What is an away message on WhatsApp Business?

The definition in two minutes

The away message is a tool in the WhatsApp Business app. You write a text, choose when it goes out and to whom, and the app sends it by itself to each customer concerned who writes to you. You set it in the Tools tab, under “Away message”.

When it goes out

Always, over a chosen period, or only outside your opening hours. That last option only exists if you have entered your hours in the business profile.

To whom

To every customer, to those who are not in your address book, to everyone except some, or to a selection.

What it needs

The phone needs an active internet connection to send the message.

• Setting up an away message: the step-by-step guide →

The away message or software’s out-of-hours handling

Both reply to a customer when you are closed, but they are not the same mechanism.

When software replies to a customer this way, the reply goes out within the 24-hour window that follows their message: it is a service message.

If you keep the app alongside the API

With coexistence, the same number works in the app and on the API. Meta says the app’s messaging tools, the away message included, do not change in the app and are not supported on the API.

So the away message stays a setting of the app, and the software has its own handling of opening hours. The two are independent: so that a customer does not get two automatic replies, keep only one of them active.

• Coexistence with WYP.chat →

What it means for a small business

An away message tells the customer they wrote to the right place and when they will get an answer. A good text fits in three ideas:

• when you are back: “tomorrow at 9 am” rather than “soon”;
• what the customer can do meanwhile: a page to read, a number for an emergency;
• a sentence or two, not a paragraph.

In WYP.chat, the Veilleur AI agent plays this role when you are closed: it replies straight away with the reopening time, then hands the request to the team for opening. Its away text is a fixed text that you read through before turning it on.

• WYP.chat AI agents →

Example

Illustrative case: an electrician spends the day on a job site. Their away message reads: “Hello, we are on a job site. We will reply tomorrow at 9 am. For an emergency, please call us.” The customer knows when to expect an answer and does not write a second time.

Frequently asked questions