There are several ways to increase your chance of following FB guidelines.
For a complete list of WhatsApp Business and Commerce Policy, you can refer to these links:
https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/business-policy
https://www.whatsapp.com/policies/commerce-policy/
Please be informed that the final decision is on FB's reviewer teams hence we cannot change their decision regarding your template's approval.
Firstly,
To help you create a relational and helpful template, make sure your template is falling into one of these categories:
- Account Update: Let customers know about updates or changes to their accounts.
- Alert Update: Send important updates or news to customers.
- Appointment Update: Send confirmations, reminders, or other updates to customers about their appointments.
- Auto-Reply: Send auto-replies to customers when your business isn’t online or available to respond right away.
- Issue Resolution: Respond to questions, concerns, or feedback from customers about your business.
- Payment Update: Send a message to customers about their payment.
- Personal Finance Update: Send a message to customers about their personal finances.
- Reservation Update: Send confirmations, reminders, or other updates to customers about their reservations.
- Shipping Update: Send shipping updates to customers about their orders.
- Ticket Update: Send ticketing information or updates to customers.
- Transportation Update: Send transportation information or updates to customers.
Make sure the content is a notification that is needed or wanted by customers, generally on the transaction process.
You may only initiate chats if you are sending a transactional notification, hence a template will be rejected if it appears to be only informational. Add more context to show that your message was requested by the customer and contains transactional information.
Make sure the message template(s) are not considered promotional
Advertising, marketing, or promotional messages are not permitted. Some examples of this include the following:
- Offering coupon codes and/or gifts
- Upselling
For example: “Here is your boarding pass, with seat assignment and gate information. If you would like to save 10% on your in-flight dinner, order your meal through our app.” - Cold call messages
For example: “Is now a good time to talk?”, “Thank you for your interest, can we speak now?”, “I tried contacting you, but you weren't available. When are you free?”, etc. - Sending a survey or poll to collect data
For example: “Hi, we're interested in knowing how you feel about certain food groups. Do you mind participating in a survey?” - Inclusion of certain words or phrases that make the message template promotional (even though the content of your template may be fine)
Tip: Think about how your template sounds when read out loud.
Make sure the message template(s) doesn't contain floating parameter
WhatsApp does not approve message templates with floating parameters (i.e., lines with just parameters and no text). In the below example, we're referring to {{3}} and {{4}} as the floating parameters.
--
TICKET NO: {{1}}
PASSENGER NAME: *{{2}}*
--
{{3}} - {{4}}
Tip: Surround the parameters with textual information, so it's clear what will be inserted.
Make sure formatting is correct
Some examples of incorrect format include the following:
- Message templates with spelling mistakes will be rejected.
- Make sure to use parameters like,
{{1}},{{2}}etc. and include the correct number of curly brackets (i.e., 2 on the left side of the number and 2 on the right side of the number).
You can find more about formatting in the Creating Message Templates documentation.
Make sure templates doesn't contain potentially abusive or threatening content
Some examples of this include the following:
- Message templates that threaten customers with a legal course of action will be rejected.
- Message templates that threaten to add customers to a WhatsApp group with their friends and family to shame them if they don't pay back their loans will be rejected.
Additional Tips
In addition to the above, please consider the following to accelerate the approval process.
- Make your message template name clear. Instead of using a name like "template_014," use "bus_ticket_details".
- Remember that someone outside your business will be reviewing your templates. Providing more clarity gives reviewers context around how the template will be used.
- If you need to write a message template to re-open the 24-hour window, we would suggest starting with some mention of the previous conversation thread.
For example: “I'm sorry that I wasn't able to respond to your concerns yesterday, but I’m happy to assist you now. If you’d like to continue this discussion, please reply with ‘yes’.” or “I was able to do some follow-up based on our previous conversation, and I’ve found the answer to your question about our refund policy. If you’d like to continue our conversation, please say ‘yes’.”