Customer messages for your store

Where to find it

Go to Settings → E-Commerce. Below Connections (your store, your courier and your checkout) is Customer messages: every WhatsApp message your customers get from your store, in the order they get them.

Customer messages is for businesses whose business type is E-Commerce. Any other business sees separate cards on this tab instead: cart recovery, order replies and shipping messages.

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The counter at the top, e.g. 6 of 10 on, shows how many messages are switched on.

The messages

They are grouped under four headings, in the order your customer gets them.

Cart

• Abandoned cart: up to three reminders to someone who left checkout without ordering, each sent only if they haven't ordered by then. Its title shows the timing, e.g. 10 min, 12 h, 12 h.

Order placed

• COD confirmation: asks a Cash on Delivery customer to confirm before you ship. Their Confirm or Cancel tags the order in Shopify.
• Prepaid receipt: thanks a customer who paid online.
• Reply when they tap Confirm or Cancel: a short plain-text reply to their tap, sent inside the 24-hour window the tap opens. It needs no template.
• Cancellation: acknowledges an order you or the customer cancelled.

Shipping

• Shipped: tells the customer their parcel has left, with your tracking link.
• Out for delivery: sent the morning the courier takes it out. Same day only, never after 9 PM.
• Delivery attempt failed: sent when the courier could not deliver, so the customer can rearrange.
• Where is my order?: answers a customer who asks, from your orders and the live courier status. A plain-text reply, no template.

After delivery

• Delivered: sent when your courier reports the parcel delivered.

Switching a message on and off

Each message has one switch, and it saves the moment you press it. A message whose switch is off sends nothing.

Under each message a status says where it stands:

• Done: on, with everything it needs.
• Off · ready to switch on: set up. Press the switch when you want it.
• Needs a template: no approved template is chosen. Choose one, or use a ready-made one (see below).
• In review at Meta: its template is waiting for Meta's approval, usually under an hour.
• Needs your courier connected: Out for delivery, Delivery attempt failed and Delivered come from your courier's updates. Press Connect your courier to set it up under Delivery tracking.
• Needs your checkout connected: cart reminders need carts from your checkout provider. Set it up in Carts from your checkout provider, under Connections.
• Needs a choice: Connect couldn't tell what goes in one of the template's blanks. Open Change template and choose it.

While a message needs something, it can't be switched on. A message that is already on can always be switched off. A message can show two statuses at once, e.g. Needs a template and Needs your courier connected.

If you switch a message on before choosing a template, Connect uses the approved template that fits it best and says so under the message, e.g. Picked the newest of 2 that fit.

Preview

Press Preview to see the message as your customer would get it. It uses your last real order of that kind and says so under the message, e.g. From your last COD order. With no such order yet it uses example values, labelled Example values.

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Choosing or changing a template

Press Change template, or Choose a template when there is none yet. A panel opens under the message (on a phone, it slides up from the bottom).

1. 1Pick a template from the list
2. 2Check Blanks, filled for you. Connect reads the template's text and decides what goes in each {{1}}, {{2}}: the customer's name after "Hi", the order number after "order", the total after "₹". Press Customise only for something unusual
3. 3Check the preview beside it. It updates as you change the template or the blanks
4. 4Press Save

• The list is grouped: Approved, fits this message first, then Approved, other, then Not usable yet. That last group (pending or rejected at Meta) is shown, but you can't pick from it.
• Each template shows its category, how many blanks it has, and its first button.
• Save stays greyed out while a blank still needs a choice.
• If the message could not send as set up, the panel says why before you save.

No template that fits? Press + Create a template for this message. Templates opens with a suggested message already written. Submit it, and once Meta approves it, it appears in this list.

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Shipping updates: four blanks, in a fixed order

Out for delivery, Delivery attempt failed and Delivered always fill the same blanks, in this order: {{1}} customer name, {{2}} order number, {{3}} courier, {{4}} tracking link. The panel shows them, and there is nothing to choose. Your template must use those numbers for those things. It may use fewer.

For the four Shipping-group messages that use a template (Shipped, Out for delivery, Delivery attempt failed and Delivered), the list is grouped as Suggested and Other templates, and cart templates are left out.

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Ready-made templates

Shipped, Out for delivery, Delivery attempt failed and Delivered each have a template written for you. When one of them has no template, press Use a ready-made template. Connect submits it to Meta as a Utility template, and review usually takes under an hour.

Nothing is sent to customers until Meta approves it and you switch the message on. If Meta rejects it, the reason is shown with a Choose a template button.

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Cart reminders: templates and timing

Under the cart message is Templates and timing: a template for Message 1, Message 2 and Message 3, and when each goes. Message 1 goes a number of minutes after the checkout is left; Messages 2 and 3 go a number of hours after the message before. Press Save Settings when you're done. Change template on the cart message brings you here.

Reply wording

After the four groups, Reply wording holds the words of the automatic replies: after the customer taps Confirm or Cancel, the replies to a cancellation request, and the Where is my order? answers. To change them:

1. 1Open Edit the reply texts
2. 2Change the wording
3. 3Press Save

• Use {order} for the order number. The Where is my order? texts also take {courier} and {date}; leave a box empty to use our wording.
• These are replies to the customer's own message, so they need no template.
• Turn the Confirm/Cancel reply and Where is my order? on and off with the switches on their own rows above.

Collect cancellation requests

Reply wording has one more switch: Collect cancellation requests from messages. It saves the moment you press it.

• When a customer writes something like "cancel my order" or "order cancel karo", the request appears under Orders → Cancel requests for your team to approve or reject.
• Nothing is cancelled automatically. You cancel and refund the order in Shopify yourself.
• The customer gets a short reply. If they have more than one recent order, the reply asks which one.
• No reply is sent if someone on your team wrote to them in the last 10 minutes, or if they opted out or are blocked.

Custom and webhook campaigns are not here. They stay on Campaigns.