WhatsApp booking updates

With the WhatsApp switch on under Messaging → Settings → Channels, the booking updates you already send by email and text also go out on WhatsApp, to the customers who ticked the WhatsApp box when they booked. Same messages, one flat price each, and a customer can reply straight back.

What the customer sees

• The chat comes from Velobook's WhatsApp number, not from your shop's own phone. The business name on it is Velobook, and every message names your shop in its first line, so nobody is left wondering who is writing
• They get the same updates as by text: the booking confirmation, a move to a new time, a cancellation, a reminder the day before, and a message when the bike is ready
• They can reply. The reply lands in your Inbox like a text does, and you answer from there
• Nobody gets a WhatsApp they did not ask for. A customer who leaves the box unticked keeps getting texts and email as before

How a customer opts in

When WhatsApp is on, the booking page shows a box under the phone number: Send me booking updates from [your shop] on WhatsApp, via Velobook. It is unticked by default and stays a choice; Velobook never pre-ticks it. A customer who wants to stop can reply to any message and say so, and you can switch it off for them from their profile.

Replying, and the 24-hour window

• When a customer messages you on WhatsApp, you can reply in your own words for 24 hours from their last message, as many times as you like
• After that window closes, WhatsApp only allows pre-written messages that Meta has approved. Velobook's booking updates are all approved, so confirmations, reminders and bike-ready messages still go out; a free-text message from the Inbox waits until the customer writes again
• The Inbox tells you which it is: an open conversation lets you type, a closed one explains why

What it costs

• One flat price per message, whatever its length: 6c in Australia, 6c in New Zealand, 2c in the US, 5p in the UK, 3c in Canada and 4c across the euro area. Your card shows your own price
• That is less than a text, and a long message never splits into parts the way a text does
• It comes out of the same prepaid balance as texting, on Messaging → Settings → Funds. The balance line there counts texts and WhatsApp messages
• A message that WhatsApp refuses is refunded, the same as a failed text

Turning it on

• Load funds first if you have not already; the switch needs a balance to draw on
• Flip WhatsApp to On under Messaging → Settings → Channels. From then on the booking page offers the box, and anyone who ticks it gets their updates on WhatsApp
• Customers who booked before you switched it on are not affected until they book again and tick the box
• The card shows how many customers have opted in and how many conversations are open right now

The wording of each update is the same as the text version, set under message templates. WhatsApp uses Meta-approved versions of those messages, so a custom text wording changes your texts, not the WhatsApp copy.