How to use the Messenger inbox

Messenger is your one inbox for every customer chat: Facebook Messenger, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp and your website chat. You can reply, send photos and voice messages, leave notes for your team, and see when a customer has read your message.

Before you start

Connect at least one channel. Until you do, Messenger shows No Account Connected with a Go to Connections button.
Your role needs Messenger access. To reply, you need Messenger write access. Owners and admins have both by default.

Steps

Find a conversation

Go to Engage → Messenger.
Pick an inbox (1), switch Open / Resolved / Unread (2), or search all chats (3).
At the top of the list, pick an inbox (a Page, account or number), or choose All inboxes to see every chat together.
Use Open / Resolved to switch between active and finished chats. Click Unread to see only unread chats.
Type in Search all chats to search names and messages across every inbox.
Click the tag icon to filter by a tag.

Reply to a customer

Click a conversation to open it.
Make sure Reply is selected under the reply box.
Type your message and press Enter or click send.
To add a photo, video or file, click the attachment button. To record audio, click the microphone. For a quick reply, type / or click Quick reply.
Reply / Note (1), attachment (2), microphone (3) and Quick reply (4).

Note: When you send a reply from Messenger, the AI pauses in that chat until you click Resume AI. See Take over a chat from the AI.

Leave a private note for your team

Click Note under the reply box.
Type your note and send it. Notes stay in the chat for your team only. The customer never sees them.

Use the contact panel

Click the i button at the top right of the chat (Show contact details).
Add a phone number or email, add Tags, and write private Notes about the customer.
At the bottom you can Archive, Block or delete the conversation.

Finish a conversation

Click Resolve at the top of the chat. It moves to the Resolved list.
To bring it back, open it from Resolved and click Reopen.

Do more from the reply box

Type these commands in the reply box:

/order: opens the quick order form for this customer.
/customer: adds a new customer.
/contact: saves this person to a campaign contact list.

Message ticks

Your own messages show a tick next to the time:

One tick: Sent.
Two grey ticks: Delivered.
Two blue ticks: Read.
A red ! with Not delivered: the message failed.

Instagram doesn't report "delivered", so Instagram messages go straight from one tick to blue ticks.

The 24-hour messaging window

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp Business only let a business reply within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that, Messenger shows: "Last message from the customer was over 24h ago — the platform may reject a reply." You can still try to send. If the platform refuses, the customer has to message you again first.

Personal WhatsApp numbers and website chat don't have this limit.

Tips

Keyboard shortcuts: J/K next or previous chat, E resolve or reopen, R jump to the reply box, / search, I show or hide contact details.
Right-click a message to Reply, Forward, Copy Text or edit it. Only personal WhatsApp can truly edit a sent message. On other channels, the customer gets a new "Correction" message.
You can send up to 4 photos at once (10MB each). Videos and files can be up to 25MB, one video per message.
If you're somewhere else in the dashboard, new messages pop up with a sound and an Open button. On your phone, you get a push when you're away. Chats the AI is answering only show in the bell. See Notification settings.

Troubleshooting

"Outside the 24-hour messaging window — the customer must message again before you can reply."

The customer's last message is more than 24 hours old. Wait for them to message again. For WhatsApp, you can reach them with an approved template instead. See WhatsApp templates and contacts.

"You can send up to 4 photos at once."

Send the extra photos in a second message.

"Each image must be less than 10MB" or "File must be less than 25MB"

Make the file smaller, or send a link instead.

"Microphone access was blocked. Allow it to record a voice message."

Allow microphone access for EcomUp in your browser settings, then try again.

Ticks never turn blue on Facebook or Instagram

The customer may not have opened the message yet. If you connected your Page or account a long time ago, reconnect it once so EcomUp gets read updates. See Reconnect an expired connection.