Compliance with WhatsApp Messaging
1. WhatsApp guidelines on How to Get Opt-in for WhatsApp
As per WhatsApp Business Guides, Businesses can obtain opt-in in a multitude of ways, both on and off WhatsApp. Ultimately, WhatsApp wants to help people receive useful information from businesses they want to hear from. Opt-in methods such as via your website, interactive voice response (IVR) flows, or in a WhatsApp thread are acceptable.
Businesses must follow the below requirements when obtaining opt-in:
- Businesses must clearly state that a person is opting in to receive messages from the business over WhatsApp
- Businesses must clearly state the business’ name that a person is opting in to receive messages from
- Businesses must comply with applicable law
Also as mentioned in the WhatsApp Business Policy,
- In order to initiate a WhatsApp message to a person, businesses must first receive opt-in permission confirming that they wish to receive future messages from you on WhatsApp. The opt-in must (a) clearly state that the person is opting in to receive messages from you over WhatsApp and (b) clearly state your business’ name.
- Businesses are solely responsible for determining the method of opt-in, that you have obtained opt-in in a manner that complies with laws applicable to your communications, and that you have otherwise provided notices and obtained permissions that are required under applicable law.
- Businesses must respect all requests (either on or off WhatsApp) by a person to block, discontinue, or otherwise opt out of communications from you via WhatsApp, including removing that person from your contacts list.
2. SMS-Magic Compliance with WhatsApp
Businesses capturing the recipient’s explicit WhatsApp opt-ins as per the WhatsApp guidelines mentioned above can use our out of box compliance configuration feature to set up and enforce compliance checks for WhatsApp outbound messages.
Please click here to know detailed information on setting up Multichannel Compliance.
- Consent capturing and enforcing the compliance check for WhatsApp messaging is applicable on top of 24 hr session window handling done at the recipient level.
- The system will apply a compliance check for all the WhatsApp messages sent from UI as well as non UI sources using registered MTM templates.
- The system will not apply Compliance checks for free-flowing text messages as well as messages sent using non-registered templates. It will be handled by the 24 hr session window check at the recipient level as already explained in the sections above.
- Consent mode selection (‘Consent Required’ Or ‘Consent Not Required’ Or ‘Consent Not Applicable’) made across Interactive, Bulk, and Automated messaging sources is applicable only for channel SMS. Compliance enforcement for the WhatsApp channel will only check the ‘Consent Status’ against the recipient for all the WhatsApp messages sent from UI as well as non UI sources using registered MTM templates.
- Auto append of configured opt-out instruction text will only work for WhatsApp free-flowing text messages as well as messages sent using non-registered templates. It won’t be auto appended for the WhatsApp messages sent using registered MTM templates.