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.
The last hundred metres: coordinating a delivery in a conversation
Where the address ends and the conversation starts. Location pins, landmarks, and the three messages a driver should send.
Confirming cash on delivery orders before you dispatch them
A confirmation message cuts failed deliveries. What to ask, when to ask it, and what to do when nobody replies.
Abandoned cart on WhatsApp: one message, or none
The channel that makes cart recovery work is the channel it damages fastest. When one message is justified and when it is not.
The automation you should not build
Four tests for whether a message should be automated, and the one category where automation is always the wrong answer.
Out of hours: the three honest options
Say when you will answer, answer a narrow set of things, or pay for cover. Pretending to be open is the option that costs most.
The first week: getting somebody useful on a customer inbox
Reading before writing, the twenty answers that cover most of it, and the supervised days that stop expensive habits forming.
Talking about a conversation without talking in it
The feature that stops colleagues discussing a customer on a separate channel, and the one mistake that makes it dangerous.
The conversation that stopped: chasing without nagging
One follow-up, timed to the decision rather than to your calendar, and then stop. Why the third chase costs more than the sale.
One number, or several: how to decide and what it costs
Splitting by purpose limits blast radius and routes for free. It also fragments history and doubles the things that can break.
Escalation: who decides, and how fast
Most escalations are an authority problem, not a knowledge problem. Give the first person a budget and most of them disappear.
Planning for the week your messaging volume triples
What breaks first, what to prepare a month ahead, and the three controls worth having before you need them.
Reading your own conversations, on purpose, once a week
A sampling routine that takes an hour and finds the things no metric reports: wrong answers given confidently, and promises nobody kept.
Writing like a person without being unprofessional
Chat is not email. Shorter sentences, no formal openings, and the four phrases that make customers angrier.
The angry message: what to do in the first sixty seconds
Speed beats eloquence. The order of the four things to say, and the two automations that must never fire on this conversation.
Articles 29 to 42 of 98. New ones are announced on WhatsApp, or take the feed.