Opt-in Guidelines

WhatsApp’s policy requires businesses to follow a few requirements while collecting
opt-ins. Your business will need to adhere to the below practices:

• You will have to clearly state that the customer is opting in to receive messages from
  your business on WhatsApp.
• You will need to explicitly mention the business’ name that the customer is opting in to
  receive messages from.
• As a business you will also need to ensure that you are complying with the applicable
  law.

WhatsApp’s strict no-no policy for spam

• Driving a high-quality messaging experience for their users has always been a top priority for WhatsApp. This is in place to ensure that messages initiated by businesses are not promotional or in any way considered marketing spam, but are purely transactional in nature.

Methods of Collecting Customer Opt-in

• WhatsApp User-Initiated Messages: Enhancing existing user journeys or capturing opt-in with keyword responses is the most effective way of collecting user consent. With the visual representation in place, there is no better way to capture consent for WhatsApp on WhatsApp itself! Once a user reaches out, the corresponding message to the user could be to receive WhatsApp updates in the future. We can also add keywords like ‘Start’ or ‘Opt-in’ to consider user consent.

• Website: Website and Phone Apps provide users an elevated customer experience. It defines the core business model hence your website is a great channel to use when inviting new and existing customers to receive messages over WhatsApp. This can be done by integrating with Netcore Opt-In API.

  a. Create a Website Widget to redirect users to your chatbot: An embedded deep link can be placed as a chat widget on the user's website. Once the user clicks that, they are directed to WhatsApp with a Pre-Filled text. On initiating the conversation, the user’s number can be opted-in.

  b. Include a check-box in the customer journey : Add a checkbox or a placeholder in the customer journey on the website. Once the user clicks ‘accept’ the business can call Netcore opt-in API to whitelist the phone number number.

• In-App Notifications/Purchase Journeys: Notifications pertaining to actual transactions i.e. Order Placement Confirmation, Money Withdrawal, Delivery, and Shipment are best received by the end consumer. Hence, customers will be more inclusive to opting-in during the purchase journey thereby increasing the opt-in rate. Businesses can easily include a checkbox at various touchpoints where the customer would enter their phone number.

• Third-Party Channels - SMS/Missed Call/Email/IVR: Businesses have multiple communication channels with their customers like SMS/Email/IVR are often used to send out transactional and informational notifications. Netcore can enable opt-in for your business for each of these channels. They’re great, cost-effective techniques where businesses can collect opt-in from existing channels of communication.

Best Practices and Maximizing Opt-in Rates

• Opt-ins prevent businesses from being reported or blocked by the user. It creates recall value and provides consent to enter the user's inbox. This is why it helps businesses maintain Phone Number Quality Rating.

• As per WhatsApp Opt-in Policy Update - Opt-ins do not have to be explicit anymore. Businesses can leverage pre-filled check boxes, adding them to terms and conditions however the communication needs to add value for the user to avoid being reported or blocked by messaging tiers.

• Add an opt-out mechanism in each template - Some users may simply be spooked that they do not have any way of opting out. This will help preserve the quality rating.

• Send a welcome/confirmation notification as soon as the user signs up or opts into WhatsApp so that they make the memory/connection that they just opted in and that's why they have received the message. Include the opt-out option here,so they know how to opt-out if they ever want to.

• Add an auto-response on WhatsApp so that users don't have a poor experience when they try to message the number after receiving a notification.

• Netcore’s opt-in and opt-out APIs provide a scalable solution to maximize opt-in collection via website/in-app and other user journeys.

• Avoid going overboard and messaging customers too frequently.

• While collecting opt-ins, it is best to specifically state the type of messages that your customers can expect to receive from your business.

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