WhatsApp closes a conversation 24 hours after the customer’s last message. Inside that window your agent and your operators can reply freely. Outside it, WhatsApp only delivers wording it has approved in advance — a message template.
Without one, an operator reply sent after 24 hours is rejected by WhatsApp and the customer never hears back. This page is how you fix that.
This applies to the WhatsApp Business channel (your own WhatsApp Business
Account, connected through Meta). The separate WhatsApp channel connected by
QR code does not use templates.
Where to find it
- Open your agent and go to the Distribute tab.
- Open WhatsApp Business.
- Below your connected number you’ll see Message templates.
The section only appears once a number is connected — templates live on your WhatsApp Business Account, so there is nothing to show until one is attached.
Writing a template
Click New template, or Start from our follow-up template to begin with wording that already works for operator follow-ups.
What the message says
Write it as your customer will read it. Mark anything that changes per message with a numbered blank:
Two rules WhatsApp enforces:
- Don’t start or end the message with a blank. WhatsApp rejects a message that is only a variable.
- Give an example for every blank. A field appears for each one as you type it, along with a preview. WhatsApp’s reviewers read your message with real values in it, so a template submitted without examples comes back rejected.
What the message is for
Pick the option that is honestly true:
Choosing wrongly here is the most common reason WhatsApp rejects a template — it reads the message and checks that it matches what you claimed.
Name and language
The name is only ever seen by you, and we suggest one from your wording. The language is WhatsApp’s code for the language you wrote in — en_US, es, pt_BR.
Review
Click Send to Meta for review. The template appears in your list as In review and usually becomes Approved within a few minutes, occasionally up to 24 hours.
You do not have to wait on the page — the list updates itself as WhatsApp reports the outcome. A rejected template shows WhatsApp’s own reason next to it.
Keeping operator replies arriving after 24 hours
This is the part that matters most day to day.
Under When a customer has gone quiet, choose one of your approved templates. From then on, when an operator replies to a WhatsApp conversation whose 24-hour window has closed, their message goes out inside that template instead of being dropped.
The picker only offers templates that can carry a reply: approved, with exactly one blank in the body. That blank is where the operator’s own words go — which is the whole point. A template with no blank could only send a generic notice, and one with two blanks would need a value nobody can supply.
Three things to know before you switch this on:
- WhatsApp charges for each of these messages. A reply sent inside the
24-hour window is free; one sent outside it is not.
- Line breaks are removed. WhatsApp doesn’t allow them inside a blank, so
a multi-paragraph reply arrives as one paragraph.
- Very long replies are shortened. The customer can reply to reopen the
conversation, and your operator can then send the rest normally.
Deleting a template
Deleting removes it from your WhatsApp Business Account. If it was your follow-up template, that choice is cleared at the same time, so you are never left pointing at something that no longer exists.
Recreating a template with the same wording means another review — WhatsApp does not remember a template it has deleted.
What your agent does
Nothing here changes how the AI agent behaves. Your agent still only ever replies to a message that just arrived, which means its window is always open. Templates exist for the one case the agent can’t cover: a human following up after the customer has gone quiet. 
