Backoffice

Send bookings to customers on WhatsApp

Agreements and updates where your customers talk, and alerts on your phone.

Send bookings to customers on WhatsApp

Many customers never open email. Once your WhatsApp Business number is connected, a customer who talks to you on WhatsApp gets their agreement and every update about their booking there, and customers booking online can choose WhatsApp instead of email.

Connect your number

  1. Open Settings, then CRM, then Channels, and choose Connect WhatsApp.
  2. In the window Meta shows, choose your WhatsApp Business Account and the number to connect. You can bring the number you already use in the WhatsApp Business app; it keeps working on your phone.

Messages customers send to the number arrive in your CRM inbox as inquiries, and you answer them from Backoffice.

Replying after 24 hours

WhatsApp lets a business write freely only for 24 hours after the customer last wrote. After that, your reply goes inside a message MindFull wrote:

Hello Anu, Lakeside Houseboats has replied to your message:

your reply

Reply here to continue the conversation.

Your reply arrives as one paragraph, and can be a little under 1,000 characters; the composer shows the exact limit and the lines around it before you send. Meta charges your WhatsApp Business Account for each such reply. Once the customer writes back, you reply freely again.

Meta reviews that message before it can be sent. The number's card under Channels shows where the review has got to, under Replies after 24 hours. Until it is Ready, you can reply only to customers who wrote in the last 24 hours.

Booking messages

The agreement, the copy of what the customer signed, and updates about approval, payment, and expiry are sent as WhatsApp message templates. MindFull writes them and adds them to your WhatsApp Business Account when you connect the number, and Meta reviews each one before it can be sent.

The number's card under Channels shows where that review has got to:

  • Ready: booking messages go out on WhatsApp.
  • Waiting for Meta: Meta is still reviewing. Until it approves them, booking messages reach only customers who wrote to you in the last 24 hours. Choose Check again to ask Meta for the latest.
  • Needs attention: Meta refused or paused at least one. Choose Check again; if it stays, contact us.
  • Not set up: choose Set up to add them.

Meta charges your WhatsApp Business Account for template messages sent more than 24 hours after the customer last wrote to you, at Meta's own prices. Those inside the 24 hours are free.

Which bookings go on WhatsApp

When you take a booking, it goes where the customer last wrote to you: a booking from a WhatsApp inquiry goes on WhatsApp, even if the customer also has an email address. A customer who has never written to you gets email if you have their address, and WhatsApp if that is all you have.

To change it, open the booking, then More, and under Where the customer hears from you choose Send by email instead or Send on WhatsApp instead. WhatsApp is offered only for a customer who has written to you there.

If WhatsApp cannot take a message, for example because the customer has not written in 24 hours and Meta has not approved the booking messages yet, it goes by email when the customer has an address and you have a mailbox connected. Otherwise Backoffice gives you the agreement link to send yourself.

By sending a customer their booking on WhatsApp, you confirm they agreed to hear from you there.

Customers booking online

When booking messages are Ready, your public pages ask customers booking online where to send their agreement: On WhatsApp or By email. With only a WhatsApp number connected, the form asks for their WhatsApp number alone.

A customer who chooses WhatsApp is shown one more step: a button that opens WhatsApp with a message to you already typed, carrying their booking reference. When they send it, the agreement arrives in that chat. Their dates are held for two hours, the same as for email; if they do not send the message and accept by then, the dates are released.

The message lands in your inbox as a quiet conversation, already read and owing no reply. When the customer accepts, it becomes unread, and a request waits for your answer as usual.

Booking alerts on WhatsApp

You can hear about bookings on your own phone from MindFull's WhatsApp number: when a customer books online, asks to book, says they have paid, or pays online. Each alert opens the booking in Backoffice.

  1. Open Settings, then Bookings, then Booking alerts, and choose Get alerts on WhatsApp.
  2. Choose Open WhatsApp on the phone you want alerts on, and send the message as it is. The page shows the alerts as on once it arrives.

Each person in the Workspace links their own phone, Owners and Managers alike, and each Workspace separately. Choose Turn off to stop, or reply STOP in that chat to stop them for every Workspace. Alerts also go to your connected mailbox, if you have one.

What a Workspace needs to take bookings online

Customers can book an offering online once the Workspace has a way to send them their agreement: a mailbox, or a WhatsApp number whose booking messages are Ready. Without a mailbox, at least one person in the Workspace has to have WhatsApp alerts on, so that a booking request does not wait unseen.