Partner Office Hours and WhatsApp Business Platform Updates

July 10, 2024 — by 360dialog Communications Team

Our Partner Updates are now available in English and Portuguese!
Find the latest updates here and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support Team.

Watch our Partner Office Hours Sessions

The Partner Office Hours is a dedicated space where we share details about 360dialog’s Product updates, new feature launches, and industry developments. These sessions are aimed to accelerate our response to our Partner needs and keeping a closer connection with them. Most importantly, we listen to our Partners feedback and provide the necessary educational content to deepen their understanding of the Messaging Ecosystem.

If you are part of our Partnership Program, invitations will be shared with all users registered to your Partner Account. Participating in these sessions allows you to join live and engage directly in Q&As, gaining exclusive access to our experts who are prepared to address your inquiries or provide the necessary inputs to support your case.

Additionally, our Partner Office Hours sessions are now held in English and Portuguese! To view previous sessions, visit our Partner Updates section by clicking the button below, where the event recordings are available:

Accelerated Onboarding Path

Accelerated Onboarding is a new pathway for securing display name verification and higher messaging limits for trusted businesses more quickly. In one of our Partner Office Hours session, we discussed this topic, sharing guidelines and how to scale numbers with 360dialog.

From now on, businesses can scale within the WhatsApp Business API by submitting documents that verify the company’s legitimacy. If all submitted documents are correct and accepted, businesses can have their messaging limits increased to 1000 messages within 48 hours.

While the Accelerated Onboarding path allows for rapid startup, it does not support requests for OBA (Green Check). For Green Check / OBA requests, businesses must undergo the traditional Business Verification process.

You can find more details in the Partner Office Hours session recording of May 30.

To understand more about messaging limits and how to scale, read our documentation.

Conversational Components API 

We are pleased to announce that the Conversational Components API is now available!

We received many requests to support integration with the conversational components API, as businesses are already creating automated experiences on WhatsApp to engage with customers in various scenarios like in-thread messaging commerce and customer support.

With the new conversational components, it is now even easier and more intuitive for users to interact with automated experiences through welcome messages, ice-breakers, and commands.

These conversational features include:

• Welcome messages: Greeting messages that introduce the brand and guide consumers when they open a chat with the business for the first time.
  • For example: “Hi, I’m here to help you learn how to speak Spanish.”
    
• Ice breakers: Customizable prompts that help consumers start engaging with the automated experience.
  • For example: “Help create a lesson plan for me”, “Watch a video to practice listening comprehension”, “Test my understanding.”
    
• Commands: Specific instructions that consumers can use to direct responses from the business.
  • For example: “/Plan daily lessons at 8 am” or “/imagine – Create images using a text prompt”

These features are accessible through the WhatsApp Business Manager, or its possible to configure through the API.

See our documentation for more details.

Utility Templates Library

We are also excited to introduce Meta’s new Utility Template Library, designed to expedite the creation of templates for various utility use cases, such as payment reminders, order confirmations, and more. With this feature, you can browse and select from a range of pre-curated templates specifically categorized as utility, reducing the likelihood of template rejection directly from WhatsApp Business Manager or also via API.

In addition, Meta has introduced customizable Time-to-Live (TTL) for utility and authentication templates. This allows Cloud API businesses to ensure that messages are timely and relevant to users. Customizable TTL also helps minimize costs by preventing the delivery of messages outside the specified timeframe.

See our documentation for more details about Customizable TTL and the Utility Template Library.

Updates to marketing and utility rates on the WhatsApp Business Platform

Meta is updating rates for marketing and utility services on the WhatsApp Business Platform to align with their vision of making WhatsApp a healthy ecosystem that drives value, provides a significant user experience, and ensures strong business performance.

Utility Rates – Effective August 1, 2024

Starting August 1, 2024, Meta is lowering rates for utility messages to stay competitive with alternative channels. This reduction aims to encourage businesses to adopt WhatsApp for a complete post-purchase customer journey.

Marketing Rates – Effective October 1, 2024

Beginning October 1, 2024, Meta will update marketing rates in specific markets. These rates may be adjusted more frequently (up to quarterly) to reflect the value that marketing messages deliver. As per Meta’s Terms of Service, businesses will always have at least a 30-day notice of any updates to the rate cards.

These pricing updates also incorporate valuable features Meta has been introducing for marketing and utility conversations, such as customizable TTL, enhancing their performance and effectiveness for businesses.

For more details on these pricing updates, please refer to Meta’s official documentation.