This article includes instructions on setting up and using the Relay messaging app.
The Relay bulk messaging app by Zendesk Labs enables businesses to proactively reach out to their end users on either WhatsApp or SMS. This functionality up levels your customer support to create a proactive, engaging customer experience.
This article contains the following topics:
Before you begin
Relay helps brands bring better support experiences to their consumers through proactive messaging for support use cases.
Things to consider:
- You must have a Zendesk Suite Pro or higher account to use Relay, and at least one integration with WhatsApp and/or SMS (Twilio or MessageBird) via Sunshine Conversations (not Talk or Text).
- Learn how to set-up a WhatsApp or SMS channel with Sunshine Conversations.
- You need to be signed in as a Zendesk admin to complete the setup.
- You must activate Custom Objects.
- You must have permission to View Custom Objects
Installation and setup
Activate Sunshine Conversations API and create an Authorization Token
- Create your API Key
- Admin Center → Apps and integrations → Conversations API
- Select Create API.
- Write a name for the key, ie. Key for Relay
- Select Next.
- Save the App ID, Key ID, and Secret key to a notepad.
- Build a secure Authorization Token
- Go to this Sunco token generator
- Input your saved key ID and Secret Key
- Select Generate Token
- Save the provided token
[Optional] Get your WhatsApp Namespace
- To find your WhatsApp Namespace, go to your Facebook Business Messenger
- Open Accounts, then WhatsApp accounts, and locate your Business Account
- Open Settings, then WhatsApp Manager
- Select Message Templates under Account Tools
- Click on the Namespace button on the toolbar to retrieve your Namespace info
Install the app
- Go to the Relay app listing.
- Click Install in the upper-right of the page.
- Select your account and click Install.
Configure the app
- Fill out the App ID and Authorization Token, which you saved in steps 1.5 and 2.3.
- Fill out your WhatsApp namespace, as needed.
- Fill out your Zendesk subdomain under the subdomain settings. The subdomain is a unique identifier of your Zendesk account, which appears before .zendesk.com in your account URL.
- Optional:
- You can change the number of “Blackout” days - this setting prevents you from sending a duplicate template to someone within the number of days referenced.
- You can restrict this app to certain staff by Role or by Group.
- All users of Relay must have permissions to VIEW Custom Objects
- Click Install - you’re all set!
Using the App
Overview of your existing messaging templates:
To view all of the templates you created, click on the app icon on the left navigation bar.
You can click through each template, toggle between the SMS and WhatsApp previews, and view the status of the template for each integration.
- Things to know:
- All SMS templates will be “Ready” at all times, as there is no overseeing body approving or rejecting templates.
- You will see all WhatsApp templates across all of the WhatsApp phone numbers you have under a single Namespace.
Create a new message template:
To begin creating a new template, from the Relay Notifications screen, select Create.
Setup Step
- Name your template - make it descriptive and unique.
- There are certain characters, caps, etc that are not permitted by Meta - these will be automatically deleted or adjusted.
- Select which integrations you want this template available on.
Message Step
- WhatsApp requires several additional pieces of information prior to approving a template for sending.
- Select the Category for this message template. Relay does not support the Authentication message category. For more information about the Message category, see here.
- Select the language for this message template.
- [Optional] Enter a Header. For images, documents, or videos, you need to provide a URL for where the attachment is hosted. You can use the Zendesk Help Center Article Attachments for this purpose.
- Enter the Body of your message. Some elements of rich text won’t be supported on different channels, but you can see the outcome in the Preview.
-
[Optional] Enter Buttons to drive action from your recipient
- Calls to Action can be Links or Buttons to place a call
- Quick Replies are responses the recipient will send back to you
- Calls to Action and Quick Replies cannot be combined in a single message
- Dynamic Values
- You can use Dynamic Values in the Header, Body, and/or the Buttons. Start a Dynamic Value with a double bracket {{ then enter an example of what the value will look like, then close the double bracket. Example: Hello, {{Clarice}}
- Dynamic Values will then be populated in the Send step with either static values (ie. Happy {{Monday}} ) or dynamic values populated from User data points.
Submit template
- Things to know:
- If this template is on a WhatsApp channel, the template will be submitted to Meta, and returned within 24 hours with Approval or Rejection. Often this takes just minutes.
- Your SMS templates will be ready immediately for sending.
Set up your audience and send your message:
To send your template, select Send in the top right corner of the Overview page, or select Send from the three dots on the individual template line.
- Select the integration you’ll send this template on. You can only send to one integration at a time.
Audience - Write your query to build your audience using Zendesk Advanced Search syntax. Common data points used in this audience creation include User Tags, custom user fields, created dates, and system user fields.
- This step is critical to targeting your audience correctly and not spamming your customers or employees. Study the linked article to confirm the appropriate search operators, etc.
- Recommendation: Spot check users that are returned in the search to confirm the meet the audience criteria you intended.
- You can add contacts from the excluded list to the included list from the Manage Audience modal. Contacts that match your search criteria are excluded only if you have sent that exact template to that user previously, in the time frame specified in your App Configuration.
- You can remove contacts from the included list from the Manage Audience modal. You might do this if you have extenuating circumstances that make you want to remove someone, despite their match to the search criteria.
Field Mapping - Relay will present each dynamic value that was identified when the template was created.
- Static types should be used if, for example, you’re going to send the same template each week, and want to change the day of the week each time. Every user receiving this template will receive the same value in a single send, but you can change that value the next time you send it.
- Dynamic values will pull in relevant System User Fields and all Custom User Fields.
Send
- You can now see a summary of the channel you will send on, and the total audience. Hit Send!
- Do not navigate to a different page in Relay until sending is complete. You can navigate around Support to other pages on other tabs.
- Things to know:
- Your audience needs to stay below 300,000 users. If your audience peaks above this, then you will miss users in your search results.
- Relay will send about 8 messages per second, which is about 28k messages per hour.
Best Practices
- Always send a test message to yourself to ensure your links are working correctly, etc.
- Store end-user opt-in status somewhere on their user record, and include this as a filter on your search query when you're sending your campaign. This could be a user tag, a check box, etc.
- Include a call-to-action on every message to drive end-user engagement.
- It's possible your end-users won't know that they can respond to your messages. You may want to include an invitation to ask questions in your templates (ex. Let me know if you have any questions).
- Remember that WhatsApp and SMS are different from an email channel - your messages should be short and sweet, with an optional call-to-action for more information. No one wants to receive a paragraph via text.
24 comments
Maxi Cooper - menze
Kudos Zendesk team on this great feature! We would love to be able to use it within our workflows, with triggers, automations and macros, is that something you are considering to add?
4
Fernando Bueno
Qual o formato do número que deve estar cadastrado no usuário final? Nos teste que eu fiz, não esta localizando em gerenciar públicos.
0
Athos Alves De Souza
For those who have problems with step 2…
You can use following link to generate the Autorization Token
https://zendesklabs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/p/sunco-token-generator
1
Adriana P. Barretto
Excelente notícia!
Consegui instalar o aplicativo, porém ao realizar o teste com meu próprio número de WhatsApp, a mensagem não é enviada e o erro não é identificado. O que poderá ter ocorrido na minha instância?
Obrigada!
1
Leonardo Santos
Fernando Bueno realizei alguns testes com WhatsApp e o filtro "phone:55…" só funcionou se o número estiver cadastrado no usuário com o ínicio “+55…”
1
George Aufiero
I am having the same issue as Adriana P. Barretto. When I send an approved WhatsApp template to my own phone number I receive an unknown error.![](/hc/user_images/01HZQKJ8WZHFMKRDNDYEP2TY78.png)
1
Cuneyt Celebican
Hi Adriana P. Barretto and George Aufiero,
Thanks for your feedback. We recently identified similar behaviour due to the phone number format. Until we deliver the fix, please ensure that the phone number format includes the country code, no empty spaces, and no special characters except the leading + sign for the country code.
Thanks
3
Adriana P. Barretto
Good morning, Cuneyt,
Thank you very much for the information! I tested it again and it did indeed work with the format you mentioned.
2
Jéssica G. Bigon
I did the configuration yesterday, but so far it remains as "in sync". Has anyone gone through this? Should I do something different?
1
Athos Alves De Souza
Hi Jéssica G. Bigon
Try to active the custom objects Activating custom objects – Zendesk help
0
Kris
Hello
Ok, we connected Relay and everything works, but I have a question: why is a ticket not created in the user account that such a notification was sent? Whatsapp in this case
Best
Kris
0
Jéssica G. Bigon
Hello Athos Alves De Souza thank you so much for the answer.
I verified that it is already active and, in fact, an object called Zendesk Labs Notification Template was (automatically) created the day I installed the app.
When viewing the records of this object, it shows a template that I had used in Meta templates previously.
Do you know what it could be?
The issue of synchronizing the app in the instance has not changed yet.
0
Cuneyt Celebican
Hi Jéssica G. Bigon,
Thank you for reporting this issue. The app loads templates based on the channel. Due to the bug, the channel property is set to null on the custom object record you shared, which prevents the app from loading templates. Could you please delete this custom object record, refresh your browser, and open the Relay app again?
Thanks
1
Elaine Tan
Dear Zendesk Team,
I wanted to take a moment to share some feedback from my working group on the Relay App. We hope this can be forwarded to your developer team, as we genuinely love using Zendesk and we look forward to the continuous improvement of new functions.
How Our Customer Service Support Intends to Use Relay:
Our Marketing’s Perspective on Using Relay:
We hope this feedback is helpful and we look forward to seeing how Relay evolves. Thanks!
2
Brett Bowser
Elaine Tan thanks for taking the time to share this with us! I would recommend creating a post in our Feedback - Apps and integrations (Platform) topic as this is the primary location that our Product Managers monitor for customer feedback.
Let me know if you have any questions!
0
Michael Ospina
Everything was installed according to the steps in this documentation, however it remains on the "Synchronizing with meta" screen =(
0
Mike Miner
I'm trying to send a WhatsApp on an approved template but am seeing this error. Do you know what it could be?
‘1 notification failed’ - ‘Unknown error’
Thanks
0
Juan Manuel Giannini
Hi there! Does anyone know what Meta requirements are for submiting templates with images/videos/documents? I've been submitting them, but couldn't get them to be approved so far. I have used repositories both from Zendesk Media Library and from outside sources. I've ran out of ideas… Any advices? Could anyone succed while adding this kind of headers to your templates? Thanks!
0
Cuneyt Celebican
Hey Mike Miner,
Sorry to hear that. We will deliver a fix to address this issue. Until then, please ensure that the phone number format includes the country code, no empty spaces, and no special characters except the leading + sign for the country code. Examples:
Thanks
0
Mike Miner
Hey Cuneyt Celebican
I can confirm the number is setup with that format, It is +44 if this changes anything?
Thanks
0
Cuneyt Celebican
Mike Miner Is this issue consistent for all numbers starting with +44?
0
Cuneyt Celebican
Hi Juanma,
Do you get approval for the same template without having an image/video/document? If not, I suggest you check the template guidelines for WhatsApp using the link below. I also recommend you check your rejected templates via Whatsapp Business Manager. It provides information about potential reasons for the rejection as well.
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/message-templates/guidelines/
Thanks
0
Fernando Bueno
Any suggestions on how to generate a report with active message sending interactions?
0
Marioly Meza
Hola,
¿cuando intento agregar la audiencia debo separar los números cómo? ¿comas, punto y coma? solo me está reconociendo el primer número
0