Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Agent |
Each platform limits what you can send and when. Those rules belong to them, and they explain most agent frustration.
The reply window
Every social platform limits how long after a customer's message you may reply freely. Past that window, a normal reply is refused.
This is the single most common source of confusion for agents: a reply that simply will not send, on a conversation that looks ordinary. It is not a fault, and there is nothing to configure.
What that means in practice
- Answer social conversations promptly. They are not email.
- Do not park them on hold for days. The window closes while you wait.
- Where a conversation will take time, move it to email or ask for an address before the window closes.
What you can send differs too
Attachments, formatting, images and message length are all limited differently per platform, and those limits change. A reply that works in the web widget can be rejected on WhatsApp for being too long.
Starting a conversation
Generally not allowed. Replying to somebody who contacted you is fine; messaging somebody first is restricted, and on WhatsApp it requires an approved template.
Anyone planning proactive outreach on social should establish what is permitted before designing the campaign.
Set expectations with agents
Most of this reaches your team as apparent bugs. Ten minutes explaining that these are platform rules saves a great deal of time spent looking for a Zendesk setting that does not exist.
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