Sending a template to an end user

An approved template is the only thing that reaches a customer outside the 24-hour reply window. Once it closes the composer is blocked until they write again.

An approved template is the only thing that reaches a customer outside the reply window. Once the window closes the composer is blocked, so an agent cannot type a reply at all until the customer writes again. That is visible rather than silent, and it is the moment a template is the only way forward.

Two details about the window itself. It runs for 24 hours from the moment the message arrives in the WhatsApp channel, not from when Zendesk received it, so a message delayed on the way in arrives with less window than it looks. And once it closes you cannot reply at all until the customer writes again, which reopens it.

This works the same way as Facebook Messenger: the composer is blocked once the window closes, so you cannot type a reply at all. A countdown in the composer, and on the conversation preview in the ticket list, shows how long is left before that happens. Agent Home warns before that, without the agent having to open the ticket, which is the point at which somebody can still just reply.

From the ticket, once the window has closed

Agents no longer need a macro for the ordinary case. While the 24-hour window is open a countdown runs on the ticket; when it closes the composer is disabled and the agent is pointed at the templates instead.

1. Browse the approved templates in the searchable, alphabetical list.
2. Pick the language from the drop-down. It defaults to the ticket's language.
3. Read the preview before you send. The first template is previewed by default.
4. Fill the variables, either by typing a value or by pulling one from a ticket field, a user field or a custom user field.
5. Send. The template is logged in both the conversation log and the ticket event log.

The composer switches itself back on as soon as the customer replies. This arrived with a rollout that ran from 7 to 21 September 2026, so if an agent still sees a plain disabled composer with no template list, that account is at the tail of it.

From a macro, for anything automated

For macros and automated flows, somebody builds the template into a macro.

1. Create a macro as you would any other.
2. Under Actions, paste this into the Rich content field:
   &((template=[[template]] fallback=[[text_fallback]] language=[[language]]))&
3. Replace the three values with your template name, your fallback text and the language.
4. Add parameters in the same expression where the template has variables, for example body_text=[[ticket.requester.first_name]]. Media and buttons go in the same place: the header image URL, the body parameters, the button index and the button URL.
5. Save, and tell the agents which macro to use.

The agent then applies the macro like any other. The syntax is written once by whoever sets it up, and the agent sees only the shorthand while the customer sees the real template.

Only to people who have contacted you

The shorthand has a hard boundary: you cannot use it to send proactive templates to end users who have never reached out to your business. For that, the route is the Sunshine Conversations Notification API, which is how order updates and appointment reminders work at volume. That is an integration and it needs building.

So the everyday case is reaching somebody who already wrote to you and has since gone quiet. Anything genuinely outbound is a different project.

Check the values before sending

The wording is fixed but the values are not, and a template with an empty placeholder sends anyway. "Your order has been dispatched" is the WhatsApp version of the same problem as everywhere else.

It restarts the window

Once the customer replies, you can converse freely again. Exactly how that clock works: it starts when the message arrives in the WhatsApp channel, not when Support received it or the ticket was created, and it restarts every time they send another one.

A template is a way back into a conversation, not the conversation itself.

What it costs depends on the kind

Marketing templates cost money per message. Utility templates sent inside an open 24-hour window are free until 1 October 2026, and charged per message from that date, along with ordinary replies in that window. Check this before building an automated flow that sends thousands. Ask us what it means for your volumes.

See also

• Reaching out to customers proactively on WhatsApp
• Creating message templates
• Differences per social channel: what works and what does not