Manychat Changelog

We’re excited to announce a brand-new feature for WhatsApp on Manychat: Ice Breakers!This update allows you to engage customers right from the start of their interaction with your business on WhatsApp.What are Ice Breakers? Ice Breakers are pre-set questions that appear as clickable buttons at the beginning of a WhatsApp conversation. These buttons can help users find the information they need quickly, improving their experience and increasing engagement.🔑 Key Benefits:Proactive Assistance: Answer common questions before they’re even asked. Seamless Navigation: Guide new contacts through your offerings or services. Enhanced Engagement: Provide an option to connect with a human agent or trigger specific automations.How to Set It Up: Setting up Ice Breakers is simple! Navigate to Settings > WhatsApp > Ice Breakers, and add up to four questions. Link these to your existing automations, and you’re good to go!  Check out this Help Center article to learn more. 

🎨 Pause automation for certain contacts: No more automation interruptions for family and friends. We’re bringing you even more granular filters for your automations! Now, you can exclude friends and family from your Manychat automations. Our recent update allows you to manually pause all automations (forever) for a select number of contacts. This means that your personal conversations stay personal — and your automations won’t get in the way of your chat with grandma. 🔑 Key Points:No contact limit: Pause an automation for as many users as you wish. Switch it back: Un-pause automations at any time by going back to the livechat. Go to Manychat! 

AI Step is evolving! We’re excited to announce new functionality that allows you to incorporate user fields, system fields, and bot fields directly into your scripts. This update provides more personalization and adaptability, enhancing how you interact with users through automation.🔥 Key Features:Field Integration: User Fields: Personalize interactions by incorporating data specific to each user, such as names, preferences, and previous interactions. System Fields: Leverage system data subscription date, whatsapp ID and more to make your conversations more contextually aware. Bot Fields: Utilize bot-specific information to maintain consistency and accuracy across different conversations and scenarios, such as a #DiscountField Enhanced Personalization: With these integrations, your AI Step can now deliver highly personalized and relevant messages, tailoring each interaction to the individual user’s context. 🌟 Why You Need It:Deepen Engagement: Personalized messages resonate more, fostering deeper connections and engagement. Boost Effectiveness: Context-aware conversations can significantly enhance user satisfaction and conversion rates.🚀 How to use it:Simply update your AI Step scripts to include these new fields by clicking the brackets below each Script text box. Ready to supercharge your Manychat Pro account? Activate the Manychat AI Add-on today and experience the ultimate marketing transformation! 👉  Watch our 3 minute tour here 

Your AI Step just got even smarter and faster 🔥 introducing Automated Follow-Ups: an update that will allow your automated conversations to immediately send a follow up text to anyone who hasn’t replied to a question on your script in 30 minutes, plus a speed improvement that drastically increased the speed of response. 🔥 Key Features:AI Step: Automate conversations and complex user interactions with AI-driven scripts. Automated Follow Up: your AI Step will now wait 30 minutes for an answer, offering a follow up message afterwards to remind the user of a pending reply on their side. Efficiency: our team has a commitment to increasing efficiency and accuracy of our AI. We have released an update that makes response time faster and nearly immediate.🌟 Why You Need It: Reengage with your leads: Life happens, sometimes you need a gentle reminded to go back to a conversation Increase conversion: Since AI Step can perform tasks like offering products, services, and lead qualification, being present and assisting your leads helps you increase conversion by default. 🚀 How to use it:Manychat added this to your AI Step! So no need to take any action  Ready to supercharge your Manychat Pro account? Activate the Manychat AI Add-on today and experience the ultimate marketing transformation!👉 Watch our 3 minute tour here.

Update: After we contacted the Meta team, they informed us that the Welcome Message feature had been temporarily suspended.As a result, this feature is currently unavailable for businesses. Our team is actively working to reflect these changes in the Manychat UI and update the relevant documentation. We understand this may cause some inconvenience, and we sincerely apologize.  Welcome Messages are now available to you by using WhatsApp for Manychat. Now you can send a message to your WhatsApp contact as soon as they open a chat with you! No more waiting on them to trigger an automation. We’re so excited to announce this highly anticipated and requested feature! Here’s everything you need to know about this feature and how to set it up 👇 What is the Welcome Message? ℹ️Your Welcome Message is a preset message that will be sent to every customer that opens up a chat with your business for the first time. Once you exchange messages, if the user reopens the chat, they won’t receive the message again. It’s similar to a Default Reply with one key difference: you don’t have to wait on them to send a message first! Key Benefits 🔥Immediate Engagement: Contact everyone who clicks on your WhatsApp link as quickly as possible! Grow Your Contact List: Now you can record the contact information of every user who opens up a chat with your business! Your lead list will thank you! Streamlined Communication: Remove friction by providing users with important information or a warm greeting without waiting for them to message first. How to Set Up the Welcome Message 🧑‍💻 Setting up your Welcome Message is straightforward and can be done in a few simple steps: From the Main Page: Look for the new card on the main page that prompts you to set up a Welcome Message. Click on this card to begin the setup process.  Via Basic Automations:   Navigate to the basic automations section. Just as you would set up a default reply, you can configure your Welcome Message here.   Through WhatsApp Settings:   Go to your WhatsApp settings within Manychat. You will find an option to define and manage your Welcome Message. Here, you can specify the message and set it live.  In the Flow Builder   Once you’re in the Flow Builder, make sure your trigger is listed as “User opens a chat with you for the first time.” Create your Welcome message by including links, keywords, or information that is relevant to any customers who may be visiting your chat.  Important Notes ❗ Single Use: The Welcome Message is designed to be sent only once, the first time a user opens a chat with your business.  Single Message: You cannot string together multiple messages using the Welcome Message.   Give your users a warm welcome right from the start! Let us know how this feature is working for you and if you have any creative uses of the Welcome Message! If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to leave a comment below! 👇   

We’re happy to introduce a simplified process for creating a Manychat account for Instagram!This update allows you to set up your account quickly and effortlessly, without the need for a Facebook account. Just go to the ‘Create Account’ section, enter your Instagram credentials, and you’re ready to rock. 🔥 Key benefits:No Facebook Business account needed: Simplify your setup by using only your Instagram credentials. Quick and easy setup: Get started with Manychat in minutes by following the straightforward registration process.📖 Learn more in the Help Center article: How to connect Instagram to Manychat. Start your DM automation journey! 🚀 

Starting June 1, 2024, Meta has deactivated sponsored message campaigns. By the end of July, these campaigns will no longer be available, and any active campaigns will be turned off. This change means you will no longer be able to create custom audiences of people who sent a message to your business.Key Points to Note:Deactivation Timeline: Sponsored message campaigns are deactivated starting June 1, 2024, with complete removal by the end of July. Impact on Custom Audiences: The ability to create custom audiences based on users who sent messages to your business will be discontinued. Go to Manychat! 

Hi Manychat Community!Keywords take time and effort to think of and implement. It gets even harder when you have to consider all the permutations, different languages and potential typos.To date, you’d have to implement keywords and save them, but to make it that much easier, Manychat will now auto-save them for you, reducing the amount of clicks and steps you have to make to store your keywords.Happy automating! 🙌 We’d love to hear your feedback! Share your thoughts, questions, and suggestions in the thread below. 

We’re excited to announce a long-awaited update by Meta: Comment automations now work if you boost the post/reel on Instagram! This means you can create seamless Instagram post and reel automation with Manychat and boost these posts directly within the Instagram app. 🔥 Key Benefits:In-App Boosting: Boost your posts directly within the Instagram app and let Manychat handle the automated responses. It’s that simple! Streamlined Workflow: No need to switch between platforms. Set up your automation in Manychat and boost posts in Instagram app for a smooth and efficient workflow.Start boosting your Instagram automated posts right away! We’d love to hear your feedback! Share your thoughts, questions, and suggestions in the thread below. 👇 

Hi Manychat Community! 👋 We've officially relaunched this feature! You can now record voice messages in Live Chat on your desktop!*Note this feature is only available for Pro accounts and currently only available on WhatsApp with plans to roll out across all channels in the near future. Now you have an easier way to have authentic conversations with your customers within Manychat’s Live Chat. By recording a voice message, you can communicate instantly with your customers in one of the world’s favorite ways to communicate.❓ What does this solve? Rather than Live Chat agents having to jump back and forth between Manychat’s mobile app and their desktop app, they can now rely exclusively on whatever application works best for them!🎤 How do I use it? Simply go to your Live Chat section within Manychat and click on the microphone icon within the chat window. Make sure you have your audio permissions set up correctly on your computer, and speak! Once you finish your message, click stop, and send your recording to your customer. You can always play back recordings within the Live Chat window.❤️ Do you love this update? Comment below to let us know how this changes your Live Chat process, and what other features you would love to see 👇

Hi Manychat community!  We all know that Manychat automates Instagram DMs for you — even when you sleep — but it’s not always easy to see how many automations have been triggered in the past period without digging into different flows and checking the numbers. Now, you can see exactly how many automations have been triggered on Comments, Story Replies and Story Mentions directly on your Home Tab. Simply sit back and see how Manychat is working for you, while you enjoy your morning coffee/tea 🫖 ☕. Check it out and let us know if it’s helpful 👍 🔥 Key Features:Aggregate view on Home tab: See it all in one overview, available directly on your home tab Last week’s overview: Understand your automation performance for the last week to efficiently plan the upcoming week Historical data: Get the full picture of how many automations have been triggered by Manychat from the start Data shown: Comments automations, Story replies, Story mentions, and total stats We’d love to hear your feedback! Share your thoughts, questions, and suggestions in the thread below 👇 or reach out to our support team directly.

Hi Manychat Community! 👋 Are you ready to revolutionize your marketing strategy and achieve ultimate business growth and productivity? We’re thrilled to introduce the Manychat AI Add-on, the ultimate Pro upgrade that supercharges your automation capabilities! 🔥 Key Features of Manychat AI Add-on:AI Step: Automate conversations and complex user interactions with AI-driven scripts. Intention Recognition: Recognize the intent behind user messages to provide accurate responses. Flow Builder Assistant: Receive tailored Flow suggestions based on your business needs. Text Improver: Improve messaging clarity and tone to align perfectly with your brand voice. 🎥 Ready to supercharge your Manychat Pro account? Activate the Manychat AI Add-on today and experience the ultimate marketing transformation! Watch our 3-minute tour here:  🌟 Why You Need It: Lead Qualification and Conversion: Automate lead qualification with Intention Recognition to target high-value leads. Time and Cost Efficiency: Automate repetitive tasks with AI Steps and save valuable time. Personalized User Journeys: Deliver contextualized and relevant responses with Intention Recognition and the Flow Builder Assistant. 🚀 How to Add the Manychat AI Add-on to Your Pro Account:Go to the Billing Section Click on the 'Billing' tab in your Manychat dashboard. Select the Manychat AI Option Choose the Manychat AI Add-on for just $29/month. Activate and Start Automating! Enable the add-on to unlock smarter automations, improve copy, and recognize intent more effectively  We’d love to hear your feedback! Share your thoughts, questions, and suggestions in the thread below 👇  

Hi Manychat Community! 👋 Now you can use pins from Google Maps to avoid confusion when in a Live Chat with a lead or customer! Just send your location using the new pin button available for WhatsApp’s Live Chat on Desktop. How do I use it? 🤔Now you can drop a pin to any customer you’re in a conversation with using the new Send Location feature.  While in a WhatsApp conversation, simply click on the Pin located next to the Paperclip in the Live Chat Window. If you share your location permissions on your browser, Manychat will open a window that displays your current location.  If this location isn’t the one you want to send, no worries! Just type whatever address you’d like in the top and Google Maps can locate it for you. 😎  Once you’ve tracked down your location, press “Send Location” and you are good to go! We’ve instituted this update in our continued efforts to improve your Live Chat experience with WhatsApp. We hope you enjoy and let us know what other features you’d love to see!

Hi Manychat Community! 👋We’re excited to announce a new, highly requested feature 🙌 For a while now, your customers have been able to share their locations with you on live chat, but now within an automation, you can request AND store this information as a user field. Just use the new Share Location button! 🚀 Try this new location feature out with this template now!​​Check out the video below to get a complete overview of the new feature from our WhatsApp Product Designer : Now when you receive location data from your customers within your Manychat automations, you can store it in a user field for future filters and marketing campaigns! This feature is currently available on WhatsApp, and we have plans to release this for our other channels in the future. Why is this update important?Now you don’t have to manually log a customer’s location or create complicated solutions for receiving or storing a pin! You and your customers can connect easily and know exactly where each other are by simply checking the user field where you stored it. Check out these use cases below:💰 Lead qualification: Do you only serve a certain location? Include this User Input within your flow and make sure you're automatically filtering out the people who are too far away.🚗 Deliveries: Let your customers tell you exactly where they are so you can deliver your product without manually asking or logging.❗ Repeated support: If your customers need you to be onsite immediately, don’t waste time with the back and forth. Receive their location once, store it for future needs, and be on the road instantly! How do I use it? 🤔After opening a new flow and a message node, select User Input and change the Reply Type from Text to Location:  Afterwards, you can choose or create a custom field to save the location data, and you can also determine other factors like how many times you would like to retry if the user doesn’t respond.When users interact with the Share Location Button, they'll be prompted to share their location through WhatsApp's native UI. Watch the preview. Now you can seamlessly request users location data through a Manychat automation! Also agents on LiveChat now have the ability to preview and interact with the shared location data, further enhancing the support and services you can provide through Manychat. You asked, we answered 😉 ❤️ Do you love this update? Comment below to let us know how this changes your WhatsApp process, and what other features you would love to see 👇 

Hi Manychat Community! 👋 Importing Contacts to WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, and Email just got a whole lot easier!❓ What’s different? We’ve updated the process for importing contacts in the Contacts tab. This feature was heavily requested and will definitely reduce confusion moving forward.👥 Who gets to use this? This update will only affect Manychat Admins and Pro users.🤔 How do I use it? If you want to import contacts, simply go to the Contacts section in the Manychat account and click the top right button “Import” button. You’ll see this snazzy new window.Here you can see what channels you have connected which will help you determine what type of contacts you can import. If you don’t have a channel connected, you can click to be linked to the connection process. If you don’t have SMS or Email connected, you will be linked to Manychat support to conduct the approval process. Now you can import CSV files and be sure which channel these contacts will be added to! 🎉*Remember, contact imports will increase your subscription plan and if you have an active Rule with the “New contact” trigger, it will be triggered for every new contact in the uploading list. ❤️ Do you love this update? Comment below to let us know how this changes your importing process, and what other features you would love to see 👇 

Hi Manychat Community!  🤩 Dazzling New Update!  📝 Add WhatsApp Contacts manually in your Contacts section of Manychat! This update eliminates the need for cumbersome CSV or spreadsheet imports when adding individual contacts, saving you precious time. 🤔 How do you use it? Simply click the “Save Phone for WhatsApp Conversations” box while typing in a contact’s number. This will add the phone as a WhatsApp contact and allow you to start WhatsApp conversations by sending message templates in Broadcasts or Live Chat.📞 Collecting Phone Numbers in your Flows? If you use User Inputs to collect phone numbers, you can now toggle on WhatsApp IDs in the flowbuilder. Now you can automatically store WhatsApp IDs through your automations!🦺 Marked Safe from Duplicating Contacts: Manychat’s team has also implemented a failsafe to ensure you don’t duplicate existing contacts by adding a number already in your database. 🔄 Consistency Across Channels: With this update, WhatsApp joins the rest of Manychat’s channels like Messenger, and Instagram where you can manually add individual contacts. ❤️ Do you love this update? Comment below to let us know how this changes your WhatsApp process, and what other features you would love to see 👇

Hi Manychat Community! 👋🔘 Time to Start Pushing Buttons!📝 URL Buttons are now available on WhatsApp! Now WhatsApp joins our other Manychat channels by allowing customizable URL buttons within your messages.📈 What are the Benefits? The biggest benefit is the ability to track your click through rate within your Manychat flows! Now you can remove the guesswork about which message is working better by tracking how many clicks your URL button has received in the flowbuilder. In addition, you can also track clicks within the Live Chat section of your Manychat dashboard.✏️ Customizable text: Rather than relying on the updated Manychat text you receive when delivering an inline link (picture below), URL buttons let you customize your text!Before      After           🔄 Consistency Across Channels: With this update, WhatsApp joins the rest of Manychat’s channels like Messenger, and Instagram where you’re able to send buttons that link to your website or any other URL.❤️ Do you love this update? Comment below to let us know how this changes your WhatsApp process, and what other features you would love to see 👇

 Hi Manychat Community! 👋 Happy 2024! As we enter the new year and get ready for new endeavors, our Product Team took a moment to reflect on the last year and their favorite product releases of 2023. So, here’s our top 6 favorites: 📍 Hotmart IntegrationNow there’s no need to use any third party: Hotmart integration gives you an opportunity to connect with Manychat in just a few steps. Learn more. 📍 New Automations Tab We've been hard at work alongside experts to create a simplified, user-friendly version of the Automation Tab. It's not just about simplicity; it's about enhancing your control and visibility. Learn more. 📍 Instagram Broadcasting Open Beta Broadcasting is the new way to turbocharge your Instagram marketing. All you have to do is create a list, encourage subscribers to opt in, and send your broadcast. Apply for beta here. 📍 Instagram Referral URL This is your secret weapon for driving traffic from any channel straight into your Instagram DMs. Learn more. 📍 List Messages on WhatsAppList Messages lets you send a message that includes a button that reveals a pop-up menu when pressed. The pop-up menu can display up to ten predefined sections that you specify. Within each of these sections, you can list ten more options. Learn more. 📍 URL Buttons in WhatsApp WhatsApp joins the rest of our channels with URL buttons! Your users now have a more seamless experience jumping from a WhatsApp chat to a website.  ❓ ​​​​​Now it’s your turn - what was your favorite Manychat product release of the last year? Let us know in the comments!  P.S. If you have ideas for Manychat’s new features or improvements, you are very welcome to submit them to this wishlist - https://community.manychat.com/ideas. Make sure to check if your idea has been submitted already! If yes, then just upvote it 😉

🚀 Exciting News Alert!The All-New Automation Tab is now live on Manychat! 🌟 We've completely reimagined the Automation Tab for you. Our team, along with top minds from the MC Educator and Expert Groups, have worked tirelessly to bring you this stunning update.👉 Say goodbye to clutter! Now, everything from flows to keywords is conveniently located on the left-hand panel. Plus, a powerful search bar is right below the tab title, making navigation a breeze.🔍 Need to find something specific? No problem! The new search bar helps you instantly locate your desired elements. Want to see all your comment automations for Instagram and Facebook? Easily filter them using trigger filters. Growth Tools tabYou may have noticed that the Growth Tools tab that used to be on the left is now missing. We've discontinued the separate Growth Tools tab since it didn't display most of the newly available triggers, which now can all be viewed, created, and edited through the Automation tab. Just try the filter for Triggers, and you can see all your Triggers right in the connected Automations. 📹 Check out this 5-minute Loom video from our Product Expert @Trilce Jirón Garro, where she covers the main features of this update. Discover all the enhancements and enjoy a fresh, user-friendly experience with the upgraded Automation Tab. It's more powerful and beautiful than ever. Don't miss out!