February was a high-octane month for respond.io with two huge wins! 🏆 First, Tech in Asia named us among the leading customer support tools powering the ecommerce ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

Respond.io was also one of 10 startups in SEA selected for the inaugural Founders Centre of Excellence (FOX) programme by entrepreneurship platform Endeavor Malaysia! The programme aims to accelerate the development of high-growth startups to unicorns. 🦄

But even with all that excitement, we strove to deliver exceptional value with several upgrades: A total revamp of the Broadcast Module, new Workflow Templates and improvements for WhatsApp template management, the Shortcut Trigger and Report filters. We’re also deprecating our legacy API feature. Let’s run through the changes.

Improved Targeting and Greater Flexibility with the New Broadcast Module

Respond.io’s Broadcast Module gets a comprehensive overhaul! Check out the host of improvements and new features that will give you greater control over broadcasts and take your messaging strategy to the next level. 🪜

Target Contacts Effectively with Segments

Previously, the only way you could target Contacts for a broadcast was by Tags. The revamp’s standout feature is the all-new Contact Segment, which enables you to segment Contacts based on criteria such as selected Contact Fields, Tags and conditions.

This means you no longer have to create Tags for information that is already present in Contact Fields, such as country or language.

Let’s say you want to send a broadcast targeting English speakers in London. You no longer have to create “London” and “English” tags or remember to attach them to customers who meet these criteria to ensure they’re on your broadcast list.

In short, the new capability lets you easily define a target audience for your broadcasts. Contacts will also automatically enter or exit a Segment according to their Contact Fields, Tags and condition fulfillment, so you don’t have to lift a finger to keep Segments up-to-date! Refer to this guide to create a Contact Segment now.

Save Broadcasts as Drafts

Need to check the content of your broadcast or tweak a message? Previously, there was no way to view scheduled broadcast content so you had to delete it and rebuild it from scratch. Now, you can simply edit it.

With the new release, broadcasts are created in draft status by default and will remain there until you schedule or send them. This allows you to make changes or reschedule broadcasts up until the last minute. 🥳

View All Broadcast Details at a Glance in the New Broadcast Builder

The all-new broadcast builder lets you configure a broadcast across multiple channels simultaneously, preview each message and send test broadcasts — all from one page.

You can send unique content for each channel according to its supported capabilities, such as images, emojis, Facebook Message tags or WhatsApp template messages. You can also exclude specific channels from the broadcast.

The Target Audience section (top right) lets you view the estimated number of messages that will be sent across channels and the number of broadcast recipients. It will even detail the number of target audiences who fulfill the Segment criteria but are excluded from the broadcast as they are not present on the selected channel(s).

For instance, you might be sending a broadcast on WhatsApp as it's the most popular channel in your region, but this feature might show you that a significant number of Contacts who meet the Segment criteria are only present on Telegram. This could aid decision-making about channel choices for broadcasts.

Improve Reach by Broadcasting to Contacts’ Last Interacted Channel

Don’t want to limit broadcasts to channels your Contacts may not be active on or risk spamming them by sending duplicate messages across channels to gain their attention? We hear you.

Now, you can broadcast messages to the last channel a Contact interacted with to drastically increase the visibility and potential engagement rates of your broadcasts. 🤩

Customize Broadcast Send Rate

Perhaps you want to control your broadcast send rate so your bulk messages are delivered as fast as possible or at a specific rate. No problem — just customize the send rate to broadcast messages at the rate that works best for your business.

Note that this is an add-on feature, so please contact our sales team to learn more.

Deprecation of Legacy API

Our legacy API feature will be discontinued on Thursday, April 6, 2023 (GMT +8). All API tokens associated with the legacy API will then expire and be invalid or unusable.

To prevent operational disruptions, we highly recommend legacy API users migrate to Developer API. Developer API was released in October 2022 as an upgraded version of the API feature to enable more robust integrations with respond.io and meet evolving customer needs.

If you’re unsure which API version you’re using, the legacy API is in the Channels Module, while Developer API is located in Settings > Integrations.

Please note that Developer API is only available in our Business and Enterprise plans. Team plan users will need to upgrade to a higher plan to access this feature. Feel free to contact us if you have any concerns. We’re here to help!

WhatsApp Template Improvements

Whether you’ve connected one or 10 WhatsApp API accounts to your respond.io Workspace, keeping track and accessing your WhatsApp templates can be tricky. Have a look at these two updates.

A New WhatsApp Template Manager

Struggling to search for templates and determine their approval status? The new WhatsApp Template Manager does exactly what its name suggests.

First, you can filter templates by approval status (Approved, Submitted and Rejected), language and category. Then, you can submit new templates to WhatsApp for approval and even sync them with Facebook Business Manager.

To access this feature, go to Settings > Channels. Select the WhatsApp channel you’re looking for and select Templates.

Find and Send WhatsApp Templates Easily

Need to send a WhatsApp template to a customer? Say goodbye to endlessly scrolling through your list of templates when time is of the essence.

Click the Send WhatsApp Template button at the foot of the Messages Module to open a dialog box. Then, quickly find the right template by typing its name in the new search bar or filtering templates by languages and categories.

Plus you can now preview entire template messages including headers and footers to see the exact message the customer will receive!

Trigger Shortcuts at Any Time

Previously, Shortcuts could only be triggered for open conversations. This was because the Shortcut Trigger was set in the message composer, which was inaccessible outside a messaging window.

Now, the Shortcut Trigger has been repositioned to the top of the Messages Module so you can launch Workflows with a single click via the Trigger at any time. ⚡️

Retain your Last Used Filters in Reports

Do you only use a certain filter for your reports? If so, you no longer have to manually set the filter whenever you want to check a particular data set.

The last filter configuration applied to Reports will now be retained, so you can immediately view the data you need.