Customers write when nobody is free to answer: late at night, on a holiday, in the middle of a busy shift. The WhatsApp Business app can reply for you in two ways. A greeting message welcomes people who write for the first time. An away message covers the hours you are not there. Both are set up in a minute, and both fail quietly, so most of this post is about the second part.
This is the short version of the full guide on WABB: WhatsApp Business Greeting & Away Messages. It covers the Business app on the iPhone. No Business account yet? Start with how to create a WhatsApp Business account.
Three tools, three different triggers
On the Tools tab, the Organize your chats group lists Greeting message, Away message and Quick replies. Only two of them send by themselves.
Quick replies are the manual one: you type / in a chat and pick a saved text. The quick replies guide covers them, and lists help you sort the chats afterwards.
The greeting message
Open Tools → Greeting message and switch on Send greeting message. The screen explains the rule in one line: it greets customers when they message you the first time, or after 14 days of no activity. A customer who wrote yesterday gets no greeting.
Recipients has four choices on our iPhone: Everyone, Exclude my contacts, Everyone except… and Only send to…. The last two ask you to pick customers. WhatsApp’s Android page words the second option as “Everyone not in address book”. Tap the Message row, edit the text and save.
The away message
The away screen works the same way, plus a Schedule row. It has three choices:
Always send sends the message at all times.
Outside of business hours sends it only outside the hours in your business profile. WhatsApp says this option exists only if you have set business hours. The profile guide shows where.
Custom schedule sends it only during the period you specify.
The hours in your profile tell customers when you are open. The away message is what replies to them after closing. WhatsApp’s page does not say how often the message repeats in one chat or whether it works in groups, so I won’t promise either.
Source: WhatsApp Help Center, How to use greeting messages and How to use away messages, checked 12 November 2026.
If it does not send: check in this order
WhatsApp’s own pages give these causes. The first two can switch the messages off completely.
- 1.
Meta Business Agent is connected. WhatsApp switches greeting and away messages off automatically, because automatic messages like these get in the way of the agent’s handling of incoming chats. To use them, you have to delete the agent. The feature is offered only in limited countries.
- 2.
Auto-created lists are on. WhatsApp says turning on automatic events may affect greeting and away messages, and it disconnects your linked devices. You can turn it off again to restore them.
- 3.
Recipients leave the customer out. With Only send to… or Everyone except…, some customers never get the text.
- 4.
The 14-day rule. A greeting goes only to a first message or after 14 days of inactivity.
- 5.
The schedule. Outside of business hours needs hours in your profile.
- 6.
The phone is offline. Both messages are sent only while the device has an active internet connection.
Still nothing? WhatsApp suggests turning the message off, waiting a moment and turning it on again, then updating the app and restarting the phone.
Source: WhatsApp Help Center, Greeting and away messages are disabled when AI is onboarded and About automatic events on the WhatsApp Business app, checked 12 November 2026.
What to write
The editor on our iPhone showed no character counter, and WhatsApp’s guide states no limit. Write for the chat screen: two or three short lines.
Say what happens next. “Send the day and time you’d like, and we’ll confirm your appointment here” beats “Thanks for contacting us”.
Give a time only if you will keep it. “Back at 10 am on Monday” works. “Shortly” promises nothing.
Keep the two texts different. A customer can get both: the greeting welcomes, the away message explains the wait.
Leave out prices and personal numbers. The same words go to everyone who matches your recipients.
A starting point for an after-hours message: Thanks for your message. We’re closed until [time] on [day] and will reply as soon as we’re back. For something urgent, call [number]. Replace each bracket with your own details.
What these two messages cannot do
Each message is one fixed text. It cannot tell a customer asking for a price from one asking for an address, it cannot ask a question and use the answer, and it cannot hand a chat to a colleague. For a few chats a day that is fine. Past that, you either answer faster with quick replies, or move the replying to software.
On the WhatsApp Business Platform, WABB has a Welcome message card in Settings → Connection, sent once to contacts who have never messaged before, and a Default response card for messages that are not a keyword. Each one runs a flow, so the reply can ask a question, save the answer or route the chat. Settings → Office Hours holds a timezone and working times for each day. For replies that depend on what the customer wrote, an AI Agent can answer from your own information. We checked these screens on a test workspace and did not run a welcome flow on a live number for this guide.
Staying on the app? Keep the profile current, and send people to your number with a QR code or short link or a chat button on your website.
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Published by the WABB team.