Conversational flows
Guided conversations with buttons on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram or your web chat: sent to a list, started from a workflow, or answering whoever writes.
What a conversational flow is
A flow is one of two kinds. A workflow reacts to an event (an order, a new lead, a form) and runs actions. A conversational flow is a conversation on one channel: template messages whose buttons lead to the next message. Create one from Flows → New flow → Conversational flow and choose its channel.
Every message the flow sends appears in the Inbox, in the person's conversation, marked as the flow's. It never counts as an AI reply, and a thread that only holds the flow's messages becomes a conversation once the person answers.
Channels
Each flow runs on one channel. Its messages use templates of that channel, and the buttons of a template are drawn the way the channel draws them. You can change the channel until the flow is first sent; after that, duplicate it to use another channel.
| Channel | Buttons | Who it can be sent to | Delivery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quick replies of the template | A CSV, pasted numbers or contacts. The first message to someone who has not written needs a template approved by Meta. | Delivered and read | |
| Up to 13 quick replies of 20 characters | Contacts who wrote to you on Instagram in the last 24 hours | Accepted by Instagram | |
| Messenger | Up to 13 quick replies of 20 characters | Contacts who wrote to your page in the last 24 hours | Accepted by Messenger |
| Telegram | Up to 10 buttons of 40 characters | Contacts who have a chat with your bot | Accepted by Telegram |
| Web chat | Up to 10 chips of 40 characters | Nobody: it starts when a visitor writes in your chat | Shown in the chat |
Instagram, Messenger and Telegram do not report deliveries or reads, so on those channels Delivered means the channel accepted the message. Instagram and Messenger only let a business write within 24 hours of the person's last message: whoever falls outside is left out of a send, with that reason.
Steps
| Step | What it does | Exits |
|---|---|---|
| Message | Sends a template of the flow's channel. Each button of the template is a path. | One per button, Other answer, No answer |
| Question | Sends a template without buttons and keeps the written answer as {{answers.NAME}}. | Answered, No answer |
| Condition | Yes or no, from the person's data and answers. | Yes, No |
| Wait | Pauses before the next step. | Next |
| A/B split | Splits people by percentage. | One per variant |
| Action | Adds a tag, changes the contact's stage, fills a contact field, creates a task or calls a URL. It never sends a message. | Next, If it fails |
| Hand to the team | Ends the flow and leaves the conversation in the Inbox for the team. | — |
| End | Nothing else is sent. | — |
A person who writes the text of a button instead of pressing it takes that button's path. Anything else goes by Other answer. If an Action fails and nothing is connected to If it fails, the person carries on by Next; the metrics still show it failed.
Ways to start it
- Send to a list: on WhatsApp a CSV, pasted numbers, or contacts filtered by tag, stage or source; on Instagram, Messenger and Telegram, contacts. You review who receives it and who is left out, and why, before confirming.
- From a workflow, with the action Start a guided conversation (not for the web chat).
- When someone writes to you on the flow's channel, if you switch it on. A web chat flow always starts this way.
Answering people who write
Select the Start step and switch on Start when someone writes. Choose who it answers:
- Any new conversation: someone who had not written in the last 24 hours.
- A message with a keyword: whole words, regardless of case and accents. On WhatsApp the settings give you a link with the keyword already typed, for a QR code, a web button or an email.
- People from a click-to-message ad (WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger): every ad, or only the ad ids you list.
When several flows could answer, an ad wins over a keyword, and a keyword wins over any new conversation. While a conversational flow answers, the AI agent and your workflows do not reply on top of it.
From a workflow
In a workflow, add the action Start a guided conversation and choose the conversational flow. Everyone a workflow enrolls on the same day goes into one automatic send, shown as Automatic · 19/10 in the flow's sends. The conversation starts within a minute. On Instagram, Messenger and Telegram the contact is reached in their own conversation on that channel. The workflow step says why when a contact is not enrolled: no phone number, a number that is not on WhatsApp, no conversation on the flow's channel, a person who asked not to be written to, or already in today's send.
Metrics
Open Metrics from the flow. For sends: Sent → Delivered → Replied → Finished, with what was not delivered and why, the numbers drawn on your own flow, each send, each person and their journey, and a button that opens the conversation at the first message the flow sent.
For people who wrote first: Conversations → Answered the flow → Handed to the team → Closed, with those who did not answer, a table of where they came from (an ad, a keyword or link, or writing directly), and the team's median time to send its first message after the flow handed the conversation over.
Rules worth knowing
- A person is in one guided conversation at a time. Someone already in one is left out of a new send, with that reason.
- A person enters a given flow at most once a day when they write, and never while your team is talking to them.
- Anyone who replies STOP or BAJA is not written to again by conversational flows on that channel.
- Editing a published flow changes new sends, never people already inside a conversation.
- Stopping today's automatic send means no one else enters it until tomorrow.