View Instagram chats in Team Inbox

Once you have connected your Instagram account to Wati, you can view your Instagram DMs from the Team Inbox module.

  1. Select Team Inbox from the top navigation menu
  2. You will notice 2 tabs on the left, Whatsapp and Instagram. Click on the Instagram tab
  3. If you had sent a test message to your Instagram account after connecting it to Wati, you will find that chat here. Any other DMs received would also be visible

Replying to an Instagram DM

If you wish to reply to a DM received, you can simply click on that chat in Team Inbox, type in a reply and send the message.

Messages sent from Wati Team Inbox will be equivalent to sending a reply to that message from the Instagram app. It will be sent as a private, direct message to the account that reached out to you. Your customer will not find any difference between a reply sent from Wati v/s a reply sent from the Instagram app.

In fact, the message reply sent from Wati will be visible in the Instagram app as well.

Similarly, any message reply sent from the Instagram app or Meta Business Suite will be visible in Wati too. This will maintain the integrity of the chat and always provide an up to date version on Wati.

For messages sent from Wati, we will show if they were delivered and read through double tick blue tick.

Viewing Instagram customer profile information

When you receive an Instagram DM from a customer or prospect, you will be able to see some basic information about their account. This includes their

  1. Username
  2. Name
  3. Profile picture

Expiry of Instagram messages

While the Instagram app and website have no limitation on when you can reply to a DM message , the Instagram API does have some limitations.

If the Instagram chat is assigned to a Bot and you are using automation to reply to the DM, the expiry of the chat will be 24 hours since the last received message from the customer. Once the chat expires, you will be unable to reply to the customer from Wati.

If the chat is taken up by a human operator, Instagram allows an extended time of 7 days to reply to the customer, since the last received message. This extended time is only for human operators to allow them more time to resolve the customer query.

Hence when the Instagram chat is assigned to a human agent, the expiry timer will be updated to 7 days.

Other status for Instagram chats

Similar to WhatsApp chats, Instagram chats can have different status on Wati, which are

Status

Description

Open

Open chats allow for free 2 way communication between the business and their customers. Anytime a customer initiates a conversation with your business, it becomes an Open chat.

Pending

If a reply from a customer is awaited after answering their query, users can set the chat status to Pending. 

This will help differentiate between chats that are Open and need user’ s attention v/s those which have been replied to and are waiting for customer feedback.

Expired

Once a chat expires as per the condition explained in the above section, Instagram does not allow users to take any further action on this chat. It can only be re-opened when an incoming message is received from the customer.

Solved

If a chat with a customer is resolved by the user servicing the customer query, the chat can be marked as Solved. 

This will help differentiate between chats which are Open and need user’s attention v/s those which are resolved and need not be looked at again.

There are 2 scenarios for chats in Solved status:

  1. Chat is Solved but not Expired: User’s can choose to reopen such resolved chats if the need arises.
  2. Chat is Solved and Expired: If the chat is expired as per the conditions explained in the above section, Instagram does not allow users to take any further action on this chat. It can only be re-opened when an incoming message is received from the customer.

Blocked

Users can choose to block some contacts by marking a chat as spam and blocking it in Wati.  Chats with such contacts will have the status “Blocked”

For more details, please check this article

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