Table of Contents
Introduction
Building customer relationships is delicate, like walking on ice; if you are not engaging consistently, you risk losing the customer forever. However, it is challenging to reply to every message that you receive on WhatsApp, especially when you have thousands of customers to serve.
If you’re frustrated with frequently missing replies to WhatsApp messages, then auto-replying on WhatsApp is for you.
In this article, we reveal how to set auto replies in WhatsApp and how you can enhance them further.
Let’s stop missing any chat and strengthen each customer relationship with simple auto-replies.
What is auto-reply in WhatsApp?
Auto reply in WhatsApp is a feature that enables you to reply with pre-defined messages to any WhatsApp chat.
It acts as an extension of your replying to messages when you’re too occupied with critical tasks or away on a break. You can set up acknowledgments, greetings, or even updates to let your customer know that you have got their messages, nurturing relationships 24/7 through consistent communication for your business growth.
On WhatsApp, small businesses and companies generated over $ 382 million in revenues worldwide in 2023, with the Asia-Pacific market accounting for almost 40.5% of the total. Reports suggest WhatsApp commands a staggering market volume and equal potential for business growth.
How to set auto reply in WhatsApp?
While it is a great way to stay connected with all our contacts, presently, the WhatsApp auto-reply feature is available only in the WhatsApp business app and the WhatsApp business API. Let’s understand how to set auto reply in WhatsApp for Android and iOS users.
How to Set Auto Reply in WhatsApp on Android Devices
Step 1: Open the WhatsApp Business app
- 🔹Download and install to open the WhatsApp Business app on your Android device.
Step 2: Go to settings
- 🔹In the app, click on the three dots in the top-right corner to go to the settings option and select “Business tools”.
Step 3: Select auto-reply type
- 🔹Based on your requirements, you can choose the auto-reply type available in WhatsApp. Select from quick replies, away messages, or greetings.
Step 4: Create your message
- 🔹Add your message content that you want to schedule in the text field provided.
Step 5: Add recipient and schedule message
- 🔹Lastly, select the recipients you wish to send the message to and save it to complete your message schedule.
How to Set Auto Reply in WhatsApp on iOS device
Step 1: Open WhatsApp Business App
- 🔹Start the WhatsApp Business app on your iOS device.
Step 2: Go to Business tools
- 🔹From the app interface, go to settings at the bottom right corner of the screen and select the Business tools option.
Step 3: Set up auto-reply type
- 🔹Choose the type of auto-reply message you wish to send to your contacts. Select away message, greeting message, or quick reply type.
Step 4: Add message content
- 🔹Enter the text that you wish to send to your contacts and save.
Step 5: Add recipient and save
- 🔹Select the recipients that will receive your auto-reply messages when you’re unavailable.
- 🔹With the above steps, you have now saved your auto-reply messages in WhatsApp. Now, when a customer messages you, they will be replied to with your customized auto-reply message.
What are the benefits of auto-reply in WhatsApp?
Auto-reply is an advantage for businesses of any size who rely on WhatsApp to connect with their customers. Here is a list of a few benefits;
Reduced repetitive tasks
If you have thousands of customers, then typing repetitive greetings or away messages can be cumbersome. It will remove the thrill of welcoming new customers, but with auto-replies, you can improve this experience. Since you keep specific greetings and away messages on autopilot, all the repetitive tasks are taken care of without your team being overwhelmed with a large volume of messages.
Quick responses
While it may take some time to frame a message with the right words that may click with the customer, creating content at every moment when a message comes in is difficult. Plus, it takes away a lot of time and can delay replies. However, a pre-defined message enables us to respond quickly as soon as a message lands in your account. Quick responses are essential to engage customers and win their trust.
Better relationship with prompt reply
Prompt replies are essential for fostering lasting relationships. With every prompt reply, you can convey that each customer relation is essential for their business, portraying their importance.
Automate personalization
While it might seem like automation lacks a personal touch, it is not. With WhatsApp chatbots in WhatsApp API, it is possible to personalize every auto-reply message with user-specific details such as name, order details, etc., to engage users. Small gestures speak volumes and strengthen relationships with customers.
Efficient replies
A thriving business means an active team juggling through a huge volume of customer messages for inquiries and support requests. However, auto-reply messages simplify the efforts of businesses in replying to every message, with efficiency even when you are busy on critical tasks.
What are the limitations of auto-reply in WhatsApp?
Auto-replies are a great way to greet your customers even when you’re busy or away. However, auto-replies have their own limitations, and over relaying on them might impact your business communications. Here are some ways that auto-reply can be challenging to use;
Basic features
Auto-reply in WhatsApp is simple and basic without much scope for customization of messages. While it is possible to automate away messages and simple greetings, for highly customized messages, you need to move on to WhatsApp Business API, which offers the flexibility and scope to implement WhatsApp chatbots.
Lack of customization
While you can add the message content, which you wish to send to your customers, it is not completely personalized content. Auto-replies can help engage your customers to a certain extent but leave out scope for complex scenarios that demand dynamic responses.
Limited scheduling slots
While you can schedule messages with auto-replies to a certain extent, there can be some dynamic situations that require you to schedule your message at that time. Auto-reply in WhatsApp doesn’t offer a dynamic scheduling feature, leaving scope for businesses looking to enhance their communications during emergencies.
Lack of real-time communication
Since auto-replies are basic automation, it cannot engage customers in dynamic conversations in real-time. It is designed to provide specific responses such as acknowledgments, greetings, etc. It cannot ask followup questions to address the concerns of customers through extensive interaction.
Risk of spam messages
It is essential to appropriately configure auto-replies to avoid being repeatedly sent at specific times, which might feel out of context for the customers. To avoid overwhelming customers with repeated messages, auto-replies must be set up thoroughly.
No branding opportunities
While it is possible to customize the auto-reply message text to a certain extent, the predefined templates have limited scope for extensive branding. It will leave a lot to portray your unique brand voice and tone with every communication that goes out.
No media support
In an auto-reply message there is no scope for adding any images, GIFs, or videos to create an engaging content. Only plain text is allowed to be sent.
How do WhatsApp chatbots enhance auto-reply in WhatsApp?
If auto-replies are limiting your communication abilities, then integrating a WhatsApp chatbot is essential for dynamic interaction possibilities. Here are some key benefits that WhatsApp chatbot offers to further your WhatsApp communications;
24/7 availability
WhatsApp chatbots offer you the flexibility of engaging your customers 24/7 even after business closing hours and holidays. Achieve peace of mind as the WhatsApp chatbot takes care of all your communications independently.
Better customer service
Since WhatsApp chatbots can manage to engage with multiple queries simultaneously, you are sure to meet customer expectations by offering quick and effective resolutions with minimal delays.
Quick response
WhatsApp chatbots are always active and ready to provide a quick response as soon as the customer sends a query. It reduces customers’ waiting time as a chatbot can offer an effective response to common queries, FAQs, etc.
Reduced operational cost
By handling the major load of customer queries, chatbots reduce the operational burden on human agents, thus reducing the need and cost for infrastructure upgrades or hiring.
Lead generation and nurturing
Since chatbots are the first to engage with customers who reach out to your business, they can collect specific details essential for lead generation. All this is done while the chatbot interacts in a natural human-like conversation with the customer. After lead qualification, it can be sent to the sales team for further nurturing through the sales funnel.
Multilingual support
Chatbots are fluent in interacting in multiple different native languages, hence can prove valuable for engaging with global customers ensuring your business can step over any language barriers.
Personalized communication
Personalization is an integral factor for effective communication, and chatbots can help you achieve just the right amount of personalization in every conversation. They can extract customer data through past interactions and databases to customize responses that are dynamic and engaging.
Real-time customer insights
As the chatbot interacts with a customer, it can gather specific customer data to create a persona identifying their buying preferences and past purchases. It can be analyzed to craft tailored marketing contents that have a higher chance of appealing to the customer.
Integrations
WhatsApp chatbots integrate with several existing systems to provide holistic support and operations. An organized workflow can achieve higher efficiency compared to a disintegrated system.
How to get a WhatsApp chatbot for auto-reply in WhatsApp?
WhatsApp chatbots can only be integrated into a WhatsApp Business API. You can approach WhatsApp Business service providers to get your business a WhatsApp Business API.
Kenyt.AI offers an NLP-powered conversational WhatsApp Chatbot, which is easy to set up in minutes because of its no-code configuration. Leverage multiple-lingual support for over 195+ languages. Kenyt’s AI WhatsApp chatbots are efficient at engaging in dynamic conversations with 87% capability to respond independently to queries. Take control of your WhatsApp communications with Kenyt’s WhatsApp chatbots created for excellence in dynamic interactions that elevate customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
Auto-replies in WhatsApp are a welcome feature to keep a consistent customer interaction. However, its features may be limited to a thriving business scaling its market expansion. Automation with WhatsApp chatbots is a way to overcome the limitations presented in auto-reply, and not just that, you get a powerhouse of features to scale up your customer experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
Scheduling an auto-reply in WhatsApp is simple and can be done in a few steps;
1. Open the app and click on three dots to go to the settings option.
2. Through the settings option, click on the business tools option.
3. Select the auto-reply type that you wish to schedule on WhatsApp
4. Add the message text in the provided field and save.
- 5. Select your recipients and click to schedule your message.
Yes, WhatsApp offers the feature to send automatic messages through the “Away messages” available in its WhatsApp Business app. It allows you to respond to customers even when busy or away after business hours.
To automate a greeting message, follow the steps below;
1. Go to the Tools tab and click on greeting options.
2. First, switch on the “send greeting message” option.
3. Click on the text to edit your greeting message and click to save.
4. Next, select the recipient settings from the options: Everyone, everyone not in contact, everyone except, or only sent to.
5. Click and save your settings and schedule your greeting message.
Activating a quick reply on WhatsApp is simple and quite similar to setting up an auto-reply message. Follow the steps to turn on a quick reply;
1. Open the WhatsApp Business app on your device
2. Click on the three dots to access settings, then click the “Business tools” option.
3. Scroll down to get the “Quick reply” option and click on it.
4. Click on “+” to add a new message content to your quick reply in the provided field and click save.
5. Tap on the “Shortcut” option to select the keyword to access the quick reply.
Click to save your quick reply.
Yes, WhatsApp enables users to send automatic messages as Away messages. Follow the steps to enable it;
1. Install the WhatsApp Business app on your device.
2. Set up your business profile by filling up all your business details.
3. Click on the setting, then click Business Tools to reach the “Away message” option.
4. Click to enable the Away message.
5. Edit the away message to suit your brand voice and click to save.
6. Choose when to send the away message from: Always send, Custom schedule, or Outside of business hours.
7. Select the recipients of your Away message.
- 8. Click to save your message content and all the settings for automatically sending the away message.
Yes, it is possible to set a message to auto-reply, but the feature is available only on the WhatsApp Business app and the WhatsApp Business API.
Nisha Sneha
Nisha Sneha is a passionate content writer with 5 years of experience creating impactful content for SAAS products, new-age technologies, and software applications. Currently, she is contributing to Kenyt.AI by crafting engaging content for its readers. Creating captivating content that provides accurate information about the latest advancements in science and technology has been at the core of her creativity.
In addition to writing, she enjoys gardening, reading, and swimming as hobbies.
