WhatsApp and artificial intelligence
24-hour window
The 24-hour window, or customer service window, is the period that opens every time someone messages a WhatsApp Business Platform number: for 24 hours from their last message you can reply freely; once it closes, you can only write to them with an approved template.
Also known ascustomer service window · service window · 24-hour rule · session window
What it is exactly
The clock starts when the person writes, not when the residence does, and resets to 24 hours with each of their messages. While it is open you can send any kind of message: ordinary text, photos, buttons. Once it closes, the only way to write to them again is a message template approved in advance. The rule belongs to the WhatsApp Business Platform, not to the residence or to whoever provides its service.
In a residence it shows in everything that is not a reply: the notice that a parcel has arrived, the one saying a fault has been fixed, an announcement to the whole house or the morning question to someone who should be back today. They almost always go to someone who has not written in the last day. How Bedel handles this can be seen in parcels and in announcements.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that with the API you can write to anyone at any time. You cannot: outside the window not even a "hello" goes out without an approved template. And a template is not ordinary text under another name: it has its category, goes through a review, and Meta can change its category if the content does not fit.
Sources
Related terms
- ParcelsParcel handling in a residence is receiving and holding the deliveries that arrive for residents (parcels, letters, courier items, food deliveries) until each person collects them. It means recording what has arrived, telling the person it is for and keeping a record of the handover.
- WhatsApp Business PlatformThe WhatsApp Business Platform is Meta's platform for organisations to handle WhatsApp at scale from their own software, through the Cloud API, instead of by hand from the WhatsApp Business app on a phone. It comes with its own system of approved templates and sending rules.
- Message templateA WhatsApp message template is a message with a fixed format and variable placeholders (a name, a time) that is registered and reviewed by Meta before use. It is the only thing that can be sent outside the 24-hour window, and each one belongs to a category: utility, marketing or authentication.