Set up automatic replies on WhatsApp

Automatic replies answer customers on your WhatsApp number when nobody on your team is free to. Open Inbox and select Automatic replies. Each reply is off until you turn it on, and you can change the words to suit your shop. Automatic replies are sent only while your WhatsApp number is connected and switched on.

Welcome message

A customer who messages you for the first time, or for the first time in 14 days, gets your welcome message. The conversation still waits for you in Needs reply, because the customer has not heard from a person yet.

Away message and business hours

Set the hours you answer messages on each day of the week: Open with an opening and closing time, Open all day, or Closed. A closing time earlier than the opening time runs into the next day, for example 18:00 to 02:00. The times are in your business time zone, which you can change under Settings.

A customer who messages you outside those hours gets your away message once, and does not get it again until you have been open since. It is not sent if someone on your team replied to that customer in the last two hours. To be away for a holiday, set those days to Closed and say in the away message when you are back.

When a new customer writes outside your hours, the welcome message and the away message arrive together as one message.

Order status

With Order status on, a customer who asks where their order is gets an answer straight away: the order number, the day they placed it, where it is, and the courier's tracking link once it has shipped. Customers can ask in English or Hindi, for example "where is my order" or "mera order kab aayega".

Only orders placed with the number the customer is messaging from are shown: orders on their account with that phone number, and orders with that number as the delivery phone. Nothing is said about any other order. If no recent order matches, or a delivery has a problem such as a failed delivery attempt, the customer is told that someone will reply, and the conversation waits for you in Needs reply. A message that also mentions a problem, such as "my order was not delivered" or "cancel my order", always waits for you.

Menu buttons

With Menu buttons on, your welcome message goes out with up to three buttons under it, and a customer who types "menu" or "options" gets the buttons again. WhatsApp allows three buttons on a message, and each label can be up to 20 characters.

Each button does one of three things when the customer taps it. Check my order answers with the status of their recent orders, exactly as Order status does, and waits for you if no order matches. Talk to a person sends a short acknowledgement (yours, or "Sure. Someone from our team will reply here shortly.") and puts the conversation in Needs reply with the bell. Send a message sends the message you wrote, for example your opening hours or your address.

The buttons are sent with the welcome message, so a conversation that has already had its welcome gets them only when the customer asks for the menu. If you turn the welcome message off, the buttons go out under "How can we help? Choose an option:" when a customer asks for them. The thread in Inbox shows the buttons under the message as the customer saw them, and a tap shows as the button's label with a "Tapped a button" mark.

Answers from Mink AI

With Mink AI answers on, Mink reads each customer's question against your store's own facts: the orders placed with the number they are writing from, the products they name with the price and stock shown on your store, delivery to a PIN code they mention, the offers a shopper can see on your store at that moment (a code only when Show this coupon on my storefront is ticked, and never an offer limited to a customer group or a location), your published policies and your business hours. Choose one of two ways for it to help.

Answers customers lets Mink reply on its own when the answer is in those facts, for example a price, whether a size is in stock, when you open, what your return policy says, or where their order is. Anything the facts do not cover waits for you in Needs reply with Mink's suggested reply attached. A complaint, a refund, a return of goods they have, a cancellation, a change to an address or an order, a payment problem, or a request to talk to a person always waits for you: Mink cannot do any of those, and it never tries. Mink replies in the language the customer wrote in, and if asked whether it is a person, it says it is the shop's automatic assistant and that a person can take over.

Drafts replies for you never sends anything. Every message waits for you in Needs reply as before, with Mink's suggested reply shown above the message box. Send it as it is, change it first, or discard it and write your own.

Each reply Mink sends, or that you send from one of its drafts, uses 1 Mink credit from the same credits as the Mink in your dashboard; a draft nobody sends is free. When your credits run out, Mink stops answering and every message waits for you. Your credits are under Plans & Billing. Mink is off until you turn it on, so a store that never chose sends exactly what it sent before.

Who can change them

Anyone with Inbox: view can see these settings. Changing them needs Inbox: manage.