The WhatsApp Business app has two automatic replies built in: a greeting message and an away message. The greeting goes out to anyone who contacts you for the first time, or after 14 days without a message between you. The away message fires when someone contacts you outside your set business hours.

Most trade businesses set these once and leave them. That is fine as far as it goes. What they cannot do is read what the customer sent.

Setting them up

In the WhatsApp Business app, tap More options (the three dots, top right), then Business tools. Both messages are there.

The away message has a scheduling option. Set your business hours and it fires automatically outside them. You can also set it to run all the time, or only when you turn it on manually.

Wording for trade businesses

These are starting points. Put your own business name and phone number in.

Evening and overnight

Hi, thanks for your message. We’re not available right now but we’ll pick this up first thing tomorrow. If it’s urgent, call [NUMBER].

Bank holidays

Hi, we’re closed today for the bank holiday and back on [DATE]. Leave your message here and we’ll get back to you then. For emergencies, call [NUMBER].

General first contact or away message

Thanks for getting in touch with [BUSINESS NAME]. We reply during business hours, usually within a couple of hours. If you have photos or details of the job, send them now and we’ll have a look when we’re back.

If you offer emergency cover

An away message that suggests you are closed is wrong if you advertise emergency work. These tend to work better:

We do cover emergencies. Call [NUMBER] now and we’ll get you sorted. You can send a message here too but calling is faster outside hours.

Or if a different number handles evenings:

After-hours emergencies: call [NUMBER] directly. For routine bookings, leave a message here and we’ll come back to you in the morning.

Heating engineers going into winter

The away message can also carry a brief note about lead times, which saves a lot of back-and-forth in busy periods:

Thanks for your message. We’re currently booking [X] weeks out for non-urgent work. If it’s an emergency, call [NUMBER] now. Otherwise leave the details here and we’ll get you booked in.

When a fixed message is not enough

A fixed away message goes out regardless of what was sent. A customer asking whether you are Gas Safe registered gets the same reply as a customer with a burst pipe at 11pm. The message reads the clock, not the content.

For most contacts, that is fine. Someone asking about a routine boiler service at 9pm is not harmed by “we’ll reply in the morning”.

It falls short in a few places:

  • An emergency message gets the same response as everything else, because the message was not read.
  • A customer with a specific question gets a generic reply, which some people read as no reply at all.
  • The enquiry is nowhere in your job management software. If it gets missed the next morning, there is no trace of it.

The last point is the one that catches trade businesses out most often. An enquiry that arrives at 9pm, goes through the away message, and then gets buried when the day starts is a job lost without anyone realising.

Where the Chat Assistant fits

The ServiceHQ Chat Assistant reads each incoming message and prepares a draft reply for a person to approve before it goes anywhere. It is not a bot answering customers by itself.

In practice: a message arrives at 9pm, the assistant reads it and drafts a reply. Whoever opens up in the morning sees it already prepared, approves or edits it, and it goes. The customer gets a reply that shows someone actually read what they wrote.

The message also lands in ServiceM8 against the job, so it cannot get missed and it does not live only on one phone.

The away messages above are the right place to start. They cost nothing, they are already in the app, and they cover the simple case well. The Chat Assistant is for when you want the enquiry captured and answered properly, not just acknowledged.