message is delivered while the conversation is still active. No additional charge is incurred since the template category remains the same during the open conversation window. As a result, only one utility conversation charge applies.

Example 2: Starting a utility conversation during an active marketing conversation.

A marketing conversation begins at 3:40 when a marketing template message is sent. While this marketing conversation is still open, a utility template is delivered at 6:00, triggering a separate utility conversation. As a result, there is one charge for the marketing conversation and an additional charge for the utility conversation.

FAQ

Q: What is conversation-based pricing?

Conversation-based pricing charges businesses for each conversation instead of every message sent or received.

Q: How long does a conversation last?

A conversation lasts for 24 hours from the time the first message in that conversation is delivered.

Q: What are the various conversation categories?

• Marketing: Used for promotions, product launches, and customer retargeting.
• Utility: Handles order updates, delivery confirmations, account alerts, and feedback surveys.
• Authentication: Involves verifying users through one-time passcodes.
• Service: Focuses on addressing and resolving customer inquiries.

Q: How are conversations opened?

• Marketing, Utility, and Authentication Conversations: Opened when a template message of the respective category is sent and delivered to a customer, provided no open conversation of that category exists.
• Service Conversations: These are opened when a free-form message is sent and delivered to a customer, provided no other conversation is open.

Q: Can multiple conversations be open with the same customer?

Yes, multiple conversations can be open if:

• A new template message of a different category is sent within 24 hours.
• A service conversation exists, and a template message is sent within 24 hours.

Q: What is a customer service window?

When a customer messages you, a customer service window opens, allowing you to send free-form messages for 24 hours.

Q: What is a free entry point conversation?

A free entry point conversation is initiated when a customer messages you via a Click to WhatsApp Ad or Facebook Page Call-to-Action button and you respond within 24 hours. It lasts for 72 hours and allows sending any type of message without additional charges.

Q: What happens if I send templates of different categories in the same 24-hour conversation window? 

Whenever a template message is delivered, it triggers a conversation charge unless it's sent within an existing conversation of the same category. For instance, a utility template sent during an ongoing service conversation will initiate a separate utility conversation, lasting 24 hours from when the utility template is delivered. However, no new conversation or additional charge will be generated if a utility template is sent during an active utility conversation.