Messages

A message goes to one customer, by SMS or WhatsApp. To reach many customers with the same message, send a broadcast instead.

Send a messageCopy Anchor Link

1. In Engagement → Messages, select Compose.
2. Choose who it's To, and the Channel: SMS or WhatsApp.
3. Choose who it's From. For SMS, that's one of your sender IDs. For WhatsApp, it's your connected number.
4. Write your message, or start from a saved template. For WhatsApp, choose Send as a template, or as text to someone who wrote to you in the last 24 hours.
5. Choose Now, or Later with a day and time, up to a year ahead. WhatsApp text always goes now.
6. Send.

Track a messageCopy Anchor Link

Each message shows its status:

To cancel a scheduled message, open it and select Cancel message. To send any other message again, now, select Resend.

WhatsAppCopy Anchor Link

When a customer messages your WhatsApp number, Goomzo keeps the message and records it as their activity. If they aren't a customer yet, they're added, named as they are on WhatsApp.

Everything they send shows: text, photos, voice notes and other audio, videos, documents, stickers, locations and contact cards. Goomzo keeps a copy of each file up to 25 MB; a larger one is listed but not kept. You can reply with text, or with a template.

Open the customer to see your WhatsApp messages with them, newest at the bottom, and reply from there. To answer one message in particular, select Reply under it: your reply quotes it in WhatsApp. When a customer answers one of yours, their message shows the one it answers.

Goomzo makes this reply template on your WhatsApp account when you connect it, in English and Kiswahili (English unless you choose otherwise), and Meta reviews it, usually within minutes. Choose its language in Integrations → WhatsApp → Reply template.

We let you know, in Goomzo and by email, when your number is connected, when Meta disconnects it and why, and when its health changes: Meta's quality rating, how many conversations you can start a day, or a restriction Meta puts on the account or lifts.

WhatsApp templatesCopy Anchor Link

A template is a message Meta approved in advance, with blanks you fill for each customer. It's how you reach a customer outside the 24-hour window, and how WhatsApp broadcasts go.

1. Make the template in WhatsApp Manager. Meta usually reviews it within minutes, sometimes up to a day.
2. In Integrations → WhatsApp, see it under Templates. Goomzo syncs your templates when Meta reviews them; select Sync to read them now. We let you know, in Goomzo and by email, when Meta approves, rejects, pauses or disables a template, or moves it to another category.
3. Once it's approved, send it: with Compose, using Send as template, or from a conversation in the Inbox with the + button.
4. Fill each blank with text, or with the customer's details: {{name}} for their name, {{attributes.plan}} for a detail, and a fallback for anyone without it, as in {{name|there}}.

Meta charges your business for each template message delivered, by its category: marketing costs more than utility. Goomzo shows roughly what Meta will charge before you send. Templates with a photo, video or document header, and carousels can't be sent from Goomzo yet.

How SMS are countedCopy Anchor Link

One SMS holds 160 characters. A longer text is split into parts of 153 characters, and each part uses one SMS.

A text with a character outside the standard SMS alphabet, such as an emoji or ē, holds 70 characters, or 67 per part. A few standard characters, such as €, [ and ], count as two.

A text can be up to 6 parts. As you write, the message box shows how many parts it takes and how many SMS you have left.

AnalyticsCopy Anchor Link

Engagement → Analytics shows how many messages you sent, how many were delivered, and why any failed.