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How to Submit a WhatsApp Message Template Request

Overview

WhatsApp business customers can reply to inbound messages from consumers within 24 hours without a template message. After 24 hours of receipt of the original inbound message - or to send a proactive outbound message - WhatsApp business customers must use pre-approved message templates to contact their customers.

Before you configure a WhatsApp message template in Genesys Engage, you must create a corresponding message template and ask Genesys to submit it for approval for your WhatsApp Business Account (WABA).

To submit a WhatsApp message template request, download the request form and return the completed form to Engage.WhatsApp.Requests@Genesys.com.

Note: Message template submission and approval typically takes between one to three business days.

Pricing

Businesses using the WhatsApp Business Platform will be charged per 24-hour conversation, with different rates by conversation category. Four new conversation categories are effective as of June 1, 2023.

There are three business-initiated conversation categories (all of which require customer opt in):

  • Utility conversations - Facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction or update to a customer about an ongoing transaction, including post-purchase notifications and recurring billing statements
  • Authentication conversations - Enable businesses to authenticate users with one-time passcodes, potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges)
  • Marketing conversations - Include promotions or offers, informational updates, or invitations for customers to respond / take action. Any conversation that does not qualify as utility or authentication is a marketing conversation.

The fourth category is service conversations – all user-initiated conversations will be categorized as service conversations, which help customers resolve enquiries.

Read more about conversation-based pricing and view rate cards by country/region.

Guidelines

Message templates are used to initiate conversations with customers. Message templates are the only type of message that can be sent to customers who have yet to initiate a conversation with you, or who have not sent you a message in an existing conversation thread within the last 24 hours. Message templates must be approved before you can send them to customers. In addition, templates may be disabled automatically based on customer feedback. Once disabled, a message template cannot be sent to customers again until its quality rating has improved or it no longer violates the WhatsApp business or commerce policies.

Common Rejection Reasons

Submissions are commonly rejected for the following reasons, so make sure you avoid these mistakes.

  • Variable parameters are missing or have mismatched curly braces. The correct format is {{1}}.
  • Variable parameters contain special characters such as a #, $, or %.
  • Variable parameters are not sequential. For example, {{1}}, {{2}}, {{4}}, {{5}} are defined but {{3}} does not exist.
  • The message template contains content that violates WhatsApp’s Commerce Policy: When you offer goods or services for sale, we consider all messages and media related to your goods or services, including any descriptions, prices, fees, taxes and/or any required legal disclosures, to constitute transactions. Transactions must comply with the WhatsApp Commerce Policy.
  • The message template contains content that violates the WhatsApp Business Policy: Do not request sensitive identifiers from users. For example, do not ask people to share full length individual payment card numbers, financial account numbers, National Identification numbers, or other sensitive identifiers. This also includes not requesting documents from users that might contain sensitive identifiers. Requesting partial identifiers (ex: last 4 digits of their Social Security number) is OK.
  • The content contains potentially abusive or threatening content, such as threatening a customer with legal action or threatening to publicly shame them.
  • The message template is a duplicate of an existing template. If a template is submitted with the same wording in the body and footer of an existing template, the duplicate template will be rejected. You may choose to edit the template and resubmit.

Templates can have the following statuses.

  • In-Review: Indicates that the template is still under review.
  • Rejected: The template has been rejected during our review process or violates one or more of our policies.
  • Active - Quality pending: The message template has yet to receive quality feedback from customers. Message templates with this status can be sent to customers.
  • Active - High Quality: The template has received little to no negative customer feedback. Message templates with this status can be sent to customers.
  • Active - Medium Quality: The template has received negative feedback from multiple customers but may soon become paused or disabled. Message templates with this status can be sent to customers.
  • Active - Low Quality: The template has received negative feedback from multiple customers. Message templates with this status can be sent to customers but are in danger of being paused or disabled soon, so we recommend that you address the issues that customers are reporting.
  • Paused: The template has been paused due to recurring negative feedback from customers. Message templates with this status cannot be sent to customers.
  • Disabled: The template has been disabled due to recurring negative feedback from customers. Message templates with this status cannot be sent to customers.
  • Appeal Requested: Indicates that an appeal has been requested.

Read more about template guidelines and updates at Facebook Developer documentation.

Template Request Form Instructions

These instructions are outlined on the form, but for more clarity, here are instructions for proper formatting and submission of your message template request.

  • For Template Category, you must choose from Marketing, Utility, Authentication. WhatsApp reserves right to change the type based on their review.
  • Template Name can be up to 150 characters and can only include lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores, but no whitespaces. To accelerate the review process and prevent template rejections, make your message template name clear and specific. For example, use bus_ticket_details instead of template_014.
  • If you are planning to support more than one Template Language, you need to provide translations for all supported languages for all elements of the template.
  • Template Header text can be up to 60 characters and it automatically be bolded. Up to 1 variable allowed. Emojis and rich text are not supported by WhatsApp in Headers, but you can include an image or video (JPG or PNG image, MP4 video, PDF document).
  • Template Body Text can be up to 1024 characters of text. and include placeholder variables, {{#}}, numbered sequentially. All variable substitutions are strings. Bold, italics, and emojis allowed. Unlimited variables allowed.
  • Sample Template Body Text with variable values is required for any template that uses variables.
  • Template Footer text can be up to 60 characters. Emojis, rich text, variables, and media are not supported by WhatsApp in footers.
  • You can include up to two Call-to-Action buttons, three Custom Quick Reply buttons OR a single Marketing opt-out button (if you are submitting a Marketing template). Note that a combination of these buttons is not supported by WhatsApp; you are only allowed to have a single category of buttons in any template. In other words, a message template may contain both a Phone Number and a Website button, if desired. And a message template may contain either Buttons (Phone and/or Website) or Quick Replies, but not both.
    • Button Text can be a maximum of 25 characters.
    • With Call-to-Action buttons, you can only include one button for each type of action, i.e., one button for “Call phone number” and one button for “Visit Website”. For “Call phone number” buttons, please enter the complete phone number that includes country and area code without any whitespaces or other characters. For “Visit Website” buttons, include the full, static https:// website URL. URLs are limited to a maximum of 2000 characters. Choose Static or Dynamic URL. If Dynamic, must provide sample content for the variable at the end. For Quick Replies, no variables, formatted text, or emojis are allowed.
    • For the Marketing opt-out button, Button Text defaults to “Stop promotions” and cannot be edited. Default Footer Text: “Not interested? Tap Stop promotions”, is added to the template by WhatsApp automatically and cannot be edited. WhatsApp recommends adding the marketing opt-out button to allow customers to request to opt out of all marketing messages. While this is optional, it can help reduce blocks from end-customers and increase your template quality rating. By choosing this option, you understand that it’s your responsibility to stop sending marketing messages to customers who opt out using this button. Read more about the opt out option at Facebook Developer documentation.
This page was last edited on April 13, 2023, at 16:42.
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