Answer your first chat

By the end of this tutorial you’ll have answered a customer, sent a saved reply, left a private note for your team, and sent a template to a customer who last wrote more than a day ago. The examples follow Ravi, an agent at Blue Lotus Fashion, answering Priya and Divya.

What you need

• A Soosh sign-in. Your admin adds you under Members and you get an email to set your password.
• A chat waiting for a reply. Ask a colleague to message your business’s WhatsApp number if there isn’t one.
• For step 3, a saved reply. Your admin creates them.
• For step 5, a chat where the customer last wrote more than 24 hours ago, and a template Meta has approved. If you don’t have one yet, come back to step 5 later.

1. Open a chat

1. In Soosh, go to Inbox > Chats. Chats waiting for a reply have the customer’s name in bold and a count of new messages.
2. Click Unread to see only those, then click the chat to open it.

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Open in Soosh ↗

1. 1Pin 1: Unread: the chats waiting for a reply, with how many.
2. 2Pin 2: How long you can still reply freely. See step 5.

2. Reply

1. Click the message box at the bottom and type your reply.
2. Press Enter to send it. (Shift+Enter starts a new line.)

app.soosh.io/chat

Ravi types a reply to Priya about delivery to Pune and presses Enter to send it

Your message appears on the right with your name. One grey tick means it was sent, two that it reached Priya’s phone, and two blue ticks that she has read it.

3. Send a saved reply

Saved replies are answers your team sends often, ready to use. Your admin creates them.

1. In the message box, type / and the start of the reply’s name, like /deliv. The list shows the saved replies that match.
2. Press Enter to choose the highlighted one. Soosh fills in the customer’s name for you.
3. Check the message and click Send.

app.soosh.io/chat

Ravi types /deliv, chooses Delivery times, which fills in Priya's name, and sends it

If the reply has blanks, like an order number, the window shows how many are left to fill; Send works once they’re filled.

4. Leave a note for your team

Notes are private: only your team sees them, never the customer. Use them to pass on what the next person needs to know.

1. At the top of the chat, click Notes (the sticky-note icon). The panel shows the notes already left on this customer.
2. Type your note, like Promised delivery to Pune by Friday, and press Enter.

Open in Soosh ↗

5. Message a customer after 24 hours

WhatsApp lets you send any message for 24 hours after the customer last wrote. After that, until they write again, you can only send a template: a message Meta has approved.

1. Open a chat where the customer last wrote more than 24 hours ago. The top of the chat says Template needed, and a red bar above the message box says the 24-hour window has expired.
2. Click Send template in the red bar.
3. Choose a template from the list. If it has blanks, fill them in.
4. Click Send.

Open in Soosh ↗

Watch the time left at the top of a chat. It turns amber in the last 6 hours and red in the last hour; the Expiring tab lists the chats running out.

When the customer replies to your template, the 24 hours start again and you can write freely.

What you’ve learned

• Unread shows the chats waiting for you; Enter sends a reply.
• Typing / finds a saved reply, with the customer’s name filled in.
• Notes pass information to your team without the customer seeing it.
• After 24 hours without a message from the customer, only a template can reach them.

Next steps

• Reply to a customer, for attachments and replies to one message
• Create a saved reply