WhatsApp and your app: order updates, OTPs and support

The app, the WhatsApp Business app and the platform are three different things

Business owners often mix these up, and the choice decides what you can automate.

If you are still on a single phone and your team forwards screenshots to each other, that is the sign to move to the platform. Our Replyvo concept shows what that move looks like: one official number, many agents, every chat assigned to someone.

How the platform works, in plain words

Four rules shape everything you build on the WhatsApp Business Platform:

• Opt-in first. The customer must agree to hear from you on WhatsApp. Collect it clearly — a checkbox at checkout, a toggle in the app, or the customer messaging you first — and store when and where they agreed.
• Templates for anything you start. A message you send first (an order update, a reminder, an offer) must use a pre-approved template. Templates have fixed wording with placeholders like {{name}} and {{order_id}}, and are reviewed before you can use them.
• A 24-hour window for replies. When a customer messages you, you can reply freely — any text, image or document — for 24 hours after their last message. After that, you are back to templates.
• Categories decide the price. Templates are classed by purpose — broadly utility (order and account updates), authentication (OTPs) and marketing (offers). Each category is charged differently, and marketing is usually the most expensive.

Meta changes the pricing model, categories and rates from time to time — it has moved between conversation-based and per-message charging. Check the current rate card for India before you budget, and ask your provider how they pass costs on.

The messages worth sending

Every message should answer a question the customer would otherwise ask you. A useful test: would they be annoyed if this message did not arrive?

Notice the pattern: transactional messages go on WhatsApp, browsing and history stay in the app or website. That keeps your costs predictable and your block rate low.

OTPs: WhatsApp, SMS or both

Many Indian apps now send login OTPs on WhatsApp first and fall back to SMS. WhatsApp OTPs tend to arrive reliably over mobile data, support a one-tap copy button, and avoid some of the delays SMS routes can have. SMS still matters for people without WhatsApp, on feature phones, or with no data at that moment.

• Offer the channel choice on the login screen, with WhatsApp as the default if most of your users have it.
• Fall back to SMS automatically if the WhatsApp message is not delivered within a short time.
• Keep OTP templates in the authentication category — do not add promotional lines to them.
• Rate-limit OTP requests per number and per device so nobody can run up your bill.

SMS in India also has its own rules — registered sender IDs and templates on the telecom operators’ DLT system. Your SMS provider will walk you through it, but plan a few days for it before launch. For login design in general, see launching on Google Play from India.

Support: one number, many people

The moment more than one person answers customers, you need a shared inbox. Without one, chats get missed, two staff reply to the same customer, and nobody knows who promised what.

A good team inbox — like the one in Replyvo, built for a Jaipur ethnic-wear brand — does a few things well:

• Routing. New chats go to the right team (orders, returns, wholesale) and to whoever is free, round-robin or by skill.
• Saved replies. Agents answer common questions with one tap, in the brand’s voice and in the customer’s language.
• Context. The customer’s recent orders sit next to the chat, so nobody has to ask for an order number twice.
• SLA timers. A chat waiting too long turns amber, then red, so the team lead sees it before the customer gets angry.
• Hand-off from bot to human. Simple questions (where is my order?) can be answered automatically; anything else reaches a person quickly.

See business inbox and CRM for the full feature list we build.

Broadcasts without getting blocked

Marketing broadcasts are where most businesses lose their quality rating. If many people block or report your number, WhatsApp can limit how many messages you can send, or pause a template.

• Send marketing only to people who opted in to offers, not everyone who ever ordered.
• Segment: a sale on kurtas goes to people who bought kurtas, not your entire list.
• Send less often than you think. Once or twice a month is plenty for most businesses.
• Always include an easy way to stop — a quick-reply button that actually unsubscribes them.
• Watch the funnel: sent, delivered, read, clicked. A falling read rate is your warning.

Wiring it into your app

Technically, your app or backend calls the platform (directly or through a provider) whenever an event happens — order placed, rider assigned, report uploaded. Incoming messages arrive at a webhook you host. A few build decisions save trouble later:

• Keep one event system: the same ‘order shipped’ event triggers the push notification, the WhatsApp template and the email, each with its own rules.
• Store the opt-in, the template used and the delivery status for every message. You will need it when a customer says “I never got it”.
• Link back into the app or website with a deep link, so a tap on “Track order” opens the right screen.
• Translate templates. If your customers read Hindi, Tamil or Marathi, approve templates in those languages too — see regional language apps.
• Treat phone numbers and chat history as personal data. Limit who can see them and how long you keep them — see the DPDP checklist.

If you are planning a new app, put messaging in the first version rather than bolting it on. It is part of the process from week one in our builds.

Questions people ask