How to set up automatic replies on WhatsApp Business (and where they stop working)
How to set up automatic replies on WhatsApp Business with greeting and away messages — plus where the free app's automation runs out and what to do next.
The short answer: the free WhatsApp Business app lets you set up two kinds of automatic reply — a greeting message for first-time contacts and an away message for outside business hours — through the app's Business Tools settings. They're genuinely useful for setting expectations, but they're fixed messages, not real automation. Here's how to set them up, and the point where they stop being enough.
Setting up a greeting message
A greeting message sends automatically when a customer messages you for the first time, or after 14 days of no contact. In the WhatsApp Business app, open the menu, go to Business Tools, and select Greeting Message. Turn it on, write your message, and set the recipients (everyone, or all except certain contacts). Keep it short and set an expectation — something like letting them know you've received their message and when they'll hear back. It's the difference between a customer wondering if they reached the right place and a customer who knows their message landed.
Setting up an away message
An away message sends automatically when you're unavailable — the digital equivalent of "we're closed right now." In Business Tools, select Away Message, turn it on, and write it. You can schedule it: always send, send outside a custom schedule (your set business hours), or send during specific hours. This is the more valuable of the two for most businesses, because the most common moment a business loses an enquiry is when it arrives out of hours and sits unanswered until someone happens to check.
Quick replies: the third piece
Quick replies aren't automatic, but they're the app's other time-saver — saved responses you trigger by typing a shortcut (for example, a "/hours" shortcut that expands into your opening times). They cut the repetition of typing the same answers, though a person still has to send them.
Where the free app's automation stops
These tools set expectations, but notice what they don't do. They send the same fixed message to everyone — they can't ask a question and act on the answer. They can't qualify an enquiry, capture a customer's details, or route the message to the right person. They can't follow up if the customer goes quiet. And an away message telling someone "we'll reply in the morning" still means the enquiry waits until morning — it manages the delay rather than removing it. For a business whose problem is a handful of enquiries a day, that's fine. For a business losing leads in the gap between an enquiry arriving and someone acting on it, greeting and away messages are a sticking plaster.
What real reply automation looks like
Beyond the free app, automation stops being a fixed message and becomes a conversation that actually handles the enquiry. Instead of "we're closed, we'll reply tomorrow," an automated workflow can respond instantly at any hour, ask what the customer needs, capture their answers, and either resolve the enquiry or have it fully qualified and waiting for your team in the morning — so the out-of-hours message converts the lead rather than parking it. That requires the WhatsApp Business API rather than the free app, which is the step up a platform like CLIO (cliochat.io) handles: structured auto-replies across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook that respond, qualify, and follow up on their own, rather than a single away message that only buys time.