Dispatch
Notes from running other people's messages
What we have learned building and operating WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram messaging for businesses: the error codes, the limits with their real numbers, and the failures that only show up in production. Every article here has to contain something that cost somebody an afternoon to find out.
Twelve questions to ask before you put your number in somebody's product
Ownership, exit, data location and what happens when they lose your session. The answers that should make you walk away.
Business messaging under a modern data protection regime
Lawful basis, consent, retention and cross-border transfer, as they actually bite on a company that messages its customers.
Roles in a shared inbox: who should see the whole history
Four roles that cover most businesses, the two permissions people get wrong, and why 'everyone sees everything' stops working.
When a customer asks for a copy of everything you hold
The request is simple; assembling the answer is not. What counts, where it hides, and the internal note problem.
Running a shop that is only a WhatsApp number
What you actually need instead of a shop: a catalogue, a record, a payment route and a way to not lose an order in the scrollback.
How long to keep a conversation, and how to actually delete one
Retention is a decision, not a default. What to keep, what to delete, and the four places a deleted conversation survives.
How many order messages is too many
Three is right, eleven is what your platform emits. How to choose, and how to let customers choose for themselves.
A catalogue that is wrong is worse than no catalogue
The maintenance problem nobody plans for, two ways to solve it, and the rule for what belongs in a chat catalogue at all.
Quoting in a conversation, when the price is a discussion
Written quotes with an expiry, one place the number lives, and the haggling problem that a chat channel makes worse.
Returns in a conversation: fast decisions beat good policies
A photograph, a decision and a reference number. Why the speed of the answer matters more than its generosity.
Back in stock: the most welcome message you can send
Somebody asked to be told. The mechanics of doing it without a stampede, a stale list, or a promise you cannot keep.
Appointment reminders: how many, how far ahead, and what they say
Two reminders, a way to cancel in one tap, and the sentence that turns a reminder into a confirmation.
Asking for a review without becoming the business that pesters
Timing, one ask, and the difference between asking for a review and asking whether everything was alright.
Getting paid inside a chat, without losing the reconciliation
Payment links, mobile money and screenshots. What to store so the conversation and the ledger still agree next month.
Articles 15 to 28 of 98. New ones are announced on WhatsApp, or take the feed.