Reach people Flows
Flows
Build a guided conversation with buttons and menus.
What it does
A flow is a conversation map. It starts when a customer writes in, sends them buttons or a list, collects answers, branches, and can hand over to a person or to the AI.
Flows are good for welcome menus, FAQs and sorting out who a customer needs before a human steps in.
Where to find it
Flows
How to use it
- Open Flows and press New flow. Start from a template, or start blank and name your flow.
- Choose the trigger: a message that contains a keyword, the customer’s first ever message, any message, or manual only.
- Add nodes. The kinds are: Start, Send message, Send buttons, Send list, Send carousel, Send media, Send template, Send catalogue, Wait and follow up, Collect input, If or else, Tag contact, AI Agent, Handoff to agent and End.
- Choose the first node as the entry node and connect each node to the next. Buttons and list rows each lead to their own next node.
- Check the Issues list. It says No issues when the flow is ready.
- Save, then activate the flow. A draft flow does nothing.
- Open the Runs page of a flow to see its 50 most recent runs and the steps of each.
Example for a business
A restaurant
A restaurant builds a welcome flow. A customer writes hi and gets three buttons: Menu, Book a table and Talk to us. Menu sends the catalogue. Book a table asks for the date and number of people and saves the answers. Talk to us hands the chat to the staff on duty.
Good to know
- Buttons: 1 to 3, with a visible title of up to 20 characters. List: up to 10 rows in total.
- Wait and follow up waits from 5 to 1380 minutes (23 hours). Past 24 hours WhatsApp does not allow free text.
- Uploaded media can be up to 16 MB.
- Deleting a flow ends any active runs immediately.
- If a customer types STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE or QUIT, the flow stops its follow ups to that person.