WhatsApp auto reply that doesn't annoy: keyword and hours rules
Most automatic replies fail the same few ways: wrong trigger, vague words, bad timing. Here is how to avoid each one, with wording you can borrow.
Say a customer writes "it's been three hours and my order still hasn't arrived." Seconds later she gets this back: "We're open Monday to Saturday, 9 to 6. Visit our website for more information."
The shop's opening hours were not what she asked about. The reply matched the word "hours" and ignored everything else. She's now more annoyed than before she wrote.
A WhatsApp auto reply is a small thing to get right and an easy thing to get wrong. These are the rules we'd follow, with example wording you can copy and a few honest notes on how Avox handles each one.
Answer one question, then get out of the way
Every automatic message is a small promise: "something useful is coming." The best ones give one useful thing (when you open, where you are, what happens next) and then leave room for a person.
In Avox, one automation runs per incoming message: the oldest switched-on automation whose trigger matches. The same automation also runs at most once an hour for the same contact. That's a built-in brake against a reply storm, and a good model for how you should think too. One message, one purpose.
WhatsApp auto reply keywords: match carefully
A keyword automation fires when the message contains one of your words anywhere in the text. Upper and lower case don't matter. That's convenient, and it's also where most irritation starts, because a short word matches inside longer ones. "Book" matches "booking" and "notebook". "Hours" matches "three hours" in an angry message about a delivery.
Some habits that keep keyword replies honest:
- Prefer phrases to single words. "Opening hours", "what time do you open" and "are you open" are safer than "hours".
- Think of the worst message that contains your word. If the reply would be tone-deaf to it, make the keyword more specific.
- Keep one topic per automation. A "prices" reply and a "returns" reply shouldn't share keywords.
- Always give a way to a person. End with something like: "If this doesn't cover it, reply here and someone from the team will pick it up."
For messages that sound unhappy, don't send a cheerful canned line at all. Avox can tag the contact and send a bell notification to your team instead (the premade "Complaint escalation" works that way), so a person answers. Premade automations has the full list of starting points.
WhatsApp business hours auto reply: say when, not sorry
The "outside business hours" trigger fires when a message arrives while you're closed and stays quiet while you're open. You set an opening time, a closing time and a time zone. Overnight hours work too: opening at 22:00 and closing at 06:00 fires between 06:00 and 22:00.
Good out-of-hours wording does three things: says you're closed, says when someone will reply, and, if it's cheap to do, answers the obvious question.
Weak: "Thanks for your message. We're currently unavailable."
Better: "Hi {{contact.first_name|there}}, we're closed right now. The team is back at 9am and we'll reply to this first thing. If it's about an order, send us the order number and it'll be ready for us."
Two things about how Avox does hours, because they affect your wording:
- There's no weekday setting. The trigger works on time of day only. So a Saturday message sent at noon, inside your usual hours, gets no auto reply, even if you're shut on Saturdays. Write the message so it stays true at any hour: "We'll reply when we're next open," not "Monday at 9."
- The time zone is stored as a fixed offset. If your country changes its clocks, check the hours again and adjust them.
About that curly-bracket bit: {{contact.first_name|there}} inserts the customer's first name, or "there" when Avox doesn't have one. Without a fallback, a message that's missing a value isn't sent at all, so a customer never sees a gap in a sentence.
Tone: write like the person at the counter
Read your reply aloud as if you were saying it across a counter. If it sounds odd out loud, change it.
- Short. Three sentences at most. People read WhatsApp replies on a lock screen.
- Specific. "We reply within the hour on weekdays" beats "We'll get back to you shortly", but only say it if it's true. A promise you break is worse than no promise.
- Human. Use the customer's name, contractions and one clear request. Skip "Dear valued customer", all capitals and strings of exclamation marks.
- Honest about being automatic. "This is an automatic reply" costs you nothing and stops people waiting for a person who hasn't seen the message yet.
A greeting for a first-time contact (the "New contact" trigger) is a good place to be warm. Avox treats a person whose past chats were synced from your app as not new, so long-standing customers don't get "welcome" messages. Imported history never fires an automation either.
Timing: stay inside WhatsApp's window
Meta's rules decide what an automation can send. A customer service window opens for 24 hours each time a customer messages you. Inside it you can send free-form text. After it, only an approved template can be sent. Meta's page on sending messages explains the window, and it changes occasionally, so check it. Our own docs show where it appears in the dashboard on the messaging window page.
For auto replies this has a practical effect:
- Replies to incoming messages go out as the message arrives, well inside the window.
- Follow-ups need care. Avox's "No-reply follow-up" trigger fires when a customer's latest message has had no answer for the time you set (30 minutes by default), and you should keep it to 23 hours or less so the nudge lands inside the window. It counts any reply, whether your team sent it from the Avox inbox, from the phone app or through the API, so it won't nudge a customer your team has already answered.
- Waiting before replying. An action can wait up to 30 seconds before running. A tiny pause makes a reply feel less like a machine, though don't overdo it.
Automatic messages also use credits from your plan, with a plain text reply costing one credit, so a chatty three-message automation costs three times as much as a single line. Another reason to keep it short.
The app's own away message
If your number is shared with the WhatsApp Business app through Coexistence, the app may already have a greeting or away message set up. Meta's onboarding guide lists those app tools as unchanged in the app and not supported on the platform side, but it doesn't explain what happens when both are on. Don't assume. Message the number from a spare phone, outside your hours, and see whether the customer receives one reply or two. Switch one off if it's two.
Test it before a customer does
New automations start switched off, which is a gift. Before you turn one on:
- Use Preview the conversation in the builder to read it as the customer will.
- Switch it on and send the trigger words from a spare phone, then a few awkward variations.
- Open the automation's Run log. It shows each run step by step, and why a run stopped if it did.
- Check again a week later. Real customers write things you didn't think of.
The settings for every trigger are in the automation triggers docs. Automation is also the engine behind Avox AI, which is in Beta. It doesn't improvise: it sends the messages you wrote, when the rules you chose say so.
Questions people ask
Can I set a WhatsApp auto reply for business hours?
Yes. In Avox, choose the "Outside business hours" trigger, set your opening and closing times and a time zone, and write the message. It stays quiet while you're open.
How many keywords can I use?
Add as many as the automation needs, one chip at a time, but fewer, specific phrases work better than a long list of loose words.
Will an auto reply reopen a conversation after 24 hours?
No. An automatic reply answers a message the customer just sent, so it goes out inside the window. To start a conversation after the window has closed you need an approved template.
Should every message get an automatic reply?
We'd say no. A reply to every message can feel hollow, and the one-hour limit per contact means it can't answer more than once anyway. Reserve it for first contact, out-of-hours and the three or four questions you answer every day, and let your team, working from a shared inbox with clear habits, handle the rest.
Next step: write your out-of-hours message first, read it aloud, then cut a sentence from it. Build the keyword replies after that, one at a time.
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A WhatsApp auto reply should help, not irritate. Rules and example wording for keyword and business-hours replies, and how to set them up in Avox.
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