First message to a customer. Templates that get replies

When a message comes from an unknown number, people see it in the notification without opening the chat, and two lines are enough for them to decide whether to reply, put it off or report it as spam. We have put together 15 messages for five reasons to write first - a web lead, a missed call, an abandoned cart, a stalled conversation and a repeat purchase. Each group comes with a breakdown of why people reply to that kind of text and where it puts your number at risk.

The templates are built to be sent from your CRM through E-chat using number-based WhatsApp, Viber and Telegram accounts. Messengers limit how many messages you can send to people you have never chatted with, and once a person replies, the conversation no longer counts as new. So the first message has a modest job - to get any reply at all, even a single word.

Key takeaways

• People reply when the first two lines show who is writing and why, and the message ends with a question that takes one word to answer.

• Send links, invoices and price lists in your second message.

• According to the E-chat help center, a new Viber number can get blocked as early as the fifth message to new contacts in a day, a new WhatsApp number can handle 5-10 new conversations, and for Telegram we recommend staying within 20.

• In a messenger, you win back an abandoned cart by offering to place the order for the customer, and the email-style message with a button does not work here.

• WhatsApp treats identical text sent to your whole list as a sign of bulk messaging, so each template needs several versions of the opening and the closing.

What goes into a first message that gets a reply

An unknown number raises one question - how did they get my phone number. The answer has to fit in the notification preview before the person opens the chat. If someone has never dealt with your company, none of the messages in this article will work for them, and it is better not to spend the number's daily limit on them.

All 15 templates below are built from the same parts. What changes is the reason for writing and how fresh the interaction is in the customer's memory.

Name, company and reason up front

The first phrase addresses the customer by name, then the manager introduces themselves and the company, and then comes the reason. We describe the reason through something the person did themselves. They will recognize "You requested a corner sofa yesterday at 9.40 pm", while "You were interested in our services" reads like a cold mass message.

Check the name before sending. Sometimes a CRM record has "Website customer" or a phone number instead of a name, and a template with a merge field produces "Good afternoon, Website customer". Keep a version without a greeting by name for empty or odd fields.

One question that is easy to answer

The message ends with a single question that can be answered in one word. "Would you prefer courier delivery or pickup?" asks the person to choose between two options. "What questions do you have?" makes them think, so they put off replying until the evening and then forget.

The company needs a short reply too. According to the E-chat help center, no restrictions on messaging have been observed in Viber after the customer replies at least once, and WhatsApp has no limits in existing conversations. Any reply moves a contact from new to active.

What a first message should not contain

Links, first and foremost. The E-chat help article on WhatsApp directly advises against putting links in first messages and lists mass conversation starts, complaints and identical templates without personalization among the reasons for blocking. The manager sends a link to the cart, payment page or catalog after the customer replies.

The same goes for a price list as a file and half a screen about your company. People are wary of opening a file from an unknown number, and a long text gets cut off in the preview halfway through the reason for writing.

CRM fields instead of manual typing

In the templates, we use plain words for the spots where the CRM fills in data from the record, such as customer name, requested product, manager name and order number. In your CRM these are contact or deal fields, and you set up the template once. With E-chat, the manager writes right from the customer card, even if there has been no previous chat with the person, and the reply lands in the same place.

If your CRM can send messages on its own when a status changes, the first message will go out without a manager. Automatic sending is a CRM feature, and E-chat delivers the message to the messenger. The limits on new contacts are the same for a bot, so an automatic greeting for every lead at peak hours uses up the number's allowance just as fast as a manager working through a list.

Web leads and unanswered calls

Here the reason is fresh, since the person left their phone number minutes or hours ago. The sooner the message goes out, the less you need to explain who you are. A day later, the same phrase already needs a reminder of which request it was and on which website.

Request for a product or service

1. "Good afternoon, customer name! This is manager name from company name store. You requested requested product, and it's in stock. Would you prefer delivery or pickup?"

2. "Hello, customer name. We've received your request for requested service. To give you an exact price, I need one answer - is the address in the city or outside it?"

The first version is for products whose stock levels are visible in the CRM. The line about stock answers what the customer wanted to know before they even ask. The second one suits services where the price depends on conditions, and the question picks one of them. Save a five-item questionnaire for a call or for the second message.

A lead that came in overnight

3. "Good morning, customer name! You left a request overnight. I'm manager name from company name, and I'm handling it starting today. Should I call you before lunch, or would you rather chat here?"

This is not sent at night, even if the CRM can do it, and automatic sending is scheduled for the start of the workday. Just not in one batch at 9.00 am - the E-chat help article on WhatsApp advises spreading sends evenly throughout the day. Spread overnight leads across the first couple of morning hours. The question about a call saves a day with people who dislike phone calls, since they will say so right away.

The customer did not pick up

4. "Good afternoon, customer name. This is manager name, company name. I just called about your request for requested product but couldn't reach you. Let me know when it's convenient to talk, or shall we discuss it here?"

5. "Customer name, this is company name. We called twice about order order number and couldn't reach you. The order is waiting for confirmation until the end of the day. Can you confirm?"

When people see a missed call from an unknown number, they are more likely to look it up online than call back. The message explains whose call it was and lets them reply without calling back. In the fifth template, use only the real deadline. If the order is held for three days, say so, otherwise the customer will not believe your deadlines on the next order.

Abandoned cart in a messenger

Nearly all abandoned cart templates you can find online are written for email, with a button back to the cart and a promo code. A messenger has no button, and the E-chat help article on WhatsApp advises against putting a link in the first message. An email copied into a chat as is looks out of place there.

A different approach works - the manager offers to place the order for the customer. For this, the abandoned cart event has to reach the CRM along with the phone number. If the website passes the cart to the CRM only after the number is entered at checkout, the rest of the carts are lost for messenger follow-up, and the templates below do not apply to them.

The first hours after leaving the website

6. "Good afternoon, customer name! This is company name. You still have cart item in your cart. I can place the order for you, all I need is a delivery address. Shall we go ahead?"

7. "Hello, customer name. We see that your order for cart total didn't reach payment. If something went wrong on the website, I'll put the order together manually and send the invoice here. Can I help?"

The sixth text saves the customer from going back to the website and filling in the form again, so all they have to do is type an address. The seventh is for carts abandoned at the payment step, where the person may have run into a website error. The invoice goes out after the reply, and at that point the payment link in it is safe for the number.

A cart left for more than a day

8. "Good afternoon, customer name. The cart item you saved is down to its last unit in stock. Should I hold it for you until tomorrow?"

This text works only when the CRM really shows low stock. Made-up scarcity gets spotted quickly, and nobody will believe the next message about the last unit. With plenty in stock, you need a different reason, such as a price drop or the right size coming back in. Without a real reason, do not send a second cart message at all, since it uses up the limit and draws complaints.

How to restart a stalled conversation

You have already chatted with this customer. If that chat was from the same number, the limits on new contacts do not apply to them. If the company number has changed since then or you only spoke on the phone, the messenger treats them as a new contact, and they count toward the daily limit.

The whole history is in the CRM customer card, so a manager who picks up a colleague's customer can see where things left off. That is where the message starts. "How are you doing?" after a month of silence sounds like beating around the bush, and people are reluctant to reply to it.

After a sales proposal

9. "Good afternoon, customer name. Last week I sent you a proposal for project name. Have you had a chance to look at it, or should I send a one-page summary?"

The question leaves two easy ways out. Writing "haven't looked yet" is easier than explaining a refusal, and after any reply the conversation is moving again.

Silence for a week or longer

10. "Hello, customer name. We stopped at choosing between option one and option two. Since then, the price of the second hasn't changed, and the first has gone up. Shall we get back to the choice, or is the matter closed?"

The price in this message comes from CRM data on the day it is sent. The second half of the question honestly allows the customer to say no. A no is also a reply, the manager closes the deal with a reason, and the number avoids a complaint for being pushy.

Old customers and those who said no

11. "Good afternoon, customer name, this is company name. You bought past order item from us in purchase month. A new model is out, and I'm only writing to those who bought the previous one. Should I send you the differences?"

12. "Hello, customer name. Last time you said no because of rejection reason from the card. That has changed now. Would you like to hear more?"

For a messenger, a list you have not contacted for a year or more is almost entirely new. You work through it in batches within the daily limit, starting with those who bought most recently. The twelfth template only works if managers record the rejection reason in a separate field of the customer card. Without that field, put the template aside, but create the field now, as it will come in handy in six months.

Repeat purchases and referrals

Here the customer already knows the company, and what you risk is the tone. A repeat purchase message easily slides into a discount blast like the ones the person gets from a dozen stores that same day. What helps is specifics from their own order.

The customer has bought before

13. "Good afternoon, customer name. Your last order of ordered item was on order date, and it usually lasts about usage period. Should I put together the same order with the same delivery?"

14. "Hello, customer name. You asked about an item that was out of stock. It arrived today, and we've set one aside for you. Should we hold it until Friday?"

The thirteenth template relies on the date of the last order and how long the product lasts. You set that period in the product card, and the message goes out a few days before the customer runs out. The fourteenth is for those who keep a waitlist. Its reason is stronger than any discount, since the person asked to be told.

A referral contact

15. "Good afternoon, customer name. referrer name gave me your number - they ordered service name from us and mentioned you need it too. I'm manager name from company name. Can I give you a quick overview now, or is later better?"

A familiar name in the first line answers the question of where you got the number. Write this only with the consent of the person who referred them, and call that person by first name, without surname or job title, the way the recipient knows them.

[Expert insight] In the E-chat help article on Viber blocking, we say plainly that 90% of blocks are caused by starting too many conversations. The text of the first message affects whether the person will complain, while the number of new contacts per day affects the number itself, and one does not replace the other. Spam complaints also lead to blocking, so a template without a reason will not save the number even within the limit. If the number has been blocked before, follow the limits for a new number, no matter how old the account is.

How many first messages to send per day

Even a good text will not save a number if it has been used to write to too many strangers in a day. Messengers do not publish official limits, and the figures in this section come from the E-chat help center, based on observations and recommendations for number-based accounts.

Limits by messenger

Viber has a low threshold for a new number. Blocking is possible as early as the fifth message to new contacts in a day, and the general guideline is no more than 20 first messages per day to people you have never chatted with. Treat a number that has been blocked before as new.

In WhatsApp, an old active account can handle 20-30 new conversations a day, and a new one 5-10.

Telegram does not state official limits. The help center recommends staying within 20 new contacts a day, up to 40 for old active numbers, and writing by username, which gives more headroom than writing by phone number. For violations, Telegram first restricts sending temporarily, and via the API such a pause lasts 4 to 24 hours based on E-chat observations. For repeated violations, the number is banned permanently.

Calculating for a sales team

As an example, take a store that gets 60 web leads a day, and 40 of those people do not message you themselves. Those 40 are your first messages. With old WhatsApp numbers at the upper end of the help center range, you need two numbers with 20 new conversations each, and headroom of up to 30 remains for carts and win-backs. If the numbers are new, at 5-10 conversations a day you will need four to eight of them, so in the first weeks it makes sense to handle some of the leads via Telegram.

On E-chat plans, a WhatsApp number costs $15.99 a month, Telegram $16.99 and Viber $29.99. The two WhatsApp numbers from the example will cost $31.98 a month, with no limit on the number of managers using them. The cart scenario will add to those 40 as many contacts as the carts with phone numbers the website passes to the CRM per day.

Several versions of one template

The E-chat help center lists identical texts without personalization among the reasons for blocking in WhatsApp. Merging in the name and product already makes the messages different, but the greeting and the closing question should vary too. Keep two or three versions of the opening and closing for each template, and have managers or the CRM rotate them.

The customer replied, now what

After a reply, the conversation is no longer new, and the limit on first messages no longer applies to it. Now you can send what was off-limits in the first message, meaning a payment link, a catalog, a sales proposal as a file or a product video. Viber accepts files up to 200 MB and Telegram up to 128 MB. The customer's reply and the rest of the conversation are saved in the CRM customer card, even if the manager replied from a phone.

The manager first answers what the customer asked, and only then sends a link. If the customer says no, the deal is closed with a reason, and six months later that field is what the twelfth template is built from.

FAQ

Question: Can the first message be sent automatically from the CRM?

Answer: Yes, if your CRM has that feature. It is usually set up to trigger on a deal status change, and E-chat delivers the message to the customer's messenger. A bot does not know about the daily limit on new contacts, so check your lead flow against the number of numbers in advance, otherwise on a peak day automatic greetings will use up the number's entire allowance by lunchtime.

Question: The manager writes first from a phone, not from the CRM. Will the conversation be saved?

Answer: Yes. With E-chat, messages are sent from the CRM or right from the messenger on the phone, and all messages from the device automatically go to the CRM. The number stays with the company, and an employee cannot take it, export the contact list or move conversations to personal chats.

Question: How much does a number for outbound messages cost?

Answer: Telegram is $16.99 a month per number, Viber $29.99 and WhatsApp $15.99. The service does not limit the number of messages, only the messengers themselves have limits. Discounts apply when you pay for several numbers, up to 40% for 12 months, and special terms start at 20 numbers.

Question: Which CRMs work with these templates?

Answer: E-chat has more than 20 integrations. All three messengers connect to amoCRM, Kommo, Bitrix24, NetHunt, SalesDrive and Odoo, for example, while KeyCRM and Planfix support Viber only. If your CRM is not on the list, Viber connects through ApiX-Drive or Wepster, and for Telegram and WhatsApp you build your own solution on the E-chat API.

Question: The Viber number was activated on a work phone. Can it be turned off at night?

Answer: Yes, it does not affect the service. After activation, you cannot delete Viber from that phone or use the number change feature.

Question: How can I test the templates before paying?

Answer: E-chat offers a 7-day free trial. The number connects via a QR code, and setting up the CRM integration by following the guide takes no more than a minute. For a new number, your colleagues are new contacts too, so five test messages to coworkers in Viber already put you at the blocking threshold.