WhatsApp

Who should read this article: Administrators

Enable the WhatsApp digital channel for your contact center to send templated messages to your contacts.

Introduction

Work with your Voiso account manager to connect your WhatsApp business platform with your contact center and help you create pre-approved message templates.

Prerequisites

To help you enable the WhatsApp channel for your contact center, make sure you have the following prerequisites ready for your Voiso account manager:

1. Facebook business account
2. Facebook manager ID
3. WhatsApp business platform account
4. Legal business entity name used to create your WhatsApp business account
5. Business phone number
6. Business display name

Creating a Facebook Business Manager Account

To get a Facebook Business Manager account, first create a personal Facebook account. Next, go to business.facebook.com and click Create Account and follow the account setup process.

Connecting WhatsApp to your contact center

Your Voiso account manager handles connecting your WhatsApp Bussiness Profile to your contact center. Provide the following information to your Voiso account manager:

1. Facebook Business Manager ID
2. Legal entity name (the name you used to register with WhatsApp)
3. WhatsApp Business Account name
4. Business phone number in international format
5. The name for your contact center WhatsApp channel

Creating a WhatsApp message template

Your contact center must use message templates to initiate conversations with WhatsApp users. Some examples of WhatsApp message templates include appointment reminders, shipping updates, marketing promotion, payment notifications, and survey requests.

Your Voiso account manager works with you to create and submit your message template to WhatsApp for approval.

Provide the following information to your Voiso account manager:

• Message template category:
  • Marketing
  • Utility
  • Authentification
• Facebook Business Manager ID (the one you registered with your WhatsApp Business Profile)
• Template name
• Language or languages
• The message body (up to 1024 characters)

Voiso enables you to use a dynamic variable in your message template. The variable lets you include personalized information in your template, such as the name of the agent sending the message.

WhatsApp Number Masking

For enhanced security, you can hide (mask) contacts' WhatsApp phone numbers from agents and other contact center users. To do this, navigate to the Number masking section of the Security Access Group assigned to the user and ensure that the Display client numbers instead of Acc ID is not enabled.

For contact centers that do not use security access groups, ensure that the Replace client numbers with Acc IDs is enabled.

For both inbound and outbound interactions, a contact's WhatsApp number is replaced by the Hidden number mask. However, if there is an account ID already created for the contact, the phone number is replaced by the account ID instead.

WhatsApp message life cycle

WhatsApp has strict rules about sending business-initiated messages to WhatsApp users. Voiso automatically keeps track of your business-initiated messages by creating and tracking a message session. When you send a business-initiated message, a 24-hour session begins.

• If the contact does not respond to your business-initiated message within 24 hours, Voiso notifies the agent that the conversation window is exceeded. The session is archived if the agent does not send another message template within 24 hours of the notification.
• If the contact responds within the 24-hour window, agents may exchange any type of message with the contact.

In the case of a user-initiated message, where the contact has sent the first message to your contact center, your agent has 24 hours to reply to the message before the session ends. Messages sent after the 24-hour window must use a pre-approved template.

During the 24-hour window, your contact center can send any type of message without using a pre-approved message template.

Enabling WhatsApp outbound messaging

To enable agents to send outbound WhatsApp messages, assign the WhatsApp channel to the user account, then specify which WhatsApp outbound channel the agent may use.

To assign the WhatsApp channel to a user, follow these steps:

1. From the Voiso navigation bar, navigate to Users > Users.
2. Select the user from the Users table (or add a new user).
3. To assign the WhatsApp channel, on the Edit user page, scroll down to the Channels section and click Edit.
4. Select the WhatsApp channel on the Edit channels panel.
5. Click Save.
6. Scroll down to the WhatsApp Outbound Channels section and click Edit.
7. Select a WhatsApp outbound channel on the Edit WhatsApp channels panel and click Save.
8. Click Save on the Edit user page.

WhatsApp in the CDR

The WhatsApp channel has specific dispositions you can use as filters in the CDR.