Gem’s WhatsApp Business integration allows you to use WhatsApp messages - alongside emails, text messages and InMail - to communicate with prospects, giving you another option to choose from. This article covers how to set up a WhatsApp Business integration with Gem, and how to create WhatsApp message templates.
If you’re looking for details of how to use WhatsApp in both Sequences and one-off messages, you can find that in our WhatsApp messages article.
Requirements
- This feature is available to all teams.
- Admin access is required to set up the WhatsApp Business integration.
- The SMS functionality needs to be enabled in order to send WhatsApp messages (details of how to do this are included below).
- A WhatsApp Business account is required, as this feature does not work with a standard WhatsApp account.
Considerations
The following considerations apply when using the WhatsApp functionality:
- Messaging to US numbers is not supported, per Meta's WhatsApp messaging guidelines.
- According to Twilio, Meta has restricted initial outreach to US WhatsApp numbers for an unknown amount of time.
- Rather than using an existing WhatsApp number to communicate with prospects, this feature requires a dedicated WhatsApp number provisioned by Gem.
- Meta requires you to use pre-approved templates for initial messages to candidates (until a candidate responds).
- Once a candidate responds, you then have a 24-hour window where you can freeform message the candidate via WhatsApp.
Setup
The process for setting up the WhatsApp functionality involves these steps:
- Set up the SMS integration with the Gem support team.
- Connect your WhatsApp Business account to Gem.
- Talk to a Customer Service Manager or Gem Support to request a new WhatsApp sender.
- Create one or more message templates.
The following sections cover the instructions for each step.
Set up the SMS integration
If you don’t already have an SMS integration set up with Gem, please contact either your Customer Support Manager (CSM) or Gem’s Support team to begin the SMS registration process.
For more information about setting up and using SMS stages in sequences, see our Text Message (SMS) Sequences article.
Connect your WhatsApp Business account to Gem
With an SMS integration set up, the next step is to connect your WhatsApp Business account to Gem.
- Navigate to the WhatsApp section of your Admin settings’ Integrations tab. With nothing connected there will be an option to Connect WhatsApp Business Account:
- Select this to connect your WhatsApp account, following Meta’s instructions for authentication and permissions.
Request a new WhatsApp sender
The next step is to speak to either your CSM or the Gem Support team, and ask them to provision a new WhatsApp sender on your behalf.
Your CSM or Support will ask you for the following information:
- Your business name
- Your business address
- Your business email
- This is an optional field, and will be the email that WhatsApp users will see on your sender profile
- Your business description
- A URL to your official logo
- The link to your official website
Once they have that information, your CSM or Support will file a request with Gem’s engineering team to set up a WhatsApp sender on your behalf, and will let you know when your WhatsApp sender is ready.
Once ready, the details of your WhatsApp sender will display in the WhatsApp section of your Admin settings’ Integrations tab.
Create message templates
With the WhatsApp integration now set up, the last setup stage is to create one or more message templates for use with WhatsApp. Note that any new template needs to be approved by Meta before you can start using it, so we recommend you factor in time for approval.
Follow these steps to create a new WhatsApp template:
- Go to the Messages tab of the Templates page.
- Select WhatsApp on the left-hand side. From here you can see all existing templates and create new ones.
- Select the + New WhatsApp template button to create a new template.
- Add a name for the template and populate the message body.
- Drag tokens into the message body for where you’d like to automatically populate the message with customer details.
- Once you’re happy with the template, select the Submit for approval button.
- Select Yes on the WhatsApp template will be sent to Meta for approval pop-up.
This immediately sends the template to Meta for approval, and sets the message Status to Pending approval (you can see this from the WhatsApp Templates list.
When approved, the Status will change to Approved. If rejected, the Status will change to Rejected
Possible rejection reasons include, but are not limited to:
- If there are multiple tokens next to each other in the message (instead, we recommend spacing out tokens amongst the overall content of the message, and not starting or ending a message with a token).
- One or more tokens is missing or has mismatched curly braces (they should always show in the format
{{xyz}}). - One or more tokens includes special characters (e.g. #, $, % etc.).
With at least one WhatsApp template created and approved, you can start sending WhatsApp messages using Gem - see our WhatsApp messages article for details of this.
Have any issues or questions on this topic? Please feel free to contact your dedicated Gem Customer Success Manager directly or our Support team at support@gem.com.