| Announced on | Rollout on |
| May 30, 2024 | May 30, 2024 |
We are happy to announce the release of Relay, a Built by Zendesk Labs app available on the Zendesk Marketplace that enables you to create and send proactive messages to your end users over SMS or WhatsApp.
This announcement answers the following questions:
What's changing?
Companies that need to proactively contact their end users about service incidents, delivery delays, promotional offers, and more can now install an app supported by Zendesk to handle this use case. With Relay, we’re solving the following needs for customers:
- Create WhatsApp and SMS templates within Zendesk.
- Submit WhatsApp templates to Meta for approval.
- Review all created templates, including the integrations they’re available on, their status with Meta, and previews of the content.
- Create your templates, including support for headers, dynamic variables, hosted images, links, buttons, quick replies, and language and category (WhatsApp).
- Create your audience using Zendesk’s advanced search syntax, based on any data found on Zendesk users.
Why is Zendesk making this change?
As consumers increase their requirements for excellent customer experiences, proactive messaging has quickly become a keystone for exemplary customer support. We have long heard requests for this functionality from customers, and are pleased to bring it to life for you.
What do I need to do?
To install Relay in your environment, head to the Zendesk Marketplace to install it directly into your instance.
- To submit and send WhatsApp template messages to end users, you must have at least one phone number connected to the WhatsApp Business API. If you haven't already done this, complete the self-service process to create your WhatsApp Business account and connect a phone number to it. See Adding WhatsApp channels to the Zendesk Agent workspace.
- To send SMS to end users, you need to add SMS as a channel through Sunshine Conversations, not Talk or Text.
- For more information, see Installing and using the Relay Messaging app.
Zendesk Labs is an innovation department at Zendesk focused on testing out new technologies, exploring new use cases adjacent to our core areas of Customer Experience and Employee Experience, and delivering solutions for customers. To learn more, visit our website and get in touch.
If you have feedback or questions related to this announcement, visit our community forum where we collect and manage customer product feedback. For general assistance with your Zendesk products, contact Zendesk Customer Support.