What is a WhatsApp conversation 🤔
WhatsApp requires all businesses on WhatsApp Business Platform to respond to customers requests within 24 hours. Although you can still respond after 24 hours, you can only do so using message templates that are pre-approved by WhatsApp.
To make sense of this, you will need to understand what a WhatsApp conversation is and the types of WhatsApp conversations.
A WhatsApp conversation is a set of messages that are sent between a business and a customer within a 24 hour window. A conversation can either be user initiated or business initiated and is billed differently depending on how it was initiated.
User-initiated Conversation
When a customer sends a message to your WhatsApp Business Platform number, the business has an opportunity to respond and engage with the customer.
When the business responds to the customer, a 24 hour window is opened during which the customer and business can send free form messages to each other. This is considered a user-initiated conversation.
After the 24 hour window completes, you cannot send free form messages to the customer anymore. That’s when the second type of conversation (i.e. business initiated) comes into the picture.
Business-initiated Conversation
Business-initiated conversations are those where the business sends the first message to the customer.
A business initiated conversation can only start with message templates, which are messages that are pre-approved by WhatsApp.
The moment the business sends the first message template, a 24 hour window is opened for this template’s category.
Once the customer replies to the business message template, the business is able to send free form messages for the remainder of the 24 hour window or templates of the same category.
Important notes
Both conversation types, user-initiated and business-initiated, are priced differently by WhatsApp. Business initiated conversations using message templates cost more than user initiated conversations.
WhatsApp measures all conversations in fixed 24-hour sessions. WhatsApp considers the start time of conversation when the business message is delivered to a customer, whether it was initiated by your business or sent in reply to a customer’s message.
You can send as many messages as you want within this 24-hour session without any additional charges. This applies to both free-form messages and message templates of the same category.
When you send an approved marketing or utility template to a customer, META will check if an open conversation matching the template's category already exists between you and the customer. If one exists, no new conversation is opened. If one does not exist, a new conversation of that category is opened, lasting 24 hours.
For example:
Hour 0: You send a targeted promotion (marketing template message) to a customer. No open marketing conversation exists between you and the customer, so a marketing conversation lasting 24 hours is opened.
Hour 4: The customer completes an order on your site, so you send them an order confirmation (utility template message). No open utility conversation exists between you and the customer, so a utility conversation lasting 24 hours is opened.
Hour 10: You send a shipment confirmation (utility template message) to the customer. An open utility conversation already exists between you and the customer, so a new utility conversation is not opened.